Truths, Lies and Tennis Statistics / Matthew Walton / 10 February 2009 /

"Magical" Matthew Walton looks back at 2008's results and beyond to prove that winning events on home soil happens too often for it to be coincidence.

Marin Cilic recently won the PBZ Zagreb Indoor title in his native Croatia. More to the point, he won it in his home town.

The same week, Fernando Gonzalez was also winning a title in the country of his birth, Chile. This was the fourth time Gonzalez had won his national crown.

What both victories illustrate, along with the host of other examples we're about to mention, is an area of tennis form study which many Betfair users might consider to be a factor in selecting their trades ... but few appreciate how important a factor it really is in formulating a winning strategy. Namely, the effect that playing 'at home' has on individual performances.

For sure, you might well say that both the players cited above were the tournament favourites and, as such, merely played to form. In this respect, neither produced a level of play which could be seen as being improved by playing in front of their home crowd.

And that's a fair point to make even if after the event Cilic was quoted as saying 'it really helped that I played at home'. And the runner-up, Mario Ancic - from guess where, Croatia - echoed the sentiment as he stated 'I showed that I always play well at home'.

Even Gonzalez was overcome with patriotic pride after his victory as he said that 'every player dreams to win a title in his home country.'

Coincidence? Maybe.

But examples are there in other tournaments. In match betting terms look at the exploits of Antonio Veic and Ivan Dodig in Croatia as both unknown players made it all the way through to the QF's (Dodig the world No.425 even beat the No.1 seed, Igor Andreev, in R1).

The same week also saw native South Africans Rik De Voest and Izak Van Der Merwe record notable wins in Johannesburg and Bernard Tomic was the toast of Australia when defeating Potito Starace in R1 at Melbourne. Tomic was just 16 years old and had a ranking of No.533 when he downed the Italian at the Australian Open.

Just a few case studies to highlight the point in terms of match betting but when it comes to the outright markets we just need to draw your attention to one from this year, Somdev Devvarmen. The world No.202 beat Carlos Moya (former champion), Ivo Karlovic and Rainer Schuettler in making the final of the Chennai Open in his native India. What price Devvarman at the start of the week? Upwards of [251.0].

All these cases, quite clearly, represent a player performing over and above expectations when all known previous form is taking into consideration. Whether these guys were lifted by the home crowd, relaxed by familiar surroundings, not affected by jetlag or used to climatic conditions - call it what you will - they all appeared to benefit from playing in their own backyard.

Now you still might think these players have been cherry-picked so as to back up the argument we're trying to present. Not so. We went back through the record books for the whole tour during 2008 and the evidence is there for all to see.

In terms of winners last year we saw Fernando Gonzalez (Vina Del Mar, Chile), David Nalbandian (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Andy Roddick (San Jose, USA), Sam Querrey (Las Vegas, USA), David Ferrer (Valencia, Spain), Rafael Nadal (Barcelona, Spain), Igor Kunitsyn (Moscow, Russia), Roger Federer (Gstaad, Switzerland) and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (Paris, France). All these players won events in their native countries.

However, if we take a look at the list of runners-up, it totals 14 tournaments.

Obvious players like Andy Roddick (Los Angeles, USA), James Blake (Delray Beach, USA), Robin Soderling (Stockholm, Sweden) and Ivan Ljubicic (Zagreb, Croatia).

But what about the prices of Chris Guccione (Sydney, Australia), Jurgen Melzer (Kitzbuhel, Austria) and Julien Benneteau (Lyon, France). All of these guys fall into the Devvarman category. Unfancied, available at big prices and readily dismissed by most punters - when maybe they shouldn't have been.

On four occasions we also saw all-national finals in Buenos Aires (Nalbandian & Acasuso), Valencia (Ferrer & Almagro), Barcelona (Nadal & Ferrer) and Moscow (Kunitsyn & Safin).

Altogether, there were 8 home winners, 14 runners-up and a spread of 19 different tournaments which had some form of local interest in the final. That's just shy of one third of all the events played.

Furthermore, some countries host events despite having no great domestic tennis players to speak of - New Zealand, Qatar, Japan, Portugal, China, Holland, Canada, Poland, Mexico and, if one were to be unfair, Britain. That would bring the total number of events down even further and raise that percentage to around 40%!

On top of this, we could provide numerous examples of other local players bucking the trend of the formbook and producing performances way above the logical expectation. They might not go on to feature in the final of these events but they make QF's and SF's and cause shocks against supposedly 'fancied' players each and every week. Match bets or outright 'back to lay' opportunities abound.

The simple fact of the matter is that the phenomenon of native players doing well is too widespread and occurs far too often to be discounted. If you're a trader on tennis you must look at home players and, in many cases, give them slightly more consideration on account of their familiarity with their surroundings. After all, you do it in football, rugby and cricket don't you?

Just look at this week's events. Andy Roddick is going for a fourth win in San Jose, in Costa Do Sauipe (where Brazilian talent is currently a little thin on the ground) Gustavo Kuerten made a point of winning his national title twice. Same goes for Richard Krajicek winning twice in Rotterdam, in his native Holland.

These examples happen over and over again. And as shrewd operators on Betfair you need be mindful of these patterns as they do, by their very nature, repeat themselves and when they do it makes the process of selecting your bets (and your winning bets at that) a lot more straightforward.

If you want to get ahead ... go home!

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