Serena Williams One of the Best

Serena Williams seems to be like the woman version of Roger Federer. No offense to Serena Fans. Having some differences in their game play, I think that overall they have the same strategy: attack and crush the opponent. They dictate their service games with their services. Federer has very good tactical serves but is not the fastest one on the tour, whereas Serena has both a tactical serve and a very fast one compared to the ones of the other women in the tour. She can vary her serve hitting powerful flat serves and wide serves with much slice and lower pace.


She mastered nearly in all shots of the game, from baseline forehands to overhead smashes. She can hit powerful forehands down the line or can give a very obscure angle and make the ball follow very different angles. Her backhand is maybe not as good but still very very good and she can vary her backhand too. She has a powerful net game, which definitely helps her to win a 13 Grand Slams in doubles and 2 in Grand Slams in mixed doubles. Having said all that, I see her as an invincible player, when she is totally healthy and fully focused, both of which she didn't have in some big part of her career. For example in mid 2000s and in early 2010s.


I remember a statement of McEnroe: "I've seen them all, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert was a machine... Monica Seles, Steffi Graf but I believe we're watching the greatest female player that's ever played this game." To be honest, I am against drawing comparisons between players of different eras, because basically it is like comparing apples and oranges. I am going to discuss this topic in another post. But at this point, McEnroe really seems to be right, in terms of technical and physical attributes, she seems invulnerable and  unbeatable.


But, tennis is an individualistic sport. It'd be so cliche but you have to fight your opponent to submission on the court by yourself. There is no one out there to help you. There is no one to save your ass. And every occasion in tennis is a tournament so you cannot sacrifice one match, because you are not in the mood that day. Having all those powerful weapons, Serena lacks mental stability. What I mean is, stability during a match or during a bigger time period. You can remember how she reacted to the line referee, who calls a foul during Serena's serve in US Open 2010 I guess. Or again her reaction to the referee, when she had a penalty for shouting before Stosur hits the ball. 

Maybe she does not like tennis as much as Nadal or Djokovic does. Maybe she hates working out every day. Or maybe she loves tennis but at the same she wants to do something else as well. For example in one of her interviews she says " 'I've never considered tennis as my only outlet. I've always liked doing different things when I was younger. I just never really liked focusing on tennis. I do see myself as a crossover.' (the text continues) Williams's ventures outside of tennis include degree studies at the Art Institute of Florida, designing outfits for her signature line, Aneres, with her sponsor Nike, and doing guest spots on television shows." In another interview she also said "I don't love tennis today but I'm here .... I can't live without it -- there's a difference between not loving something and not being able to live without it. I have never liked sports and could never understand how I became an athlete." When I first read this, it occurred to me that playing tennis and winning matches are like an addiction to her. I know it sounds silly but that sounds already silly to her so never mind, just respect her and her accomplishments.

Hence, you cannot blame not breaking all the records on her. She is still a big champion and has some room for a couple of more trophies I guess. After her last comeback she really looks fit and thinner. She has a record of 59-6 winning rate and lifted 6 trophies, more than everyone else. (Sharapova has 4 and Azarenka has 4) Especially for this incredible comeback in the age of 30 (now she is 31) she deserves another homage.

Is it Really the Return of the King?

We humans are always in favor of exaggerating the truth and sometimes of seeing the past as we want to so as to support our conclusions about today. This method generally results in wrong interpretations of the past events. This type of behavior is more visible in mass media.


There were people claiming that the reign Federer was almost finished or had already been finished after his defeat to Djokovic in French Open 2012. But after his wins over Djokovic and Murray in Wimbledon, he has started to be praised again and is expected to win a couple more Grand Slams despite his old age and harsh competition on the top. His number one spot also rendered these comments plausible.


I'm not against Federer or do not underrate his facts and trophies, but try to see the reality as it is, not under the effect of the last tournament he played. Let's remember year 2011. He just won the first tournament of the year in Doha in January, then won a couple in the very late season some indoor tournaments including the ATP Masters Final in London. In between, he barely made finals.He was again the underdog in RG because of his lack of form. His sole sensational success was against Djokovic, when he stopped his exceptional unbeaten run in French Open 2011 semi finals in 5-sets.  But then, he lost to Tsonga in Wimbledon QF and to Djokovic in US open SF both in 5 sets and didn't won anything in the meantime. He seemed to be so down that people played down his chances of being number 1 again, as do I. Then he finished 2011 with successive trophies in indoor tournaments and ATP Masters Final.


Different from 2011, he continued winning tournaments in spring of 2012 in Rotterdam (hard court) Indian Wells (hard court), Madrid (blue clay) despite a loss in Australian Open SF to Nadal, in which he again seemed to be desperate to win. He captured the number 2 spot from Nadal for a week, for the first time 1.5 years before RG. Now he came to RG as one of the favorites as did Nadal and Djokovic. We had the same clash between Djokovic and Federer in the semis. This time however, Djokovic thrashed Federer in 3 sets and looked really really solid, not affected or intimidated by Federer at all. Then, people started commenting as if Federer is a lost case and he would retire soon maybe not this year but next year.


And then, what an upswing from him! He crushed everyone on the road to the trophy including beating Bennateu with a two sets deficit. A reasonable man must contemplate on the causes of his ups and downs. Federer never retired in a match or missed a Grand Slam due to injury. He works with his coach Paul Annacone for a pretty long time and has a stable family life with his twin daughters. So, everything seems to be stable in his tennis and family life. So some psychological factors or some court conditions might explain his ups and downs.

Federer's win/loss streak in years 2010, 2011 and 2012 respectively.

Here is a wrap up of his form. As of 2010, he started to lose his dominance as well as his World no.1 ranking to Nadal and then to Djokovic.


The grass court performance is limited to Wimbledon and maybe a warm-up tournament for Wimbledon. Although he was very dominant on grass in his early and mid-career, in 2010 and 2011 he lost in QF of Wimbledon but won it this year, which is not reflected on the figure. So this year's grass part will be 7-0.


He is generally very good on hard courts, which are quick and is not as good on clay. He is still very good on clay and made to the RG finals a few times but Nadal is one of the best and better than Federer on clay, that is obvious.


The most apparent statistic is his indoor performance. He just lost one match in all three years! 37-1! Can you believe it? So, if he is not disturbed with the wind or the sunshine or whatever comes from open air, he is basically invulnerable. This 37-1 streak encompasses 10 wins over top-8 players of the world in London ATP Finals tournament. So, playing the semis and the second half of the final indoors in Wimbledon boosted his performance no matter what.


I will elaborate on the performance of Federer as well as on the one of Nadal and Djokovic to draw better comparisons.

Big Champs Strike Back

Both Serena and Federer waited for two years to win another Grand Slam title. Both players had been dominant in the mid 2000s and won a number of Grand Slams. Federer improved men's record of Grand Slam titles to 17 and Serena won her 14th Grand Slam title.


What a turn of events!


Serena spent 2011 with some unfortunate lethal health problems. First, she had a cut in her foot, then had a very serious disease in her lungs, which might have serious consequences, let alone playing tennis in this level. But she persevered and recovered from that disease and started playing tennis in WTA level in Wimbledon 2011 after a one year of break. She was in very good form physically and had some serious success in Master's tournaments and came to the final of US OPen 2011, which she lost to Sam Stosur who played unbelievable tennis. It was such an extraordinary form from Stosur, that she thrashed Serena, who was also in very good form. Although Serena didn't have a sensational success in the following Grand Slams she had a 56-6 winning record after her return and won 5 tournaments winning all her matches against top 10 players. But this Wimbledon final sealed her success story with a sensational end.


On men's side, many authorities had agreed on the relative decline of Federer compared to other top players Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, who won the last 9 Slam titles. Aside from the title counts, Federer's form was not promising, especially in 5 set matches, which are confined to only Slams. We can name different reasons causing this relative decline. One of them, probably the predominant one would be the fact that he is 30 years old and does not have the stamina to withstand numerous long rallies with these guys. This fact seemed to be underlying reason behind his loss to Djokovic in RG 2012 in straight sets. Having in mind that red clay is the most physically demanding surface in tennis and lessens the effects of big serves, you have to endure long rallies and ready to hit and run all the time. In addition to that loss, his loss to Nadal in Australian open 2012 in SF, was a carbon copy of that defeat. To be concrete, Nadal and Djokovic are stronger and have a big arsenal of shots and tactics to hurt him, in open air and slower courts. (Australian open's surface is regarded as one of the slowest hard courts due to the chemical compounds constituting the court.)


But this is not the whole story. Federer is a big champion and never gives up. He keeps on working his shots and tactics with his well-known coach Paul Annacone. He is still able to defeat top players in best of 3-set events like his win over Nadal in Miami Open in early 2012 or his consecutive wins over top 10 players in the World Tour Finals in London. But his most preferred surface is grass and most preferred conditions is indoor conditions. (World Tour Finals in London is played indoors as well) I don't want to enter more details but would like to say that his semi-final match against Djokovic and the second part of the Wimbledon final after rain delay was played with a closed roof, which makes the court a pseudo indoor court. This means both the court surface and the conditions favor Federer. In my opinion, these conditions cause the turn around of his form and play against Djokovic in Wimbledon SF. His serving performance was unbelievably good against Djokovic, both his first and second serve. Djokovic, who is considered to be one of the greatest returners, was unable to react against these serves.


Closing the roof had a similar impact on Sunday's final. We can observe the change of forms of both players in the final if we see the match as two parts: one before the roof is closed and the one after the roof is closed. We cannot say that this is for sure the primary cause of turn of events in the final, maybe Murray already started to struggle with his back, or maybe as the tension escalated in the match, his tempers frayed. Yet, I give you two graphs which portray how precise Federer's shots became after the roof was closed.

Double faults of the players in the course of the game (Federer green, Murray purple)

Winners of the players in the course of the game (Federer green, Murray purple)

What do these figures represent? Why didn't I just give the number of winners or double faults per each set?
The answer is simple actually. We could still infer something from the number of winners or double faults per set but when we see the frequency of them scattered with respect to time, it is easier to make inference. The red line in the first figure separates the match into two parts, first part with open top and second part with closed top. And we can see how the number of unforced errors of Federer diminsihes as the ones of Murray increases.


Second figure shows the number of winners and we can see the same shift of momentum in both players' performances. However, this figure is less clear, yet roof is not the only driver of increasing performance of Federer. For example, in the second set Federer changed tactics and started to come to the net very often to shorten the points and hence to avoid long rallies which ate his stamina and scored many winners with volleys and smashes, which explains the densely scattered winners in the second set. And I put two red lines to exclude the longest game of the match, in which Federer eventually break Murray's serve.


I hope I could give some practical information about what's going on the court as well as how these players' form changes from time to time. I think we really had a very enjoyable tournament, with some big upsets like Sharapova's and Nadal's early exits. We also had a really tense and exciting final in men's singles. Though the women's final was a bit single sided (no offense to Radwanska but the course of the final heavily depended on the ups and downs of Serena) I hope to see much better tournaments with new flashy Germans Lisicki and Kerber and many other contenders for number 1 spot.

Why am I writing all this?

I'm a tennis fan played tennis for a couple years but not so seriously, just know how to hit a forehand a backhand and how to approach the net. (don't remember having a fancy point with a volley though) And I have been trying to follow what's going on in the tennis world. As all the other bloggers, I'd like to share my opinions about some stuff that I find interesting, related to the tennis of course and try to comment on what's happening on the court.

Sometimes, I will try to write about the used statistics in tennis matches, whether they really give us some practical information or  how they sometimes might be misguiding and how to improve them if it is possible to do so.

My main aim would be to convey you my thoughts about what I really saw on the court rather than what I read or hear about the out-of-the-court activities or trophy collections of the players. (sometimes I might break my rules though, it is always nice to praise your favorite player, when he sets a new record :))