Dominating Tennis

Which tennis stats actually predict who wins

Read the stat sheet. Find the number that won it.

Key facts

  1. 1

    At Wimbledon from 2015 to 2017, more than 70 % of men's points and more than 65 % of women's points ended within four shots.

    Fitzpatrick, PhD thesis, Sheffield Hallam University, 2021

  2. 2

    In 41 matches against right-handers in 2023, Djokovic hit a serve plus one forehand on 473 of 945 second-serve points and won 57 % of them. His opponents hit one 44 % of the time and won 44 %.

    ATP Beyond the Numbers, November 2023

  3. 3

    The average break point swings match-win probability by about 10.5 %.

    Jeff Sackmann, Measuring the Impact of Break Points

  4. 4

    Ten cameras at about 340 frames a second turned the tennis ball into tracked coordinates.

    CNBC, reporting on Sony

Why it works

Winners and errors are outcomes of the last shot. They tell you what happened, not why. A winner is one result of a risky shot, and the errors it costs sit on another line.

The serve is the only shot one player fully controls, so the stats around it carry the most signal: what you do with your second serve and what the returner does with it. Most points are over before a rally starts, so the opening two shots on each side carry most of the result.

A match also isn't 200 equal points. A few swing the outcome far more than the rest, which is why break points matter more than their count suggests. Read the serve columns first, the rally columns second and the winners last.

The line to say on court

“Winners tell you how they played. Second serves tell you who won.”

Drill: The blind stat sheet

20 min · alone
  1. Open the stat sheet of a finished match on broadcast or in an app, and cover the score.
  2. Read only second-serve points won, break points converted and the rally-length split if it's shown.
  3. Pick the winner and write it down. Then uncover the score.
  4. Repeat for ten matches over a week.
Number to beat7 of 10 winners picked from the quiet stats

More drills like this: watch like an analyst

Faults and fixes

Counting winners as quality
A winner is one outcome of a risky shot, and the errors it costs sit on another line.
FixRead winners and unforced errors as one ratio, then set both aside.
Reading one match as a trend
One match is a small sample, and the surface, opponent and score all shape it.
FixOnly trust a number that holds across ten matches.
Trusting a number without its coverage
Most tracking data comes from elite courts, and your club match has none.
FixAsk where the number was measured before you use it.

Questions players ask

Does the player with more winners usually win?

Not reliably. The player with more winners loses all the time, because winners are a cost of playing a certain way, not a measure of playing well.

What is the most important stat in tennis?

Start with second-serve points won. The serve is the only shot one player controls, so what each player does with their second serve, and with the opponent's, carries the most signal.

How many shots does a typical tennis point last?

Most are short. About two points in three end within four shots, and at Wimbledon from 2015 to 2017 it was more than 70 % of men's points.

Why do break points matter so much?

Because points aren't equal. The average break point swings match-win probability by about 10.5 %.

What this doesn't cover

Tracking data mostly exists at the Slams and top events. Samples per player per situation are small, and most shot-quality models are proprietary. There's no published ranking here of how well each standard stat predicts match wins, so none is given.

Sources

Read next

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