Analytics

I arrived home this evening to a pleasant series of emails from Manchester City Football Club, specifically their analytics department. For those of you who are unaware of this department please take a look at their website. I too was unaware less than 24 hours ago until reading this post over at A Football Trader’s Path. Data analysis is what I do for a living (technically it is “Business Intelligence”) and this is the sort of project which interests me. I don’t have anywhere near enough spare time to replicate some of the more ambitious projects out there but I was hoping to do a few interesting visualisations with the data.  Exactly what these visualisations were I hadn’t really thought about so I was a little taken aback when I checked my emails.

Lacking inspiration but wanting  to dive right in, I remembered hearing about Theo Walcott moaning about wanting to be played as a striker. I decided it might be interesting to delve into his stats last season. As it turns out it wasn’t, he played every game out on the right wing. The only other player to play in the same position in the same formation over a reasonable number of games was Nathan Dyer. Theo scored more and set up more per game, their crossing accuracy was about the same but Dyer was much more involved, passing the ball successfully 50% more often. That was about as far as I got with that one before I realised I’d need to spend a significantly greater amount of time analysing the data before I got anything meaningful.

Undeterred I then remembered how much I dislike Scott Parker as a football player and decided to see just how often he passes backwards. Turns out there was only more disappointment there. The graph below is a scatter plot of all players who passed more than 200 times last season and the percentage of those passes which went forward. I marked out 4 data points. The black square is Scott Parker who was nowhere near the worst offender in the league with a massive 28.3% of his passes going forward. No, that prize went to Swansea’s (now of Liverpool) Joe Allen (red diamond) who sent only 15.4% of his passes in front of him. The other 2 highlighted points are  Luka Modric (green triangle) who sent 26.9% of his 2656 passes forward and Clint Hill (yellow diamond) who was the only outfield player to  hit over 60% of his passes forward (60.5% of 489). A slightly fairer graph is below the first that shows only midfielders playing in the most defensive midfield position available.

Not the most exciting piece of analysis, but after getting excited at the prospect of writing about how glorious or terrible Theo was I felt like I needed to write about something. Also I won’t in good faith be able to tell my friend who supports spur that Parker should go play for Barca because they can’t pass forward either. I will however be bringing Joe Allen up with my Liverpool supporting colleagues first thing in the morning. Hopefully over the next few weeks as I try and turn this flat file into something more usable I’ll be able to come up with some interesting statistics to share. Until then I’ll leave you with the news you’ve all been dying to hear, Beacher is now 52-0 against me. 

Gilles Simon

The majority of football fans support a team, whether that is their local team, their dad’s team or the winning team probably depends on the person. Personally I’m the middle option; I support Everton because that is who my dad supports. When it comes to tennis it isn’t quite the same. My dad doesn’t like tennis, in fact it is probably the only sport he won’t sit and watch. Quite how golf or test cricket is a more entertaining spectacle I don’t know – but each to their own. If he was to have supported a tennis player I guess it would probably have been Jimmy Connors. Now as good as Jimmy was back in the day if I was to have inherited my choice of player then my schedule would be fairly light (in fact a little research tells me that he’s currently injured and not competing at all). No, tennis, like all individual sports, is a little different to team sports as each player has a limited career span. Going back to the football analogy, my support of tennis is like the friend everyone has who supports 15 teams. Mine supports Millwall, Newcastle, Reading, Arsenal, Celtic, Hearts, Barca, Inter Milan, Ajax, Gamba Osaka, Shandong Kuneng, Newcastle Jets, New York Red Bulls and Flamengo. I’d also be like the guy everyone knows who loves the lower league football, who’d much rather watch Burton Albion vs York City than West Bromwich Albion vs Stoke City.

Five years ago I was unlucky enough to find myself without a job and quite frankly without much hope of or inclination to get one. The usual sob story. To pass the time I started gambling, as you do and quickly found out I was good at it. Just as quickly I found out that perhaps I wasn’t after all. After a short but frustrating time not winning a lot but not losing too much either I started to notice some patterns and started developing some tennis systems. Most of these were comparable to “Lay the Draw” in their effectiveness but it was a start. Over time these evolved and became more sophisticated and eventually they sort of merged from separate trading ‘strategies’ to be applied in certain circumstances to an overall trading ethos. The essence of this ethos still stands today and in its simplest form it is to go against the grain. In the midst of this ethos I still occasionally had the odd strategy or challenge, for example the previously mentioned “Andy Murray is going to buy me a house challenge”. The middle of 2008 saw the first successful one size fits all strategy I had and that was to back Gilles Simon after he lost the first set. This was only really an extension of some of my other betting but nevertheless it bought in what was then my largest weekly profit in October 2008. I’ll likely never forget that tournament, it was the Madrid Masters and in the first round he came back from a set down to beat Igor Andreev (another favourite of mine at the time), in the second round he came back to beat James Blake, in the third he came back against Robby Ginepri, in the quarters he didn’t need to come from behind against Karlovic but in the semis he came back to beat Rafael Nadal. The week would have been perfect for this strategy if it wasn’t for the guy who was going to buy me a house. Incidentally I decided to stop blindly backing this at the end of the 2008 season which was probably a good thing because it wouldn’t have been profitable and in fact he probably lost more matches from a set up than he won from a set down.

Whilst some of my favourite players over the years have been so purely because of gambling success, Gilles Simon wasn’t one of them. (I realise that Simon isn't really the tennis equivalent of Burton Albion, but the next article about a player will be closer) The only reason I adopted this strategy was because of how much I already liked him. He was something different to pretty much everyone else on tour. By the time I started watching him in the beginning of 2007 he was already a top 50 player but it was clear he had something about him and it was only a matter of time before he was top 20 and who knew maybe even high top 10s. His slender frame made him stand out from the crowd but despite that it was incredibly rare that anyone bullied him on court. Whilst not possessing the hardest of shots his ability to soak up his opponents’ pace and redirect it back at them was magical. His timing was impeccable which is probably why he had such few unforced errors despite going long stints of the matches painting the lines from both the fore and backhand. 20-30 shot rallies were a common occurrence and, just like Andy Murray, despite looking like a counter puncher his timing allowed him to, out of nowhere, suddenly switch it up and hit winners (again, usually painting the line in the process). Furthermore whilst his French contemporaries, Richard Gasquet, Michael Llodra and Paul-Henri Mathieu were labelled as mentally weak and chokers, Simon often showed incredible mental strength. At the time the only other player that I could put in the same league mentally was Roger Federer, oh how I miss those mental giant Federer days. I’ve deliberately used the past tense because he was unlucky to suffer a few nasty injuries and although he is now back inside the top 20 and he still plays a similar game I feel he’s not quite the player he once was. I wonder whether this is in part due to him becoming a father, a topic worth further exploration in a later post. I still thoroughly enjoy watching him play but at the end of the 2008 season I had hopes of him staying in the top 10 for many years, something I doubt he is capable of now. I cheered his 250 level victory in Bucharest earlier this year like the majority of this nation did when Andy Murray won Olympic Gold. Allez Gilou! Whilst he’s not my all-time favourite player, his refreshing counter-punching style sees him comfortably in the top 5 and not just because he has an awesome name! 

On a final note I suspect the majority of people who vaguely follow tennis will recognise Simon from his outspoken comments regarding unequal pay for men and women at grand slams. “The equality in salaries isn't something that works in sport. Men's tennis remains more attractive than women's tennis at the moment.” Once again probably a topic for another day but I’ll end with Maria Sharapova’s response : “I'm sure there are a few more people that watch my matches than his.” 

Weekend Finals

I had high hopes for this weekend, it was full of sporting promise, tennis, football, golf, cricket, F1, it was all happening, all weekend. In the end though it largely passed me by. Taking full advantage of the last day of sunshine I’m likely to see for a while I invited pretty much the entire family up to see my (the bank’s) new place on Saturday. Inevitably this resulted in me missing almost all of the day’s sport but I wasn’t too disappointed, I managed to catch the end of the WTA final in the morning which by all accounts Laura Robson kept respectable.  I was a little more disappointed yesterday though, my highlight of the weekend was to be the St. Petersburg final between Martin Klizan and Fabio Fognini. However my stomach had obviously gone into overdrive after my early lunch, as I couldn’t stay awake and napped through the entire first set. I woke up to Klizan breaking for a 6-2 2*-1 lead and a quick check of the match stats showed Klizan to be cruising. A wild backhand into the net at 0-15 though gave Fognini some hope that was quickly snuffed out with two decent serves. An easy put away for Klizan at 30-30 somehow went into the tramlines though and Fognini had the break point. That unforced error seemed to start a chain reaction which saw Klizan give up the break only for Fognini to throw down 4 UEs and his racket to be broke back again to 15. After 4 breaks of serve Klizan finally held his nerve and went on to rattle off the last 3 games and take it 6-2 6-3. My first real memory of Klizan is him beating Alexandr Dolgopolov in Morocco a couple of years ago. It was only really memorable because Dolgopolov was a player who I had started to notice, mainly because of his unusual technique and in particular his slice. However, in an entertaining battle Klizan came out on top in three sets although I didn’t have especially high hopes for him. I didn’t really see too much more of him until Wimbledon where he pushed Troicki very hard and since then he’s had a great run of performances including a 4^th round at the US Open beating (and costing me a fair bit of money) Tsonga along the way.

Speaking of Tsonga I was going to give his final against Andreas Seppi a miss but having failed to stay awake for the majority of the previous final I decided to watch it. In summary it wasn’t much of a contest, Tsonga was just too powerful and too accurate for the much improved [on hard-courts] Seppi. It started rather ominously for Seppi with Tsonga banging down an ace and holding to love. Seppi hit back though and got to 40-15 before two unforced errors brought it back to deuce. A couple of unreturned serves won Seppi the game. A wonderful forehand from Seppi forced an error at the net from Tsonga and Seppi was ahead for the first and only time at 0-15 but putting Seppi in his place Tsonga rattled off 4 easy points and took a 2-1 lead. More hard hitting from Tsonga earned him two breakpoints. He had been rather poor so far that week only converting 10 of 39 chances and that stat didn’t improve when Tsonga netted the return. He did however convert the next one after a half-hearted net approach from Seppi was spotted by Tsonga and his thumped cross court shot was too good for Seppi. That was the beginning of the end as Seppi didn’t come close to troubling Tsonga again, finding the power and accuracy just too much. He went on to lose the next 7 games but apart from a long forehand on match point Tsonga looked classy and at ease, dropping just 6 points on serve all match to win 6-1 6-2 and in truth that probably flattered Seppi.

With both tours moving to Asia for the next few weeks and me having to go to work it is unlikely I’ll get to watch too much tennis. That is a shame, but instead of dull match reports it will give me a chance to write about some of my favourite players, the types of matches I like and my previous gambling exploits, both successful and not. First up will be why I used to love Gilles Simon and why I don’t so much anymore.

For those who are interested Beacher now has a 48-0 record against me. I wish it was in my nature to give up, but sadly it isn’t. 

Stick Tennis

So today I managed to find time to play two tennis matches. The first was against a good friend of mine, and was a nice excuse to test out my new racket. For many players the sheer variety of rackets and all their technical differences can be quite daunting. Not for me, for as long as I can remember I’ve always owned Prince rackets for tennis, squash and badminton. However, about 6 months ago I found myself in the unfortunate position of needing to buy a new racket after I accidently ruined the current one. I somehow was peer pressured into changing rackets to a Babolat (Pure Storm Ltd 95). On the face of it they were relatively similar, they both had the same 95” head size and were of a similar weight. However the Babolat was definitely slightly more head heavy and despite my best efforts I just coudn’t get to grips with it. In fact I was so bad with the racket I was going into the match with my friend Russ having lost the previous 4 matches convincingly. It reminded me of Novak Djokovic’s troubles when switching to Head back in 2009, although sadly Babolat hadn’t paid me a fortune to use their equipment. Last week I decided enough was enough and went out and ordered a new Prince EXO3 Rebel 95. Within 30 seconds of knocking up I felt like I was home and the racket just belonged. Despite my new racket I was still up against it though as we were playing on a local hardcourt; easily my least favourite surface whilst at the same time Russ’ favourite. The match didn’t start too well with me dropping my service to 15 and the first set never really got going for me. Too many unforced errors and far too many winners from him. Eventually I gave the set up 1-6. The second set started a little better with a beautiful inside-out forehand winner followed by a sumptuous dropshot. I couldn’t break though and as it turned out neither of us did for the whole set. He eventually took the tiebreaker to 4 after a couple of silly unforced errors early on. Still, I felt confident about my game for the first time in months which was the main thing and in the end its all a bit of fun.

My second match was against my new arch-nemesis, Willy Beacher of Stick Tennis fame. I’ve never been great at computer games but I do find Stick Tennis an entertaining waste of time. I’m too much of a scrooge to pay £2.99 to unlock the full game so after beating the first 4 players on ‘World Domination’ the only challenges left were on the practice courts. I breezed past all comers until I squared off with Willy. It seemed like he was barely trying and yet in our first encounter I won just a solitary point and even that was off an ace. I now know how Roger Federer felt in Miami back in 2004. In each of our previous matches prior to today Willy had dominated me and my previous best score was 1-6. Never deflated though I raced to a 40-0 lead and after shanking a forehand wide I eventually won the game to 15. That was the first time I had managed to win the opening service game – cue the 24 points in a row against. But wait, 3 thunderous returns, 2 down the line and 1 cross-court and Willy was teetering. Scoreboard pressure. After a seemingly never ending rally to put Gilles Simon to shame Willy went long and I had the break 2*-0! Nobody beats me 32 times in a row. However a suspect line call that went his way seemed to be the signal for him to go on a rampage and before I knew it I was 2-5* down. I did manage to break back, perhaps Willy choked, I don’t know but either way it didn’t matter ad I tamely handed the break and with it the match back. Still, I’m improving.

Edit: See here for a post explaining how I finally did it.

Virtual tennis matches probably aren’t of interest to many people so I apologise but I had to fill the post up with something in addition to the main purpose of this post which is the question: can anyone tell me if it is possible to add non blogger/wordpress blogs such as http://wearetennis.com/en/blog to your blogroll? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Cheers.

Prologue

I love playing tennis, I love watching tennis and I love gambling on tennis. In short, I love tennis (although I’m partial to a little football on occasion too) so I thought, “why not immerse myself in the sport even further by writing about it as well?” A few reasons came to mind, not holding a degree in journalism was one, not having the time was another, and in the end I talked myself out of it, I had previously written a blog 3 or 4 years ago along a similar theme but it didn’t last especially long.

Then four months ago I bought my first house which set off a chain of events that has led me to change my mind and start this blog. The essence of the story is that before buying the property I would watch and gamble on tennis approximately 15-20 hours a week and, as a hobby, it was quite profitable (I made enough for a deposit on a house at least). My mistake was thinking this could carry on the same once we moved in and I started to do all the DIY my girlfriend had planned for me. Now, in most aspects of life if you’re not focused you probably won’t be successful and, for me at least, gambling is the same. Between work and DIY I was shattered and wasn’t ever in the right frame of mind for sitting down for a tennis session let alone trying to shoehorn in half a set here and there and trying to force some action. Fortunately I didn’t lose too much money before I decided that if I couldn’t dedicate myself to it then I was better off temporarily stopping altogether. This wasn’t as easy as it could/should have been but that is for a later post.

So why the blog? Well about a month ago I decided to get back in the saddle and start gambling again but so far it hasn’t gone too well. Also, as I mentioned right at the beginning I love playing tennis but at the ripe old age of 26 I’ve already reached my peak; the occasional ball I would once have thundered back down the line now flies past my racquet and the Köellereresque dives that once frequented my game are becoming an endangered species. The combination of those two has started to slightly dampen my love for the game. Therefore, I’m hoping that by writing about my favourite players, my thoughts on matches that I watch and about my (hopefully profitable) gambling on these matches it might help to keep my enthusiasm up. Hopefully I'll find something to write about at least once a week and that someone will enjoy reading it.

Addendum

It is probably a little late to dedicate a whole post to Andy Murray’s triumph at the US Open but I’d like to mention it and a paragraph on the blog’s opening post seems fair enough. First off, I’m a big Murray fan, back in 2007 I even had an “Andy Murray’s going to buy me a house challenge”. Sadly that never quite came to fruition, neither did my 2008 “Juan Martin Del Potro is going to buy me a Ferrari challenge” but those are both posts for another day. I don’t agree with the majority of the print media who suggested that winning the US Open in such a ‘Golden Era’ is the greatest British achievement in tennis. With unarguably the greatest player ever now 31 and the pretender to his throne’s knees finally giving out, I don’t think it is a particularly fair comment. What I do think is fair to say is that Murray’s win is the greatest British achievement in tennis, full stop. To get to the top of any sport is a phenomenal achievement and the leaps and bounds he’s come on physically in the last couple of years and mentally this year is nothing short of incredible. He had plenty of doubters, largely from a press and public that would on average struggle to name more than 6 tournaments but hopefully he can now kick on and win another couple before any of the decent youngsters mature enough to challenge. It truly was a great end to a fantastic 6 weeks of sport.