Two points away, set points…

Two points away

I don’t know exactly when I thought that would be interesting to prepare such a stats, perhaps three or four years ago. Obviously there’s important info considering matches in which a player won an encounter despite a match point-down, which I’ve been collecting since 1998. However, sometimes a player is “closer” to win a match when he is two points away. Which are these cases? I think it’s tough to say authoritatively, everyone may have a bit different opinion about the issue. In my opinion when a player leads for example 5:2 (30-0) on serve, or 5:2 in a tie-break with two serves to come on his own, it’s arguably closer to win a match than in a situation when a player has a match point leading only 5:4 or 6:5 on opponent’s serve if plays against a powerful server, who gets most of the points with a help of his serve. Michael Llodra, who according to my stats has never won a match at the main level saving a match point, is the only active player to win a match from 0:5 down in a deciding tie-break – it happened in Newport 2001 as Llodra beat Mardy Fish 5-7, 6-3, 7-6(5). If someone knows a case with winning a match despite 0:5 (0-30) in a vital set, please tell me, I know matches in which a player came back from 0:5 (last year’s occurrence, in Newport as well :)) or 1:5 down in the vital set, but there were match points saved in a process, or “two points away” cases at some stage, but never ‘5:0/5:1 (30-0)’ without a match point for a loser. Below the stats of “two points away” matches of the most notable active players (beside surnames their “m.p.’ record for better understanding of the whole ‘mental resistance’ picture), I assume there’s a possible +/- 2/2 error for players born before 1985, and a +/- 1/1 error for those, who were born in 1985 and afterwards. Illustrated only players involved in at least five matches of this type:

(.800) 8-2 Juan Ignacio Chela (5-4), Robin Soderling (7-8)
(.727) 8-3 Andy Roddick (12-10)
(.714) 10-4 John Isner (5-11)
(.700) 7-3 Nicolas Massu (6-6)
(.666) 10-5 Ivan Ljubicic (11-15)
(.666) 8-4 Michael Llodra (0-3), Fernando Gonzalez (13-8)
(.666) 6-3 Richard Gasquet (3-5)
(.666) 4-2 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (1-2), Jose Acasuso (5-5)
(.666) 10-5 Tommy Robredo (6-5)
(.636) 7-4 Feliciano Lopez (9-11)
(.625) 5-3 Marcos Baghdatis (2-5)
(.600) 9-6 Mikhail Youzhny (9-8)
(.600) 6-4 Lleyton Hewitt (10-5), Radek Stepanek (4-4), Stanislas Wawrinka (4-3), Arnaud Clement (9-11)
(.600) 3-2 Gael Monfils (6-3), Andreas Seppi (8-4)

(.571) 4-3 Igor Andreev (8-8), Albert Montanes (6-2), Sam Querrey (6-4)
(.555) 5-4 Novak Djokovic (8-2), Mardy Fish (7-5), Julien Benneteau (7-2)
(.545) 6-5 Tommy Haas (8-10)
(.538) 7-6 Rafael Nadal (9-5), Jarkko Nieminen (12-6)
(.529) 9-8 David Nalbandian (11-4)
(.500) 9-9 Roger Federer (12-12)
(.500) 8-8 James Blake (5-11)
(.500) 6-6 Fernando Verdasco (7-7),  Ivo Karlovic (14-5)
(.500) 4-4 Dmitry Tursunov (2-3)
(.500) 3-3 David Ferrer (8-4), Victor Hanescu (5-13)
(.454) 5-6 Tomas Berdych (6-6)
(.444) 4-5 Gilles Simon (3-2)
(.428) 3-4 Ernests Gulbis (3-2)
(.400) 4-6  Andy Murray (4-2)
(.400) 2-3 Juan Monaco (7-5), Viktor Troicki (1-9)
(.388) 7-11 Juan Carlos Ferrero (15-6)
(.384) 5-8 Philipp Kohlschreiber (7-2)
(.363) 4-7 Jurgen Melzer (7-6)
(.333) 3-6 Nikolay Davydenko (6-2)
(.333) 2-4 Paul-Henri Mathieu (3-9), Filippo Volandri (2-1)
(.333) 5-10 Xavier Malisse (5-4)
(.272) 3-8 Nicolas Almagro (5-6), Rainer Schuettler (4-3)
(.200) 1-4 Robby Ginepri (4-4)

Two points away major winners:

Wimbledon 1974: Jimmy Connors d. Phil Dent 5-7, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 10-8 (2nd round)
US Open 1978: Jimmy Connors d. Adriano Panatta 4-6, 6-4, 6-1, 1-6, 7-5 (4th round)
Wimbledon 1985: Boris Becker d. Joakim Nystrom 3-6, 7-6, 6-1, 4-6, 9-7 (3rd round)
Australian Open 1988: Mats Wilander d. Pat Cash 6-3, 6-7, 3-6, 6-1, 8-6 (final)
Wimbledon 1991: Michael Stich d. Alexandr Volkov 4-6, 6-3, 7-5, 1-6, 7-5 (4th round)
Australian Open 1994: Pete Sampras d. Yevgeny Kafelnikov 6-3, 2-6, 6-3, 1-6, 9-7 (2nd round)
Roland Garros 1999: Andre Agassi d. Arnaud Clement 6-2, 4-6, 2-6, 7-5, 6-0 (2nd round)
Australian Open 2000: Andre Agassi d. Pete Sampras 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 6-1 (semifinal)
Wimbledon 2001: Goran Ivanisevic d. Tim Henman 7-5, 6-7, 0-6, 7-6, 6-3 (semifinal)
Wimbledon 2001: Goran Ivanisevic d. Patrick Rafter 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 2-6, 9-7 (final)
Wimbledon 2008: Rafael Nadal d. Roger Federer 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, 9-7 (final)
US Open 2009: Juan Martin del Potro d. Roger Federer 3-6, 7-6, 4-6, 7-6, 6-2 (final)

Two points away matches from two best players in the world:

Djokovic, Novak (5-4)

O.Patience 7-6(2) 2-6 3-6 7-6(4) 6-3
V.Hanescu 6-7(8) 7-6(6) 3-1 ret.
S.Wawrinka 3-6 7-6(5) 6-2
R.Nadal 4-6 6-3 7-6(4)
A.Murray 6-1 3-6 7-6(2)

F.Gonzalez 6-3 6-7(7) 4-6
F.Gonzalez 5-7 7-5 5-7
M.Youzhny 4-6 6-4 6-7(0)
K.Nishikori 6-2 6-7(4) 0-6

Nadal, Rafael (7-6)

G.Coria 6-4 3-6 6-3 4-6 7-6(6)
F.Verdasco 2-6 7-6(3) 7-6(3)
R.Kendrick 6-7(4) 3-6 7-6(2) 7-5 6-4
R.Federer 6-4 6-4 6-7(5) 6-7(8) 9-7
A.Murray 7-6(5) 3-6 7-6(6)
I.Karlovic 5-7 6-1 7-6(7)
F.Verdasco 7-6(5) 6-7(4) 7-6(9)

F.Lopez 6-3 3-6 6-7(4)
R.Federer 6-2 7-6(4) 6-7(5) 3-6 1-6
G.Simon 6-3 5-7 6-7(6)
I.Ljubicic 6-3 4-6 6-7(1)
N.Djokovic 6-4 3-6 6-7(3)
I.Dodig 6-1 6-7(5) 6-7(5)

Below players to win at least 20 times being one or two points away from defeat:

22 – Juan Carlos Ferrero
21 – Ivan Ljubicic, Fernando Gonzalez
20 – David Nalbandian, Roger Federer, Ivo Karlovic

Set points

Another interesting stats which I guess you won’t find anywhere else it’s that one considering set points saved. It’s quite easy to gather such a database about the best players born in the early 80’s because they were in the limelight actually since their first ATP appearances. I didn’t make this stats for Lleyton Hewitt, but there isn’t very difficult to make it. Here I think you should adopt a +/- 3/3 error, so Roger Federer for example, won 67 sets in his career saving a set point, lost 38 sets holding a set point, very likely no-one in the Open era won more sets than the Swiss from a set point down… I have adopted a criteria that I count as “set point saved” also those sets, in which a match point was saved, but a player who did it, lost that match anyway (the final in London two days is an example of that):

(.638) 67-38 Roger Federer (b. 1981)
(.618) 34-21 James Blake (b. 1979)
(.519) 27-25 Juan Carlos Ferrero (b. 1980)
(.488) 44-46 Andy Roddick (b. 1982)
(.480) 24-26 Nikolay Davydenko (b. 1981)

I hope this stats is more reliable for younger players, here I’d propose you to treat it with a +/- 1/1 error. The interesting thing is that Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who wins often sets being one point away from losing them, has won only one match saving a match point and it happened just a couple weeks ago as he overcame John Isner (another specialist of saving set points) in Paris:

(.758) 22-7 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (b. 1985)
(.727) 24-9 John Isner (b. 1985)
(.640) 32-18 Rafael Nadal (b. 1986)
(.617) 21-13 Andy Murray (b. 1987) *
(.600) 24-16 Gael Monfils (b. 1986)
(.575) 19-14 Marin Cilic (b. 1988)
(.500) 12-12 Juan Martin del Potro (b. 1988)
(.489) 24-25 Novak Djokovic (b. 1987)
(.473) 9-10 Ernests Gulbis (b. 1988)

* Murray 4 of those 13 sets lost to Federer.

Set points saved from two best players in the world year by year:

Djokovic, Novak (24-25)

2005: 1-0, 1-0
2006: 1-3
2007: 7-6, 1-1
2008: 4-5
2009: 5-5, 2-1
2010: 4-3, 2-0
2011: 2-3, 2-0

Nadal, Rafael (32-18)

2003: 0-1, 0-1
2004: 4-2, 0-2
2005: 4-1, 1-1
2006: 2-3, 2-0
2007: 3-3
2008: 9-3, 1-0
2009: 3-2, 3-0
2010: 2-1, 2-1
2011: 5-2

* Beside comma, their m.p. record each year