Analyst identifies the 8 ‘vital statistics’ from Wimbledon 2024
The men have played 100 matches at Wimbledon 2024 through the first five days. The women have edged slightly higher with 104 completed matches. Let’s lock in on eight specific areas of the tournament to understand some key focus points so far at The Championships
With the help of Craig O’Shannessy of Brain Game Tennis, Tennishead analyses Wimbledon 2024 with a unique understanding of how statistics effect tennis performance.
1) Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard
The 6’8” (203 cm) Frenchman has been dropping thunder with his second serve in his first two matches at Wimbledon 2024 after scraping into the main draw as a lucky loser. The tournament average for unreturned second serves is 21%. The 20-year-old from Lyon is more than double that average at 46% of second serves unreturned. It’s from another planet. He is quite often hitting his second serve as hard as his first.
2) Coco Gauff
Coco has struck the fastest serve in the women’s tournament so far at 124 mph (200 km/h). How does that stack up against the men? That’s faster than Novak Djokovic (123 mph), Cameron Norrie (121 mph), Denis Shapovalov (118 mph) and Liam Broady (117 mph). In fact, Coco’s fastest serve is faster than at least 16 players and likely double that total as players on outside courts don’t get their serve speed recorded.
3) Challenges
Through the first five days, 26% (221/824) of challenges in the men’s draw have been correct. In the women’s draw, 24% (97/404) have been correct. So essentially, about one out of four challenges are overturned. Keep in mind that sometimes players burn a challenge just so that they can have a rest and get their heart rate back down. Sometimes, it serves a purpose to slow the match a little to disrupt an opponent.
4) Serve & Volley
Incredibly, only five percent (1261/23962) of total serve points have included the serve and volley strategy in the men’s draw. For women, it’s almost non-existent. Only 112 serve and volley points have occurred out of 13,671 serve points. The men won 68%, and the women won 70%. It makes no sense that the strategy is so successful but employed so little.
5) First Serves In
Can you hit too many first serve in the court? The Wimbledon 2024 tournament average for men is 63% first serves in. Of the eight leading players who made the most first serves (from 71% to 75%), only two won their match. Think of the first serve as a big hammer. Getting five out of 10 in the court is not enough. Making seven out of 10 seems to be too much. Making around six out of ten is an ideal blend.
6) Baseline Points Won
Jelena Ostapenko leads the women’s draw so far with a dominant 67% baseline points won. For the men, Taylor Fritz, Jannik Sinner, and Alexander Zverev are all tied at 66%. This is a very important metric in today’s game because there are so many baseline rallies occurring on the lush grass courts at SW19.
7) Service Games Won
There are only three players left in the men’s and women’s draw who have not lost serve so far. Jelena Ostapenko has won all 16 of her service games, while on the men’s side, Alexander Zverev (25/25) and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard (42/42) have also yet not dropped serve.
8) Returns In Play
Getting your return back in play is a critical part of the game to establish a foothold in your return game. Alex De Minaur leads the men with 77% (191/248) of returns back in play for the men, and Coco Gauff leads the women’s draw at 84% (133/158). It’s the ideal way to ramp up pressure on the server, as they receive very few free points on serve.
For free access to Craig O’Shannessy’s complete courses on ‘25 Golden Rules of Singles‘ and ‘25 Golden Rules of Doubles‘, join thousands of other keen amateur tennis players and become a member of the Tennishead Club. Once you join we’ll immediately send you ground breaking coaching advice, a welcome pack including a full ASICS head to toe outfit including shoes, plus loads more. And it costs as little as £79/$99 to join with membership benefits worth over £600/$700 per year!
Craig O’Shannessy is the creator of Brain Game Tennis. For 20 years he’s been involved in tennis as a coach to players like Kevin Anderson and even Dustin Brown when he famously beat Rafa Nadal at Wimbledon. More recently Craig’s been working as a match analyst at Wimbledon and for the ATP Tour. He has also used the unique insights from his match analysis software dartfish to guide players such as Novak Djokovic with analysis of opponents and performances.
Visit BrainGameTennis.com to read the latest and best selling course ‘Getting Tight’ where Craig teams up with Jeff Greenwald to combine their specific skill sets to help you with the universal problem all players struggle with in matches.
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