Can you ever have too much height in tennis? In this post, Peter Tea analyzes two sides of the “big server” equation as he delves into the influence of height on the rate of aces hit and aces allowed among ATP players.

The tennis world has now had a week to process the end of the 2020 French Open, but many of us are probably still struggling to understand how the 56th meeting of Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal could turn out to be so underwhelming. As one of the most noticeable changes in Djokovic’s game strategy this year, it is tempting to point blame at the drop shot. But would that be a fair assessment? Using data from the Match Charting Project, let’s see if we can determine if Djokovic’s drop shot strategy was what cost him his latest chance at an 18th Major title.

A recent data feature on the ATP website gives us insight into the average speeds of shots at more top events than just the Grand Slams. What can these speed stats tell us about a player’s style? In this post, I look at the speeds on first and second serve and use a mixture model to identify the different power styles that are used by today’s top male players.

If you’ve been tuning into the 2020 French Open and found yourself saying, ‘man, seems like guys are going to the net a lot’, you wouldn’t be wrong. So far, the approach rate at RG this year is an average of 19 per 100 points compared to 17 per 100 points in 2019 and 15 per 100 points in 2017 and 2018. It may seem small, but an upward shift of this size requires multiple players to be going to the net at an above average rate. So who might be driving this shift? And is the shift more than a one-off?

For any tennis player, the serve is a delicate balance between power and control. How well do the best players in the world manage this balance? Guest blogger, Peter Tea, uses decades of match data to examine trends in the serve leaders and losers among top-ranked ATP and WTA players.