style

Hardcourt First Return Impact Styles

Hardcourt First Return Impact Styles

Once we can measure player impact patterns on the return, it is natural to use these patterns to compare players. This post delves into these comparisons and presents a set of distinct impact types that describe the impact styles of top ATP players when returning the first serve on hardcourts.

Who's Got the Power? - Classifying Speed Styles on Serve

Who's Got the Power? - Classifying Speed Styles on Serve

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.

What Can Match Stats Tell Us About Playing Styles?

What Can Match Stats Tell Us About Playing Styles?

Recently, I’ve had a few posts on head-to-head effects. The biggest takeaway was one we probably all knew going in: Head-to-head effects may exist, but good luck finding them. With so many small sample sizes for most head-to-heads, we need a way to group ‘similar’ players. In this post, I look at whether categorizing players by playing style might be possible using basic match stats.