Nadal & Federer, down under. Australian Open 2009 is over, with the apparent Nadal's dominance on all surfaces and the appearing tears in Federer's eyes. So, Nadal is unstoppable, or is he? Nadal and Federer reached the final, as there should be for Number One and Number Two. Then, in the final, Federer was serving faster (183 to 179 km/h average 1st serve, 156 to 143 km/h 2nd serve), nailed more aces (11 to 4), had higher percentage on 1st serve (73 to 66%), had more winners (71 to 50), won more receiving points (41 to 40%), was better at net (72 to 58%). In total, Federer won one point more (174 to 173) but one game less, one set less, and, of course, one match less. Conclusion: Nadal is playing smarter. It does matter at which current score you win the next point.
I’ve tried to see if a similar pattern is evidenced in the earlier rounds. The comparison is not simple to make because they did not play the same opponents. In the graphs below, the bar and column thickness is proportional to the ratio
ln(opponent’s ranking points)/ln(own ranking points); this is to adjust for the power law in ATP ranking (grWeekly070211).
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Krešimir J. Adamić
