The introduction of advanced statistics is becoming more common every day in sports. For disciplines like baseball O football has become fundamental and a differentiator in the contention for the championship, but in the tennis the analysis of data has room for improvement. At Monterey Open tennis players responded to The Economist that their preparation is concentrated more around physical work and observation, than in the statistics reviewalthough the video tool is used, either to correct themselves or to study rivals.
The 20-year-old Colombian Camila Osoriois the best positioned Latin American tennis player in the ranking of the WTAis currently ranked 44th and is confident that his coach, Ricardo Sanchez, can help her keep climbing. The Spaniard already managed to place the Serbian in 2008 Jelena Jankovic at number one in the world ranking. Osorio, despite being a tennis player of the new generation, she sticks to the method that for more than 30 years has been effective for her mentor.
“Imagine how many years my coach has been on the circuit, he has that method of cubes and so, we don’t focus much on statistics, but more on running and putting balls. He has his system and we work on it as he has done it all his life, “Osorio told this newspaper.
Sánchez, 62, has spent more than half his life on the benches of the professional circuit, he has been part of the formation of tennis players like Jankovic, Ferdinand Verdasco, Caroline Wozniacki and Nicholas Massu.
In turn, tennis players like the Spanish Sara Sorribes25, indicate that the strength of their preparation is focused on the physical: “Yes, it is something that helps (statistical analysis), but the basis for me is still to be well prepared, to be physically strong and to have the best shots possible.
—How common is it for coaches on tour to help tennis players improve their performance based on numbers?
“(The statistics) are things that I use for myself, to see what worked for him and what didn’t, but it’s not something that I share a lot with my sister. When I need to see those statistics, I normally do it in a WTA application, when you go to the score of the match, they put all the statistics there, “he said Patrick Zarazuabrother and trainer of Renata.
Daniel Santillan, a journalist in Multimedia, pointed out that more than observing the statistics, in tennis the video is usually reviewed more. A practice carried out by the Canadian Leyla Fernandez to study herself and Patricio Zarazúa to study Renata’s rivals.
“I use YouTube a lot and pages to watch videos. if you open YouTubejust by putting the name of the player against whom Renata plays, all the last three or four years come out because now most of the WTA tournaments record all the matches (…) That is a tool that I use when I do not know to the tennis player against whom my sister plays, because now that I have been traveling with her for a long time, I know many of the players”, said Patricio, and indicated that he also relies on Tennis Channel Plus and in ESPN Plus, which have coverage of all the fields and where the matches are stored. In addition, to obtain hard data, it uses the S platformofaScorewhere you find statistics such as unforced errors, serves or winners.
“It is pure tennis (technical) what they practice or pure physical. Yes, there must be a time when the coach gives them an x-ray of the tennis player or the rival, but other than that it is not as common, as in baseball where he does take too much care. Here it is to see the video of the rival and get to know him more than anything in the service, which is more video for that and you can also rely on some statistics, although that can also change, ”explained Santillán.
The journalist specializing in tennis argued that the tennis player Zheng Qinwenwho faced Leyla Fernandez in the second round, she had 40% service effectiveness against the Canadian, while in the first round she had 90 percent.
Sorribes, for example, sits down with his coach to talk about what they have observed from their rivals, “and from then on I always end up writing down the things that have become clear to me or the plan to follow in a notebook. I like to have it there because if at any given moment in the game I lose the outline a bit, I can go back to read and see what I have written when I was calm”.
Fernández, in turn, avoids concentrating on his rival, rather, “I try to think about my game, the one my dad taught me when I was little. I don’t try to think much about my opponent, so I don’t look at the statistics, I don’t look at his matches, I just look at what I have to do, “said the number 21 of the wta ranking.
—What can be attributed to the fact that tennis players are not adopting these types of tools that have given results in other sports?
“Tennis is a very changeable sport in the sense that they travel around the world, the height changes, the weather changes, which means that your whole game can change. You’re also always facing different rivals, it’s not like in football where there are 18 teams and you already know how each one can play. Here you can play a different rival every day and maybe it is not so wise. That is why many tennis players do not invest in so much technology, because in the end, reviewing a video and knowing how it is is more than enough. This is an individual sport and what can change the direction of the game is what you do yourself”, answered Santillán.
