Beanalysis: Toronto Round Three

Here we are once again everyone, I’m working ahead of schedule and hoping that today I can get the reads out all in one go so you don’t have to check every 5 minutes to see if I’ve done anything else to the writeups. Either way, I’m glad you’ve stuck around, because this round has some good matches for me to write about! (Oh and by the way, from this point in the tournament on, it will be complete coverage, I will be writing on every single match, hence why the name changed to just “Beanalysis”.)

Alcaraz v. Hurkacz

So on the outside, Alcaraz had another easy and simple victory, a clean scoreline. Looking deeper, especially in the stats, it looked like the two were neck and neck the entire time. Alcaraz had the worse serve of the two, and had less winners and more unforced errors, which is usually the combination for losing, yet he came out and won the match. I’d attribute this to a few things, forced errors and break points. Shelton was unable to convert a single break point in the entire match, (though I will say, Shelton looked like he was playing some great tennis) and one of Alcaraz’s big playing strengths is the ability to force errors. Carlos can (and will) run around and hit the ball in places you didn’t know people could hit it, meaning that you have to chase after it, and you can’t put a good stroke on it, and you hit it poorly, most likely out of play. It looks to me like that is what he did in that match, and I don’t see a reason he can’t do that in this one as well.

Hurkacz, you confuse me. I feel like Bublik is playing much better tennis than Kecmanovic, yet you managed to lose a set to Kec-man and not to Bublik. Doing ridiculous things like that is something that only Fokina can get away with. Speaking of “not getting away with something” Hubi also won’t be getting away with this match. Or at least I don’t think so. But I will say I haven’t looked at the stats before making that prediction, so I may change my mind, just bear with me here. I guess I should look at the stats then… OH MY GOODNESS!?!?!?!? Is that a typo??? There’s no way Hurkacz got TWENTY-FIVE aces! There’s just no way. Well apparently there is if you’re Hubert. Or if you’re Nick Kyrgios? Or a servebot. Ok maybe this is more common than I thought. I mean I figured the record would’ve been in the Isner half day special back in 2010, (it is) but then the record of 78 in Bo3? Goodness. Well with my aces rant out of the way, you can look into the match stats and see that Hubi just kinda tore Kecmanovic and his bad serving apart. Like I can understand a bad day serving, but 50% first serve percentage? That’s pretty bad. I doubt with everything in me that Alcaraz will be in the same boat as Kecmanovic though, and I think even if Hurkacz decides to go higher with his ace count, Alcaraz can probably still manage to win, and to be honest I wouldn’t be surprised if it was in two sets either. Better luck next time there isn’t a Spanish player at this tournament, Hubi!

Paul v. Giron

“Let’s gooo Tommeh! Rootin for ya from the good ol US of A! We love you Tommeh! Giron? Is he Mexican or sumn? He’s from the US? NUH UH! HE CAIN’T BE ‘MERICAN! IT AIN’T POSSIBLE!” -Inappropriate American Tennis Fan (probably not real but whatever) Anyways, I think of myself as a TP enthusiast, but I’m not that ridiculous, I promise. Delving into his last match stats, it’s pretty clear that it was a close match, similar serve stats, Paul had a bit more of an edge on the return, at least statistics-wise, and it came down to a few crucial moments, which Paul came out on top of. In that case, I think a look at the highlights may be of some use for me. And of course there aren’t any highlights, nice. That’s honestly a huge bummer. Welp, guess one must move on.

I would like to apologize. To all my loyal fans. I told you that I’d reveal the punchline to my funny joke in the last writeup if Rune won, and I thought to myself, “oh yeah surely he’ll win, Giron is mediocre, and Rune is playing well.” Everyone has been tricked in one way or another, and this has to be my biggest befuddlement of the tournament so far. So I do apologize, but I am a man of my word, so you all will sadly not be receiving any punchlines. You can look up the answer if you want. Looking into stats for this match, Giron had a pretty bad first serve, but he still managed to pull through during his service games, putting up a sub 50% first serve percent, yet winning 62% of his service points overall. That shows a really good player, to be able to come back from bad serves and win points consistently even with that handicap. I know I said Tommy Paul all the way, but I think someone who is playing well enough to upset Rune like that is probably going to beat TP as well. I will say that it’s probably going to 3 sets though.

Monfils v. Vukic

Woah. But also, YES! LET’S GO BIG MONF! YEAH BABY! Now that we don’t have to think about toilet boy for a while, we can enjoy our week, right guys? Of course we can. Looking into le Monf’s win, one can see that he just was able to win his service points and then attack on Tsitsipas’ serve points. Also, even though he had less first serves go in, he still was able to lock it down once the point got going. It looked like a close match when the stats were dug into a little, but I’d still say it was a huge blowup for Stef. Hoping for more of this in the future. (I’m not going to tell you if I was talking about Stef losing or Monfils winning, that’s for you to decide.)

Really guys? We’re losing to a Loser? Come on now. Well, ok maybe not quite a loser, a finals run in Atlanta isn’t really something a loser would do. Vukic is just one of those guys who doesn’t show up enough to really mean anything to anyone, yet people still know who he is. It’s strange. Anyway, match stats amirite guys? The Vukic vs. Korda match was really close, especially looking at just the stats. Vukic only won four more points than Korda, and it was two on the serve, and two on the return, so a very balanced game. The unforced errors are definitely what came back to bite Korda in this match, but looking at Monfils’ stats, he didn’t do much of that erroring stuff, so that won’t be playing to Vukic’s advantage here. What I’m thinking is that this match is probably going to be an easy win for Monfils because Vukic doesn’t have much to work with against Monfils’ airtight play and gameplan. Monfils in 2.

Murray v. Sinner

Oooh… Enticing matchup we have here! A cyborg going up against an Irish guy who thinks he’s Italian! Very cool. Anyway, Andy Murray is… back? Maybe. I can never really tell with this dude. Seeing the match stats it sure doesn’t look like he’s back, he had a worse game in most of the categories, must have just been some luck and maybe a little bit of clutch in there somewhere. The only pattern I could really see is that Murray was able to take advantage of the second serves, and made a few less unforced errors. But really when that’s all you have going for you, and you’re facing the number 7 seed, I don’t really have hope that it’s gonna work out in your favor.

Looking at Sinner’s match on the other hand, shows a more clear picture, complete lockdown service games, and just enough returning and clutch to get the one break needed to win the set (without tiebreaks). This goes to show how simple it can be to win a game of tennis. Ok well that was a lie because it is definitely not that easy to win a game of tennis, but the stats go more to show how easy it is for Sinner to win a tennis game. Either way he will probably be showing us more of that in this matchup, because like I said about Murray, he capitalized on the second serves. Slight problem there is that Sinner’s incredible first serve percent of 65% is going to give Murray minimal chances to do much on Sinner’s service games, and then Sinner can put on all the pressure he wants during Murray’s service games. I don’t really see how Sinner loses this one, but it is of course possible. But unlikely, because most likely it’s going to be Sinner in 2.

McDonald v. Raonic

Well that was rude of Rublev to just leave like that. Maybe he had a haircut appointment he needed to get to. Perhaps Canadian barbers are the best? I don’t know, any Canadians can let me know I guess. Either way, McDonald is into the next round, and most of the other contenders breathed a sigh of relief. I sighed in anger because Rublev vanished before I could even write about him. Whatever Andrey, I didn’t wanna write about you anyway! McDonald is just really good at getting rid of players that people wanted in tournaments, and then going and losing in the next round. Well hey look at that, another chance for history to repeat itself. GO ON HISTORY, DO IT, YOU WON’T! I DARE YOU! (Little does history know, I want Raonic to win, so this is fine with me) Rublev really just decided to leave his serve at home today or something. His serve stats are abysmal, but McDonald actually had some pretty good serve stats, and return stats, just all around a good game for him. We’ll just have to see if it holds up though, maybe the curse will be broken. OR MAYBE NOT HISTORY! WE’LL JUST HAVE TO SEE!

Raonic is going crazy on these guys, quite the homecoming return to the tour if you ask me. Taro Daniel just dissipated, or something. I don’t even know. He got 9 winners in that whole match, and he managed to get zero break points in the entire thing as well. Raonic just kept playing like normal, and Daniel just crumpled. I don’t really know how Raonic plays against someone like McDonald, but I think after a performance like that against Tiafoe, and then a blowout of Daniel, you can’t really lose to McDonald, right? ISN’T THAT RIGHT HISTORY? Anyways, this one probably just goes to Raonic in three.

ADF v. Ruud

What did I tell you all again? ADF would be the hardest match for Zverev, and I guess that was true because there weren’t any more for him to play after that. As surprised as I am, I’m really not that surprised. In fact I kind of called it by saying that ADF is like an Eephus pitch in baseball, so weird it can actually be effective. I’d like for everyone to look at the statistic of “Zverev only had 36 service points in the entire match. He won 14 of them.) Is that not insane? It looks like a stat from an exhibition match where nobody cares about what the score is. Maybe Zverev really didn’t care. I don’t know and I’m not really getting into match fixing or selling or anything like that, because I don’t care really. Either way, take every stat that crazy with a grain of salt. Just like the salt that the “Zverev is so back” people have now.

It’s been a hot minute, so let’s all say it with me…. RUUDBUCKS!!!!!! Those have got to be my favorite type of bucks. Ruud won a match of “who can return better” because this was a battle of really good serving. Or at least that’s what the stats say. I’ve never really thought of Ruud to be the super serve heavy type of player, but maybe he is and I’m just missing it, who knows. I don’t see much else interesting from the statistics, maybe that Ruud was able to really attack the second serves, but even still those were kind of rare, so maybe a small sample size. And I don’t even know what to think of when comparing it to the ADF match stats, because it’s so random and crazy. There’s really no predicting an ADF match, maybe the books or someone smarter than me can, but I’m just me, so I’m gonna have to say…. Make what you want of the info I’ve provided. I would really stay away from this match if you’re betting because ADF can really hurt wallets. Have fun decision making everyone!!!

Fritz v. ADM

Is that the famed Atlanta champion who is also decently good looking from an English speaking country and a rare last name? Aha, you didn’t know which one I was talking about did you? Jokes on you, because I’ll never tell you! Anyway, Fritz played an interesting match when one looks at the statistics, because he actually did worse in like every single category there is, except for break points saved, which basically boils down to “I literally just about lost this match a couple times, but luckily I didn’t and so now I can win yay” which then begs the question, is Humbert really that good? Or is Fritz just playing poorly? It seems to me like Humbert was really that good, which is not something I’m used to saying, because it’s generally not the case at all. What does this mean for Fritz? Well, it means that he’s doing really well, and can keep pace with really good players, and that means that he has somewhat of a fighting chance to win this match and keep running for his second Masters 1000 title!

But in his way, stands the other Atlanta champion from an English speaking country who is also decent looking and has a rare last name! Alex de Minaur! (I will say I like this rare last name more than Fritz) ADM beat the Canadian guy who beat Dan Evans, his name was something like hell but like in Spanish or something, I don’t know. Anyway the match went one way and one way only, and that was ADM’s way. He led the two in just about every stat there is, so the complete opposite of Fritz. I will say that the opponents’ difficulty probably played a role in this drastic difference in the stats. Pairing these two against each other will be quite the match if you ask me, and I’ve gotta say I think this one definitely goes to three. I’m leaning slightly towards Fritz, and so are the bookmakers, but ADM winning is definitely something I wouldn’t be surprised about. But my thoughts are Fritz in 3.

Musetti v. Medvedev

Man, I’m gonna be honest with you guys here, it’s late, and the comedy machine broke, so this last one is gonna just be writing and analysis, but I’m sure you can laugh at Dilbert comics or something like that to get that last little drop of serotonin. Anyway looking at the match stats for Musetti, you can see pretty clearly that he made less mistakes than Kokkinakis, and he also went for those second serve return points, and he just had some extra break points in there to give him that boost to push him into the next round, or should I say push him into a brick wall. Because that’s what Medvedev on hard courts is.

In his match against Arnaldi, Medvedev put up an incredible stat line of 70% first serve percent, 72% first serve points won, and 68% second serve points won. Like I said, brick wall. I don’t see any places for Musetti to break through Medvedev, there just aren’t any. Maybe match fixing, but that’s not really a flaw, it’s just cheating. Medvedev made minimal mistakes, gave minimal chances, and punished any mistakes from his opponent. I see this happening once more in this round to put Medvedev into the quarterfinals with relative ease. Medvedev in 2.