Day 5 Wimbledon Match Write-up - Musetti vs. Hurkacz!

 Hi everyone, back to the write-up grind!  Your favorite loudmouth was too sleepy last night after the GBM Pod and fell asleep on his laptop in the middle of the Raonic-Paul write-up.  Too bad, you literally would have seen that the write-up said that Paul was a better tennis player to the tune of 3-0, but that his choking tendencies + Raonic's serve gave Raonic a chance of winning one set, but winning two was highly unlikely.  Alas, I don't get to count it because I didn't complete the assignment (though GBM did cash the bet so at the end of the day, hope you tailed us and cashed too!).   While we are staying at it, we also called the Sinner-Schwartzman match quite well, we told you to lay up to 10 games if necessary (Sinner ended up winning by 11games, 7-5 6-2 6-1).

Live photo of Loudmouth sleeping last night

OK, enough of the past (thanks Rafiki).  Onto today's write-up where we have a matchup of two top-20 players, Lorenzo Musetti vs. Hubert Hurkacz!  Will the young Italian fly around the court and dance his way to a beautiful victory, or can Hubi "serv"ive this third round encounter and "push forward" into the fourth round?

The Pick: Over 40.5 games (-120)

This analysis is going to delve into a math problem pretty soon, but for all the tennisheads out there, we'll start with the anlaysis of the tennis match.  

The tennis match itself

Overall, Hurkacz is a ~-170 favorite on the moneyline while Musetti is a ~-135 on the ML.  To me, this moneyline is reasonable; their performances on grass are roughly similar this year, Hurkacz made the Stuttgart semi-finals (d. Watanuki, O'Connell; lost to Struff) and went out in the second round of Halle (d. Eubanks, lost to Griekspoor).  For Musetti's part, he made quarterfinals of both Stuttgart (d. Gojo, Barrere, lost to Tiafoe) and Queen's Club (d. Choinski and Shelton, lost to Rune).  

In terms of ATP rank, both are ranked between 15 and 20 in the world.  Elo has Hurkacz ranked ahead of Musetti (#18 vs. #26) (shout out to Jeff Sackman's website tennisabstract.com where he has practically every tennis stat you could ever ask for!).  On grass, the Elo gap is greater as Hurkacz has a 2022 Halle finals appearance and 2021 Wimbledon semifinal on his resume, whereas Musetti should probably omit any references to playing on grass before 2023 from his resume if he is applying for tennis pro positions at the local grasscourt club (0-4 record on grass with 0 sets won prior to 2023).  There is a head-to-head here (2-1 Hurkacz including a win at Wimbledon), but I am discounting this to Musetti's youth (he's 21!) and the fact that all three matches came prior to Musetti's rise to the top 20.

From a tennis perspective, Musetti's game can probably best be described as an all-around game.  His best success has come on clay as he has a forehand which probably plays best on clay (it's a bit loopy and lacks power), paired with an excellent backhand that is especially useful as an attacking weapon either coming over the ball or with slice.  His game is probably a bit more suited to the return, in 2023 on grass he has won 67% of service points and 37% of return points (ATP average is ~65% of points won on serve on grass). 

For Hurkacz, tennis is a game of "serve"-ival (honestly, if you don't know this you need to be careful betting on tennis).  The ATP tour ace leader in 2022 (and member of Benny and the Soviets) has a top 5 serve in the game, Hurkacz has won over 70% of service points in 2023; he is one of three players who has been around 70% since 2021, along with Nick Kyrgios (top-5 serve when he plays), and Novak Djokovic (who cheats his serve percentage, illegally winning points by being good in all facets of tennis).  That said, Hurkacz's attack game essentially ends at the serve, he is a solid net player thanks to his height but lacks attacking groundstrokes, hence he has won ~30-32% of return points the past two years on grass.

In terms of mentality, I would rate both players as being quite strong mentally in terms of battling, especially Hurkacz who routinely plays long matches due to his one-dimensional game.  One last note, both players had straightforward straight set wins in their first two matches here against weaker competition, both should be fully ready to go for this match.  All of this is to say that given Hurkacz stronger grass court resume, I think that he is a deserved favorite. 

Hubi's ATP tour official profile pic, this man is playing 
the same no matter the score of the match

The math

So basically, this comes down to pure math.  In order to win this bet, there are two ways we can win this bet (just basic maths)

1.  The match goes 5 sets

2.  The match goes 4 sets with an average of longer than 10 games per set.

In terms of calculating likelihood of winning sets, based on the set 1 moneyline (which is identical to the set 2 moneyline), Hurkacz is ~57-58% likely to win any given set in this match.  Basic algebra can tell us the following (assuming each set is an independent event):

• The match will end in straight sets 27% of the time, 
• 4 sets 37% of the time, 
• 5 sets 36% of the time

I don't actually think this is true or makes perfect sense, sets of tennis are clearly not indpendent events of each other, players lose confidence, can get injured/be injured pre-match/be ill, or can play poorly for a host of reasons.  This is probably offset slightly by a player being mentally impacted by being ahead in the match (either overly confident or nervous), although to be fair I haven't done the research to calculate this out exactly.  A couple of other data points worth mentioning, first the implied odds of the match going each number of sets from a gambling book:

• 37% chance of match ending in straight sets
• 35% chance of match ending in 4 sets
• 28% chance of match ending in 5 sets

One thing to keep in mind here, the books are probably enticed to offer a weaker line of the 5-set line as I surmise from my (admittedly limited) gambling experience that players are more likely to bet the longer set line as opposed to a shorter one (if they want to bet a straight-set line, it is likely they believe one player will dominate and will just pick that player to win 3-0 at better odds).  One final data point, actual data from the two individuals in this math problem:  

• In Lorenzo Musetti's last 10 matches vs. players ranked 10-30 (similar skill level), the players have "split sets" in 4/10 matches. 
• In Hurkacz's thirteen matches played in the past year vs. players ranked 10-30 (similar skill level), Hurkacz has split sets in 9/13 matches.

Given this, I'm going to make a small adjustment to the "straight math" shown first and assume the following percentages:

• Match ends in straight sets 32% of the time
• Match ends in 4 sets 35% of the time
• 33% chance of the match ending in 5 sets

The 32% of matches that end in straight sets are losses, the 33% chance in 5 sets are wins (technically not necessarily, but the chances of 5 6-2 sets in this matchup is quite remote).  Let's break down the four set matches, to hit the over we will need:

• At least one set of longer than 12 games
• Avoid a set of 8 or less games (or have two sets of 12 or more games)

To look at this, I performed some modeling as well as looking at data from the players.  Modeling indicates:

• 40% of sets will go 12 or more games
• 10% of sets will go 8 or fewer games
• 50% of sets will go 9-10 games

Musetti's data - again, looking at those previous ten matches; probably way overstating chances of short sets as 4 of these matches are on clay courts

• 25% of sets went 12 or more games
• 25% of sets went 8 or fewer games
• 50% of sets went 9-10 games

Hurkacz - looking at the 13 matches states above (mostly hard and grass courts)

• 35% of sets went 12 or more games
• 11% of set went 8 or fewer games
• 54% of sets went 9-10 games

Overall, I'm going to go with the modeling, it's relatively close to the Hurkacz data; while the Musetti data is nice to have, it's not terribly useful as much of the data is on slow courts and Hurkacz serve will likely dictate the length of sets.  Based on this, it's 72% likely that the over will hit if the match goes 4 sets.

So we have 33% of the time that the over hits (5 sets), plus 35%*72%= ~25% of the time the over hits in 4 sets  This gives us a ~58% chance of the over hitting, vs. a 55.5% required probability of the over hitting to profit.

Hammer the over 40.5 games at (-120)!!!

If you like this, feel free to comment on the twitter page or directly on the blog!  You can also drop a like on the twitter post if that's easier for you :).  If you disagree, would love to hear your thoughts as I love to debate anything, but especially tennis...

Lastly, a picture of a nerd at a chalkboard....

Math is cool - is it bad that I recognize
the majority of thoseequations?