The Top 10 As Video Game Characters

Skill attributes, Strength Specific players vs Big Serving Counterpunchers, H2H's

Feb 17, 2022

This is going to be one of the sillier bits of analysis I write this year but it might be useful for visualising the Top 10’s strengths and weaknesses right now, and which elite play-styles match up well against one another. After I wrote the ‘Big Serving Counterpuncher’ piece I got asked by quite a few readers to make these attribute graphs for other players:

For those of you who played Pro Evo, FIFA, or some of the old Topspin or Virtua Tennis games you’ll remember skill attribute graphs like this.

I’m going to leave out Nadal and Djokovic from this as both are hugely adaptable, complete players these days and don’t fit quite as neatly into some of these categories as some of the other, younger Top 10 (and frankly they match up well against everyone). I have basic formulas for each of the easily quantifiable categories based on performance markers (like 1st serve points won and ace/unreturned rate for the 1st serve category, and some are weighted against level of opposition), but I’ve also tweaked some of the numbers based on my own read (for e.g Medvedev’s overall 2nd serve performance is very good on hard courts at 55% in the last 12 months, but his 2nd serve as an isolated shot is arguably weaker). I’ve left out some of the more intangible categories like ‘mental strength’ for now.

This is also just for hard courts. Many of the attribute scores change for clay (for e.g Tsitsipas’ return of serve and backhand defence is better on clay than it is on hard courts). Although an all-surface player like Berrettini, whose strengths and weaknesses stay relatively consistent across all surfaces, would have pretty neutral surface attributes. Many of these will be debatable, this is intentionally imprecise, and really only useful for a zoomed out framework of the top of men’s tennis right now. There will also be exceptions to all of these and good and bad form will obviously bump any of these numbers up and down in certain matches.

Mountain of caveats and excuses aside, here we go.

Medvedev (Big Serving Counterpuncher)

I don’t think anything here should be particularly surprising. When Medvedev is going through periods of landing two first serves then his 2nd serve numbers would obviously be higher.

Zverev (Big Serving Counterpuncher)

Zverev’s serve+1 can be on fire when he’s at his absolute best but that forehand still has a tendency to be surprisingly passive on the back of his huge 1st serve. The 2nd serve yips have returned to start this season after a very good 2021.

Both Medvedev and Zverev are interesting in that both have less of a preference for hitting their forehand as point finishing serve+1’s than many traditional big servers do. Both have excellent backhands but, considering it’s almost always harder to be offensive off the backhand than the forehand, this somewhat explains their sometime struggle with serve+1 aggression in some matchups (for e.g Medvedev struggled with his forehand offence on the back of his serve in the Australian Open final against Nadal, and Zverev struggled with his forehand+1 against Bublik’s blocked returns in the Montpellier final 10 days ago).

Tsitsipas (Strength Specific, Serve/Forehand Offence)

These are very hard court specific numbers and I could definitely see the argument for his ‘movement’ being 9 not 8. Tsitsipas’ return is steadily improving (he posted his best hard court return performance of his career last year), but it’s still a noticeable weakness against other top players.

Berrettini (Strength Specific, Serve/Forehand Offence)

Berrettini’s attributes are mostly straightforward apart from his backhand. He has an excellent slice which helps him out for the ‘backhand defence’ category, but his two handed backhand defence is often a bit of a liability. Against much of the tour that backhand defence could actually probably be a 7 or even an 8. Against other elite players it can take a severe hit. A more specific backhand category would probably be useful for Berrettini.

Rublev (Aggressive Baseliner, Medium Weapons)

It might seem a bit harsh to call Rublev’s weapons ‘medium’ but he doesn’t quite have the same potency of serve, serve+1 or forehand as Berrettini, Tsitsipas et al (even if his forehand groundstroke in isolation is very powerful), to elevate him into that category of power. Could definitely argue that his shot tolerance and movement could be bumped up at his best and his 1st serve could arguably be 9 rather than 8 when playing well.

Ruud (Aggressive Baseliner, Medium Weapons)

Shouldn’t be anything too surprising here.

Auger-Aliassime (Big Serving All Rounder)

Auger-Aliassime was the hardest to plot because of his recent hot streak of form. I’ve tried to normalise these attributes as an approximate average over the last year or so, but Auger-Aliassime in current form would be higher in shot tolerance, 2nd serve, return, and backhand defence. Felix fits a different category (Big Serving All Rounder) because he’s too powerful on serve and +1 forehand to be a Medium-Weapon-Aggressive-Baseliner, but also not defensive enough in serve+1 or rallies to be a Big Serving Counterpuncher like Medvedev or Zverev.

Sinner (Aggressive Baseliner, Medium Weapons)

Another difficult one (any young player around 21 like Sinner and Auger-Aliassime is going to be tough because of their fluid rate of improvement), but the only thing I’d like to change here is plotting his serve as a 7.5-8. Serve+1 and forehand offence could also both be higher on a good day.

Shapovalov (Strength Specific, Serve/Forehand Offence)

Shapovalov is hard to score because of how variable a lot of his performances are in multiple categories. His ATP Cup matches this year would have seen short tolerance and return both bumped up. But subsequent erratic performances (and 1-2 year history) put him lower. I’ll write something longer on Shapo soon because he’s a bit of an enigma performance wise.

One of the many caveats here is that while someone like Sinner’s attributes may seem very well-rounded, it’s often better for players to have one or two mammoth weapons (at 10) than it is for them to be mostly 7’s or 8’s. Strength specific skillsets vs all rounder skillsets represents one of the more interesting matchup questions in elite tennis. And those matchup dynamics will depend on whether an opponent has a counter to one of those mammoth strengths (for example Medvedev returns particularly well and negates some of Berrettini’s and Tsitsipas’ 1st serve and serve+1 potency, which they perhaps lean on more singularly than some of the all-rounders or aggressive baseliners).

One of the reasons I’ve found the Big Serving Counterpunchers of Medvedev and Zverev interesting is that they usually win against the other playstyles in the Top 10 (apart from the Big 3) more often than not:

The Big Serving Counterpunchers combine for a 33 wins 12 losses record against the other Top 10 players on hard courts (49-18 across all surfaces). Medvedev’s 24-4 is especially impressive. Tsitsipas’s performance against Zverev and Shapovalov’s performance against both are the outliers

This doesn’t mean this will always be the case over the next ten-ish years. But for now at least it is the dominant play-style (outside Nadal/Djokovic) in the men’s game for about 60% of the calendar (hard courts).

This is really me just thinking aloud and putting it in writing. But more on this soon and an equivalent for the WTA as well.

— MW

Twitter: @mattracquet

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