How do the ATP top 30 perform against left-handed players?

How do the ATP top 30 perform against left-handed players?

By Dan Weston Jul 11, 2014

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Playing against a left-hander requires Tennis players to adapt their game – with just three left-handers in the ATP top 30, top players rarely play against lefties.  This tennis betting article assesses whether some players struggle to make the necessary changes to their game, and how efficient the market was in pricing top players against left-handers in the last 12 months. 

Left-handers are rare in the upper echelons of the ATP.  Just three – Rafael Nadal and his fellow Spaniards, Feliciano Lopez and Fernando Verdasco – currently ranked 24 and 29 respectively, populate the top 30.  With just 10% of the top 30 playing left-handed, fellow top ranked players can go months without playing a left-hander, and it’s logical that the adjustments that players need to face left-handers would cause them problems.

However, that doesn’t necessarily make all left-handers a bet against right-handers – it’s fairly likely that the market will have adjusted for this, and also some players’ playing style may negate a left-hander’s advantages, although conversely there will be instances where players do not thrive against left-handers.

The following table illustrates the record of top 30 players against left-handers in the last 12 months (data correct at 10th July, 2014) with a hypothetical bet of 100 applied to all players.  All prices used were Pinnacle Sports’ closing prices, with matches voided if at least one set was not completed:

Player

Rank

Plays

Wins

Win %

P/L

ROI

Djokovic

1

RH

8

5

62.50

42

5.25

Nadal

2

LH

4

4

100.00

22

5.50

Federer

3

RH

9

5

55.56

-361

-40.11

Wawrinka

4

RH

7

4

57.14

313

44.71

Berdych

5

RH

9

5

55.56

-317

-35.22

Raonic

6

RH

8

5

62.50

-98

-12.25

Ferrer

7

RH

12

10

83.33

1549

129.08

Del Potro

8

RH

2

2

100.00

305

152.50

Dimitrov

9

RH

10

6

60.00

-178

-17.80

Murray

10

RH

11

9

81.82

-53

-4.82

Nishikori

11

RH

11

7

63.64

-233

-21.18

Isner

12

RH

11

6

54.55

-353

-32.09

Gulbis

13

RH

8

5

62.50

-135

-16.88

Gasquet

14

RH

9

3

33.33

-506

-56.22

Fognini

15

RH

11

8

72.73

36

3.27

Tsonga

16

RH

5

4

80.00

-33

-6.60

Anderson

17

RH

4

3

75.00

-44

-11.00

Robredo

18

RH

6

4

66.67

-27

-4.50

Dolgopolov

19

RH

9

6

66.67

541

60.11

Cilic

20

RH

1

0

0.00

-100

-100.00

Monfils

21

RH

8

4

50.00

-275

-34.38

Youzhny

22

RH

5

2

40.00

-222

-44.40

Bautista-Agut

23

RH

8

6

75.00

146

18.25

Lopez

24

LH

8

7

87.50

317

39.63

Haas

25

RH

5

4

80.00

86

17.20

Kohlschreiber

26

RH

6

2

33.33

-353

-58.83

Almagro

27

RH

8

5

62.50

463

57.88

Granollers

28

RH

10

8

80.00

618

61.80

Verdasco

29

LH

7

5

71.43

-28

-4.00

Tursunov

30

RH

6

3

50.00

-154

-25.67

In the last 12 months, the worst players facing left-handers were Roger Federer, Tomas Berdych, John Isner, Richard Gasquet, and Philipp Kohlschreiber, with a loss of over 300 each accrued from blind-backing them against lefties.

Furthermore, excepting Kohlschreiber, all of these players also had very poor records in their last 50 matches against left-handers.

Player

Matches

Wins

Win %

ROI

Federer

50

36

72

-21

Berdych

50

29

58

-22

Isner

50

31

62

-11

Gasquet

50

29

58

-15

Clearly these players have big issues playing against left-handers and appear prime targets to oppose when playing against lefties. Considering they are often priced as very heavy favourites, their win percentages of between 58% and 72% are hugely unimpressive and in all cases are below their 12 month win percentages when all opponents are considered, with Berdych’s 11% (69% overall win percentage in the last 12 months) the biggest drop.

Several players do have strong records against left-handers. Buoyed by several wins over Nadal in the last 12 months, David Ferrer has a strong record, and this extends to his last 50 matches against left-handers as well, with the Spaniard winning 36 out of his last 50, generating a return on investment of 34%.

Kevin Anderson was another player who seems to thrive against lefties. The South-African managed a stellar 39 wins from his last 50 games against left-handers, and this returned a very strong 19% ROI.

The following table illustrates the records of players facing left-handers by rank in the last 12 months, with again a 100 hypothetical bet applied to all matches going over a set:

Ranking

Matches

Wins

Win %

P/L

ROI

Top 10

80

55

68.75

1224

15.30

11-20

75

46

61.33

-854

-11.39

21-30

71

46

64.79

598

8.42

Overall

226

147

65.04

968

4.28

As can be seen by the above table, blind-backing a current top 30 player against left-handers showed a positive return of 4.28%. From a blind-backed scenario, this is highly impressive.

Nevertheless, it’s worth delving a little deeper into the stats to find out why this may have been the case…

Rafael Nadal was defeated five times when very heavy favourite. David Ferrer got the better of his compatriot twice, priced at 8.89 and 6.61, while his fellow countryman Nicolas Almagro also achieved a victory with an SP of 7.04. Alexandr Dolgopolov (7.62) and Stan Wawrinka’s (6.03) famous win in the final of the Australian Open were also against Nadal at big prices. However with Nadal’s matches removed from the sample, the results would look very different indeed.

It is definitely apparent from the stats in this article that some players cope much better than others when the player across the net is a left-hander, and it is vital that bettors take this into account to make profitable betting decisions.

Dan Weston is a freelance tennis writer who, along with producing expert content for Pinnacle Sports, also produces his own tennis rating system, and trading analysis, which can be found at www.tennisratings.co.uk.

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