Which WTA players are the most consistent?

Which WTA players are the most consistent?

By Dan Weston Aug 4, 2014

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Consistency from a sports player or team, whether in Tennis, or other sports, is something very useful for bettors.  This WTA betting article assesses the consistency levels for WTA top-30 players, to help bettors judge which players can be relied on more than others.

Being able to rely on a player to provide performances which are of a consistent standard is very valuable to bettors.  Assessing player consistency allows bettors to be able to eliminate a level of guesswork from their research and analysis, and also a detailed knowledge of ‘peaks’ and ‘troughs’ of players is also incredibly useful.  However, the vast majority of WTA players aren’t renowned for their consistency, and hence evaluating WTA players individually would be of great use in this respect.

A player’s ‘peak’ would be the highest ranked, or biggest priced, win that they’ve obtained over a set period, whilst their ‘trough’ would be either the lowest ranked player that defeated them, or their shortest priced defeat.

Knowing that Caroline Wozniacki, Andrea Petkovic and Sloane Stephens have all failed to win any matches against a top ten player in their last 50 overall matches would be highly useful for Tennis bettors, as will the fact that Ana Ivanovic and Ekaterina Makarova have not lost against a player ranked outside the top 50 in the same time period.

The following table illustrates the last 50 matches of the current top-30 WTA players as at 30th July, 2014, showing their best win and worst defeat by rank, and their best win and worst defeat by Pinnacle Sports’ closing prices.  Using a metric such as a players’ last 50 matches is much fairer than using a time period for this evaluation, as some players will have played many more matches than others during a year, or in 2014.

Player

Rank

Best Win Rank

Worst Defeat Rank

Difference

Best Win Price

Worst Defeat Price

Williams S

1

2

78

-76

1.27

1.03

Li

2

2

134

-132

2.31

1.06

Halep

3

4

62

-58

2.47

1.11

Kvitova

4

4

108

-104

3.60

1.08

Radwanska A

5

2

71

-69

5.17

1.10

Sharapova

6

3

131

-128

1.93

1.02

Bouchard

7

3

89

-86

3.24

1.15

Kerber

8

5

108

-103

4.75

1.04

Jankovic

9

2

74

-72

5.10

1.16

Azarenka

10

1

66

-65

3.94

1.08

Ivanovic

11

1

44

-43

9.75

1.23

Cibulkova

12

3

95

-92

3.17

1.19

Wozniacki

13

13

136

-123

2.44

1.16

Pennetta

14

3

99

-96

5.10

1.15

Errani

15

2

147

-145

3.95

1.18

Suarez Navarro

16

6

147

-141

2.89

1.15

Safarova

17

10

301

-291

3.80

1.09

Petkovic

18

11

82

-71

3.47

1.26

Stosur

19

10

359

-349

2.38

1.12

Makarova

20

4

45

-41

4.58

1.45

Cornet

21

1

200

-199

12.87

1.19

Stephens

22

13

134

-121

2.65

1.25

Vinci

23

6

259

-253

3.22

1.17

Pavlyuchenkova

24

5

241

-236

5.29

1.24

Williams V

25

2

111

-109

6.72

1.14

Kuznetsova

26

5

102

-97

4.29

1.26

Keys

27

7

108

-101

4.06

1.21

Muguruza

28

1

142

-141

19.37

1.18

Lisicki

29

1

241

-240

10.46

1.33

Zhang

30

6

257

-251

5.41

1.21

It can be seen from the above table that there is an incredible difference in the consistency of players in the WTA.

The aforementioned Ivanovic and Makarova have not lost against a player ranked over 45 in their last 50 overall matches, but Lucie Safarova, Sam Stosur, Alize Cornet, Roberta Vinci, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Sabine Lisicki and Shuai Zhang have all lost against opponents ranked 200 or worse.  Therefore on that basis, backing Ivanovic and Makarova when priced as heavy favourite against low-ranked opponents should be a good strategy.

Conversely, as previously mentioned, Wozniacki, Petkovic and Stephens have all failed to beat any top ten players in the sample.  Backing top ten players against this trio should also work well – especially Wozniacki and Stephens, who have a best wins priced 2.44 and 2.65 respectively.  Sam Stosur also appears to be another candidate in this regard, with a best win of rank 10 and price 2.38, and the 30 year old Australian – US Open champion in 2011 – is the most inconsistent player in the sample, with a difference of 349 places between her best win and worst defeat.

The table below illustrates the top five WTA top-30 players for consistency based on the smallest ranking difference between their best win and worst defeat:

Player

Position

Best Win Rank

Worst Win Rank

Difference

Makarova

1

4

45

-41

Ivanovic

2

1

44

-43

Halep

3

4

62

-58

Azarenka

4

1

66

-65

Radwanska A

5

2

71

-69

It’s no surprise to see Ivanovic and Makarova heading this list after the previous assessment of their strong records against low ranked players.  What is also interesting to see is the other three players on the list all boast excellent return games, with all three breaking opponents between 45.6% and 50.6% – well above the 36.4% WTA mean.  It would therefore be logical to assume that having a strong return game to put pressure on opponent’s service games when an upset might be on the cards is a strong asset to have to avoid shock defeats – crucially something that Sam Stosur, and also Lucie Safarova both lack.

The table below illustrates the worst five WTA top-30 players for consistency based on the largest ranking difference between their best win and worst defeat:

Player

Position

Best Win Rank

Worst Win Rank

Difference

Stosur

1

10

359

-349

Safarova

2

10

301

-291

Vinci

3

6

259

-253

Zhang

4

6

257

-251

Lisicki

5

1

241

-240

Sabine Lisicki is another player whose game is more geared up towards serve than return. The German – who hit a world record 131mph serve in her defeat to Ana Ivanovic in Stanford – has broken 37.9% across all surfaces, barely above the WTA mean. Roberta Vinci, slightly lower at 37.2%, also isn’t a prolific breaker of opponent’s serve, and of these five players, only Shuai Zhang at 40.7% breaks opponents more than 40%. However, it would be fair to argue Zhang’s world ranking was rather false, as she’s boosted her stats and gained a high proportion of ranking points in low-level events, and her general record at Grand Slams and against higher ranked opponents is very poor.

Clearly the ‘big servers’ of the WTA find themselves much more vulnerable to upset defeats and therefore have much less consistency in their overall results. Detailed knowledge of player tendencies is critical in generating an edge in Tennis betting, and the statistics shown in this article highlight this superbly.

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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