B00thy wrote:

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JonH comes home wrote:

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B00thy wrote:

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JonH comes home wrote:

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Let's hope he achieves what he deserves this week.

The 8 players left, though, arent slouches.

Not sure how the bookies see it but Tennis Abstract rate Billy as a bit of an outsider to take the title - Brandon Holt is up next and they rate it 59-41 in his favour to beat Billy. If Billy does come through, Vacherot is rated above him and Holt and Vacherot are the top 2 overall. Of the 8, Billy is rated a 10% chance of the title (so less than an even chance in an 8 players field) and 5th favourite overall.

You show them Billy!

Player SF F W
(1)Billy Harris (GBR) 40.6% 18.5% 10.2%
(6)Brandon Holt (USA) 59.4% 32.7% 21.0%
Valentin Vacherot (MON) 61.5% 32.8% 20.9%
(8)Alexis Galarneau (CAN) 38.5% 16.0% 8.4%
(5)Ugo Blanchet (FRA) 62.3% 33.0% 13.8%
Khumoyun Sultanov (UZB) 37.7% 15.5% 4.7%
Dalibor Svrcina (CZE) 71.3% 41.2% 18.5%
(Q)Ilia Simakin (RUS) 28.7% 10.3% 2.5%

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 excuse my ignorance .. if Billy is an outsider to take the title then how did he get seeded 1? could explain how you think this came about? Thanks

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 As I say, the bookies may see it differently. And as Indy says, there is another way of looking at it. Tennis Abstract, in terms of how they do it, use an algorithm they have created that is ELO. In essence, it takes the players recent form and who they have played and assigns an ELO rating that is then adjusted for surface; they then generate 1000's of simulations of the match and the % shown is the output of that simulation exercise. 

Billy has an ELO rating of 1597 currently, which places him 168 in the TA view of the current rankings; as opposed to his real ranking of 110 or whatever it is that gave him the seeding. They assess Holt has an ELO of 1653 and a ranking of 134, which is better than his actual world ranking (and why he has a lower seeding). 

They put these ELO's together, adjust for surface in some way, and then run the simulations. They do that for every match in the draw, through each round in terms of each potential match up and work out round by round percentages and an overall view.

In Glasgow, for example, Evo is rated as tournie favourite at 28.4% as it stands; Jake is also rated favourite in Pau at 43.1% - the percentages change as every match finishes and is updated as a player winning a match takes another out of the draw and changes the relative positions of each player and their potential progress through the draw - so if you check these percentages in an hour or two, they could vary if the field has changed

https://www.tennisabstract.com/current/2025PuneChallenger.html

https://www.tennisabstract.com/current/2025GlasgowChallenger.html

https://www.tennisabstract.com/current/2025PauChallenger.html

https://www.tennisabstract.com/current/2025ATPDoha.html

In Dubai, Jack is currently third favourite of the QF field left. Alcaraz is the favourite, obviously

https://www.tennisabstract.com/ is the main site link and you can see lots of other stuff there as well as womens draws and analysis. They only analyse it for ATP/WTA main tour and Challenger/125 events though, not ITF

 This explains how ELO ratings work and how it flows through to predictions at a match level

https://tennisabstract.com/reports/atp_elo_ratings.html

A 100-point difference in Elo ratings implies that the favorite has a 64% chance of winning a best-of-three-set match; 200 points implies 76%, 300 points implies 85%, 400 points implies 91%, and 500 points implies 95%. In best-of-five, the favorite is more likely to win, by a factor that depends on the best-of-three odds.

Surface-specific Elos--"hElo," "cElo,", and "gElo"--are a mix of overall Elo and separate ratings generated using only results on the given surface. These ratings give more accurate forecasts for individual matches.   

-- Edited by JonH comes home on Thursday 20th of February 2025 11:48:33 AM

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 Thanks  for the explanation - illuminating! so essentially the seeding is on ranking but the top ranked player isn't necessarily in the same form as others 

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 Nice succinct summary! 

Indeed. Quite interesting and sensible to ignore more the churlish contributors.

And a break set two now, serving at 3-2

Not able to watch at all, just following scores, but it seems a very up and down match - one goes on a burst then the other. Billys now got a third set break but suspect more twists to come.

Cool - no worries. As I say, it is fallible, Evo for example was rated tournament favourite for Glasgow but we all saw what happened there and , being frank, he cant buy a win at the moment.

But certainly the real rankings dont provide the best guide, some sort of form related guide is likely to be better. Whether Tennis Abstract is the best around, I dont know. Its there, its accessible and the person who runs it, Jeff Sackmann, is an acknowledged tennis stats leader.

But apps like TNNS have win predictions built into their matchups and I have no idea where they take their data from, maybe it is Tennis Abstract or some other method - Ive never compared their percentages so dont know. Im sure the bookies also take similar feeds into account in their odds setting as well as other risk related factors

Holt playing deep shots in the last service game of Billy's pressurising Billy into errors

-- Edited by B00thy on Friday 21st of February 2025 09:10:19 AM

Ah pity. Close one.

But yes, overall pretty decent form from Billy with 3 months to come in which he is still due to drop relatively few ranking points.

He ends his India run live ranked 109 on 534 points, 48 points behind the current ( and live ) WR 100 on 582 points.

He just has a total of 38 points ( net 17 ) from 3 counters due to drop up to and including the pre French Open / grass season 26/05 ranking date.

In the immediate future he has understandably pulled out of next week's Accapulco. Then he is down for Indian Wells qualifying, with presumably Miami to follow, so likely tough but with good points available even just for qualifying. Then, if still short of that top 100, pick and choose wisely over the following 8 weeks. Asia hard court challengers maybe, not that he is too bad on clay?

It looks very doable. Hope so!

-- Edited by indiana on Friday 21st of February 2025 10:23:23 AM