Problematic tennis stat
Watching the US Open semifinal with Shelton v Tiafoe right now and McEnroe commented that when Shelton is up 2 sets to 1 he rarely loses, and quoted the ratio of matches won to lost after being up 2 sets to 1. But there are some obvious problems with this. First, most players who are up 2-1 sets in best of five sets format are going to win more often than not. Second, for a top ten player like Shelton, most of his matches are against lower ranked players (and, importantly, lower ranked than Tiafoe).
So - is there a more meaningful statement that can be made, likely based on a Bayesian approach, about whether particular players are especially more likely to win or lose based on early set wins or losses? How would you go about this?
Posted Sep 12, 2026, 2:26 AM UTC