Introducing Beach Volleyball Match Charting

Analyzing AVP match stats and player tendencies

With the AVP Seattle Open underway, I thought it might be a fun exercise to chart a professional beach volleyball match. The process of collecting the data is manual but I wanted recreate the AVP match stats that are published online to test their validity. In addition, I track shot type and direction, which adds a whole new dimension to analyzing player tendencies.

I watched yesterday’s quarterfinal match-up of Chase Budinger/Casey Patterson vs. Tim Bomgren/Troy Field. Here was my setup during charting:

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Continue reading “Introducing Beach Volleyball Match Charting”

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2019 AVP Season Data Primer, Player Trends, and More

Beach Volleyball Data

With the AVP season just around the corner (Huntington Beach on May 3-5), I thought it would be a good time to refresh the beach volleyball match database

The database now contains matches from the year 2000 all the way until April 6th, 2019.

Let’s examine some recent trends with the data update!

Continue reading “2019 AVP Season Data Primer, Player Trends, and More”

ATP Ranking Predictions for August 2018

We use our machine learning model to predict ATP rankings

In our last blog post, we detailed our new machine learning forecasting app that predicts future rankings. The app updates automatically on a weekly cadence and we’ve pulled the most recent results into 2 tables below.

The current top 10 ATP players are forecasted to remain stagnant into August. This is after Zverev defended his title at the Citi Open and last week’s tournaments have been accounted for.

Name July Rank Aug. Rank Pred. July Pts. Aug. Pt. Pred. Rank Diff.
Rafael Nadal 1 1 9175 9248 0
Roger Federer 2 2 7490 7167 0
Alexander Zverev 3 3 5688 5785 0
Juan Martin del Potro 4 4 5316 5457 0
Kevin Anderson 5.8 5 4400 4650 -0.8
Grigor Dimitrov 6 6 4652 4462 0
Marin Cilic 6.5 7 4194 4000 0.5
Dominic Thiem 8 8 3708 3899 0
John Isner 9 9 3436 3561 0
David Goffin 10.5 11 3118 3074 0.5

Continue reading “ATP Ranking Predictions for August 2018”

Future Insights: Monthly ATP Ranking Forecast

How recent ATP player trends impact future rankings before they happen, updated live

Welcome back tennis fans… and no, we didn’t forget about your thirst for tennis and data analytics! Our new web app allows you to easily see a player’s ranking history, similar to the ATP site, but with an added ranking forecast, packaged as an interactive visualization not available anywhere else!*

Check out the app here (15 second load time**):

AppFull

More info below. Continue reading “Future Insights: Monthly ATP Ranking Forecast”

AVP & FIVB Beach Volleyball Match Database

New match database that contains top players such as Phil Dalhausser, Nick Lucena, Kerri Walsh, and April Ross

Welcome to BigTimeStats, the TenniStats rebrand, now with beach volleyball match data. Drawing inspiration from Jeff Sackmann’s tennis match database, I’ve compiled all AVP and FIVB matches going back to year 2000, available as open source csv/excel files on Github. Continue reading “AVP & FIVB Beach Volleyball Match Database”

The theory of 1%

For several top players, a 1% increase in points won means cutting their ranking by half.

I recently came across an article by Craig O’Shannessey on atpworldtour.com which talked about the huge difference a 1% increase in points won can have on a players ranking. The article quotes stats from Dominic Thiem’s 2014 and 2015 seasons, in which he jumped from number 40 to number  Continue reading “The theory of 1%”