

By Chris Oddo | Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Two months are tennis are in the books and some trends have emerged on the ATP Tour. We go inside the numbers to explore.



Photo Source: Dubai Duty Free Tennis

We know who took the titles and who climbed the rankings, but in light of a quiet week on the ATP Tour, we thought we’d take a look inside the numbers to give you a few interesting statistical facts about the first two months of the season.



Statisfaction: Five Statistical Highlights of the WTA Season



1. Tomas Berdych, Tiebreaker Machine?



The Birdman has been good in the clutch this year, going 7-0 in tiebreaks. Surprised? So were we, but what’s even more surprising is that Roger Federer has gone 0-3 in tiebreaks this year, despite his 11-1 record.



Milos Raonic and Stan Wawrinka lead the Top 10 with nine tiebreaker wins apiece, but Wawrinka has gone 9-2, decidedly better than Raonic’s 9-7.



Gilles Muller leads the Top 100 in tiebreaker wins with 12 (12-5).



2. Isner, Ace Machine



John Isner leads the ATP in aces per match with 22.8. Ivo Karlovic is just slightly behind him with 22.4 per match, and Nick Kyrgios is third among Top 100 players at 20.5. Pretty impressive for the young Aussie to be outperforming Milos Raonic on an ace per match basis (Raonic is at 19.4).



Karlovic leads the tour with 380 total aces.



3. Son of a Biscuit!



Donald Young leads the ATP in double-faults (73), but Ernests Gulbis leads in double-faults per match (6.4).



4. Unbreakable Ivo



Ivo Karlovic is holding serve at a 97 percent clip. His previous best was in 2007, when he held 94 percent of the time. Remarkably he has held in 229 of 235 service games.



5. 90 percent or better club



Karlovic leads the tour in percentage of service games held, but there are six others to have topped 90 percent:



John Isner, 95

Milos Raonic, 94

Roger Federer, 93

Nick Kyrgios, 91

Sam Querrey, 90

Novak Djokovic, 90



6. Gulbis out of whack



Ernests Gulbis has the worst percentage of service games won in the Top 80. The Latvian has only managed to hold 68 percent of the time, compared with 85 percent in 2014.



7. The little beast is a big winner



David Ferrer leads the ATP Tour in wins (18) and winning percentage (.947) in 2015.



The top five win leaders beyond Ferrer are Berdych (16), Wawrinka (15), Nishikori and Tomic (14) and Djokovic (13).



8. Roger’s return rate



Roger Federer, not normally known for his returning, is second on the tour with 35 percent return games won. He’s just a smidge behind Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer (36 percent). Federer’s return numbers are significantly up from the last three years: he won 26 percent of return games each season from 2012 to 2014.



9. The worst returners



John Isner is winning 6 percent of return games. He’s only played six matches but you just can’t sugar coat that, especially when Ivo Karlovic is winning 13 percent of his return games.



Here are the bottom six, in percentage of return games won:



Isner, 6

Benneteau, 7

Kyrgios, 10

Raonic, 11

Muller, 11

Rosol, 11



10. Novak’s second helping



Novak Djokovic has won a greater percentage of second serve points than any other player (61). Andy Murray has won the least of any other Top 10 player (51). Murray has the lowest percentage of service games won and break points saved in the Top 10.



