Comebacks From Down Two Sets
Next, I looked at the impact of tournament and surface. Here is a table of the frequency of two sets down comebacks by tournament.
Comebacks From Down Two SetsThe comeback from down two sets to none to win in five sets is one of the most unexpected and exciting matches in tennis. Over the past 10 years (2006-2016), there have been a total of 275 of these matches at the ATP World Tour and Davis Cup level. This is just a small fraction (3.81%) of the 7213 best of five set matches in that same time period. I investigated the frequency of these comebacks and some various trends and patterns about them. The following table summarizes the frequency of coming back and winning the match from set scores along the comeback trail. Unsurprisingly, players very rarely win after dropping the first two sets. However, after winning the next set, their chance of winning jumps up to about 25%. This set is only won 22.0% of the time, since most matches end in straight sets. However, once at the set score L-L-W, the 25% chance of completing the comeback is consistent with an approximately 50% chance of winning each set. This would indicate that the players are roughly evenly matched. Finally, once the match reaches the deciding 5th set, the comeback is completed about 56% of the time, which is consistent with the theory that the player who has won the last two sets has the “momentum”. However, this effect is quite small.
Next, I looked at the impact of tournament and surface. Here is a table of the frequency of two sets down comebacks by tournament.
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