Saturday, 8 June 2013

It's the hope that kills you

You start watching a match. You know who's the overwhelming favourite, and you hope for that tiny chance of an upset, but you don't really believe it could happen. And you're OK with that, you've prepared yourself for a loss, and you just want whoever you're cheering for to go out there and not completely embarrass themselves, maybe get a set if they can manage it.

The opponent wins the first set, and it all goes 'according to plan'. "Ah well, maybe some other time". You're calm. Why wouldn't you be? It's the expected result. It's what everybody predicted. There are no surprises today.

Then, something changes. A good game, a break, maybe a set. "Is it possible? Maybe, after all?" Naaah, it never goes that way, you tell yourself. There's no point in hoping, you'll just get disappointed afterwards. "But..." No, there are no 'buts' here.

And the match goes on, and you're still not expecting a win, but against all reason, you're hoping. The longer the match goes, you start hoping more and more, and break points are saved and games are won and you still don't believe it, but maybe you do. Just a bit. Just a lot.

It's too late now, you're way too invested, and you can see the finish line, can imagine what happens when your rooting interest crosses it. "It will be so good! Everybody will talk about it!" You try to calm yourself down, but what's the point?

They take a lead, and you tense up, your emotions are already overflowing, the taste of victory there on your tongue, and if they just take that break point, or keep that tiebreak lead, and maybe serve a couple of aces...
But they don't. And the opponents don't double fault, either. Nor do they hit every ball into the net, as you've already magically seen them do in that not-so-deep corner of your mind. By now you're evoking every superstition you've ever had, you promise to do countless things if only this one result goes your way, you're begging your TV to cooperate, you just want it so much!

So bloody what. The chance is gone, the advantage disappears, and it might not be over yet, but you already feel like it is - but maybe something can still happen? You know it won't, and yet you keep willing that ball to do what you so desperately want, because who knows, right?

Wrong. It's match point already, it's the wrong match point, and they're not done yet, and maybe somehow...?

And then it's really over. You refuse to believe it, but what else can you do? You knew it would happen, everybody had known it would happen, so why does it hurt so much?

In tennis, it's the hope that kills you.

Dedicated to Nicolas Mahut's Roland Garros 2013 doubles final loss.
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Wimbledon 2013 Top 5 Seedings

The clay season leading up to this year's Roland Garros was - among other things - a race for the #2 and #4 seedings in the Grand Slam tournament. Eventually, since Andy Murray has withdrawn from the French Open, it didn't matter. With Rafael Nadal's withdrawal from Halle (assuming it's official - he's still on the entry list at time of writing), the Wimbledon seedings of the top players are now determined, no matter what happens in Queen's or Halle.

Wimbledon is currently the only Grand Slam in tennis that actively departs from the official tour rankings when it seeds players. On the WTA, it is done by a committee, and is therefore more subjective, but on the ATP, there's a clear defined formula. The calculation is done for the top 32 players on the ATP rankings - so anyone who was supposed to be seeded, will be - but not necessarily according to his usual ranking.

The formula works this way:
  • Take the ATP ranking points at 17 June 2013 (a week before the tournament starts)
  • Add 100% points earned for all grass court tournaments in the past 12 months - that includes s'Hertogenbosch/Eastbourne 2012, Newport 2012, Wimbledon 2012, Olympics 2012, Queen's/Halle 2013.
  • Add 75% points earned for the best grass court tournament in the 12 months before that (One of s'Hertogenbosch/Eastbourne 2011, Wimbledon 2011, Newport 2011, Queen's/Halle 2012). 
Based on that, we can already calculate the possible scenarios for the Wimbledon 2013 seedings. The scenarios are actually quite simple, though the calculations aren't, so we'll start from the conclusions:

Wimbledon 2013 seedings:
#1 Novak Djokovic
#2 Andy Murray
#3 Roger Federer
#4 David Ferrer
#5 Rafael Nadal

If you want to check my calculations, you can read ahead.

Andy Murray & Roger Federer

This calculation is a bit easier, since we already know their Roland Garros results.

Murray currently has 8670 points, and since he didn't play in the French Open, he'll lose his QF points from last year, and will have 8310 points this Monday. Ignoring Queen's 2013 for a second, he'll add 1950 points from the previous 12 months (Wimbledon final and Olympics title). His best result from the 12 months before that is 720 points from the 2011 Wimbledon semifinal, so he'll add 540 more points for that, bringing us to a total of 10800 points. His 2013 Queen's result will be added to that total twice - once as a part of the regular rankings, and once in the "last 12 months" category, so 10800 is the absolute minimum he can get.

Federer has 8000 points. He'll lose the 720 RG 2012 SF points, and will add 360 points for this year's QF, for a total of 7640 points this Monday. Without Halle 2013, his previous 12 months' points are 2450 (Wimbledon title and Olympics final). He'll also add 75% * 360 points for his 2011 Wimbledon QF. As for  Halle: On June 17, he'll drop 150 points from the final of Halle 2012, and add whatever he earns in Halle 2013, twice. Even if he wins Halle (thus adding a total of 2*250=500 points), this will bring his total points (for seeding purposes) to 10710 - not enough to overtake Murray in any scenario.

David Ferrer & Rafael Nadal

If Nadal wins RG, he'll have 6895 points on Monday (just like his current points, since he's defending the title). Halle 2012 is already non countable for him, so he doesn't drop any more points. At the moment, he only has 45 points in that category, for his R2 in Wimbledon 2012. He gets 75% * 1200 = 900 points for the 2011 Wimbledon final. Overall, this gets him to 7840 points.
Ferrer, in this scenario, will have 7220 points this Monday (current points - 6740, drops 720 for 2012 RG SF, adds 1200 for 2013 RG F). He never plays in Queen's or Halle, so we know exactly that his last 12 months' points are 680 (Wimbledon QF, Olympics R16, s'Hertogenbosch title), and he adds 75% * 180 = 135 points for 2011 Wimbledon R16. Thus, his total points for seeding purposes will be 8035 - ahead of Nadal.

Clearly, if Ferrer wins RG, the gap between his and Nadal's points will be even larger, and he'll be seeded #4 (even an RG win won't be enough to bump him to #3 right now).

By the way, if Nadal did play Halle, he'd have to win both RG and Halle to be seeded #4.

June 19 edit: The official seedings for Wimbledon 2013 (both men and women, singles and doubles) can be found on the Wimbledon website.
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Friday, 31 May 2013

ATP Uncovered - Roland Garros Ice Bath Edition + Poll

Social media often allows us a unique glimpse into the life of tennis players. Whether it's Sara Errani and Serena Williams discussing Candy Crush Saga, or Andy Murray being bored while not competing - we'd never find out about it without twitter.

The ATP players, meanwhile, seem to be on some kind of dare which involves them posting semi-naked pictures and videos of them in the Roland Garros locker-room ice bath. Warning: NESFW! (Not Entirely Safe For Work)

The trend started with Blaz Kavcic, after his 6-2 6-2 6-2 win over James Duckworth in the first round of the French Open.



It continued with - how not - Fabio Fognini, after his 6-2 7-6(3) 2-6 6-1 win over Lukas Rosol (denying a possible Nadal-Rosol rematch). The pic was posted by Marc Boada, Fognini's physio.



The best bromance on the ATP tour wasn't far behind - Benoit Paire and Stanislas Wawrinka posted ice bath pics of one another (though much more covered, to the chagrin of many).




And finally, the cherry on top - a video! For his Eurosport segment "Tipsy Time", Janko Tipsarevic filmed Viktor Troicki getting into the ice bath, with a guest appearance by Novak Djokovic.


The only question left to ask... who's next?

June 3 UPDATE: Well, apparently the next one is Nicolas Mahut! He gives us two photos for our consideration.





And now, for the poll - whose ice bath did you like the best?


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Tuesday, 28 May 2013

Grand Slam Matches Formats



"Are they playing best of five in doubles here?"
"Wait, and is it a tiebreak in the final set?"
"But wasn't it different in qualifying?"

Those questions come up in every Grand Slam, and no wonder - the individual Slams are free to choose their own play format for every one of the events they're running (Men/Women, Singles/Doubles/Mixed, Main Draw/Qualifying). The only fixed rule is that Men's Singles must be best of five (5) sets. All other events can be best of five or best of three, can end in a tiebreak or an advantage set. Confusing? Maybe, but not for long. Here are all the common rules and formats, with a short glossary for all the tennis terms you're not sure about.

ATP/WTA tennis tournaments
Singles - best of 3 sets, all 3 are tiebreak sets, ad scoring.
Doubles - best of 3 sets - 2 tiebreak sets & 3rd supertiebreak, no-ad scoring.

ITF Grand Slams
(All matches are ad scoring unless noted otherwise)

Australian Open/ Roland Garros Wimbledon US Open
Men's Singles Best of 5
4 tiebreak sets, 5th advantage set 		Best of 5
4 tiebreak sets, 5th advantage set 		Best of 5
5 tiebreak sets
Women's Singles Best of 3
2 tiebreak sets, 3rd advantage set 		Best of 3
2 tiebreak sets, 3rd advantage set 		Best of 3
3 tiebreak sets
Men's Doubles Best of 3
3 tiebreak sets 		Best of 5
4 tiebreak sets, 5th advantage set 		Best of 3
3 tiebreak sets
Women's Doubles Best of 3
3 tiebreak sets 		Best of 3
2 tiebreak sets, 3rd advantage set 		Best of 3
3 tiebreak sets
Mixed Doubles Best of 3
2 tiebreak sets, 3rd supertiebreak
No-ad scoring		Best of 3
2 tiebreak sets, 3rd advantage set 		Best of 3
2 tiebreak sets, 3rd supertiebreak
No-ad scoring
Men's Singles Qualifying Best of 3
2 tiebreak sets, 3rd advantage set 		First rounds-Best of 3
Final round-Best of 5
2/4 tiebreak sets, 3rd/5th advantage set 		Best of 3
3 tiebreak sets
Women's Singles Qualifying Best of 3
2 tiebreak sets, 3rd advantage set 		Best of 3
2 tiebreak sets, 3rd advantage set 		Best of 3
3 tiebreak sets
Men's Doubles Qualifying -- Best of 3
2 tiebreak sets, 3rd advantage set 		--
Women's Doubles Qualifying -- Best of 3
2 tiebreak sets, 3rd advantage set 		--

Tennis Glossary

  • Tiebreak set - The set is played until a player reaches 6 or 7 games, with a 2-game margin. A tiebreak is played when the score is 6-6. To win a tiebreak, a player needs to win at least 7 points, with a 2-point margin (7-5, 8-6, etc).
  • Advantage set - no tiebreaks are played, and the set continues until one of the players has a 2-game margin (8-6, 9-7, etc). Today, only the last and deciding set of the match (the 5th or the 3rd) can be played as an advantage set, while all the other sets are tiebreak sets.
  • Supertiebreak - A set that consists of a tiebreak, in which a player has to win at least 10 points with a 2-point advantage.
  • No-ad scoring - A scoring method in which the 40-40 point is a deciding point - whoever wins it, wins the game. This scoring is employed in ATP/WTA doubles matches, and in Grand Slam Mixed Doubles (except in Wimbledon). 
  • Ad scoring - after getting to 40-40, the player/team must win two points to win the game (the first of those is the "advantage" point). This is the usual method of scoring in tennis tournaments.

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Friday, 24 May 2013

The Roland Garros Drinking Game

The players are in Paris, the men's and women's draws have come out, and tennis' long time foe - the weather - is already wreaking havoc during the qualifying matches and players' practices. Yes, the French Open is upon us at last!

For fans, every Grand Slam invokes a certain routine. At first, it's the draw ceremony. You spend days counting the minutes, you moan about the coverage of the draw being absolutely useless, and then you spend hours lamenting your favourites' difficult paths to the elusive titles. At this point (this is now, in case you're wondering), you realize that the tournament is going to start before the weekend's even over, and you must stock up on all the necessary equipment - food (you won't have time to leave the house for two weeks now), tissues (for that moment when you start breaking down in the middle of a sleepless night), and a fair amount of alcohol. While urging everyone to vamos (or ajde or allez or davai, or all of them if you're a Putintseva fan) responsibly, here's a drinking game to pass you through the two weeks of the 2013 edition of the Roland Garros.


Ready? Let's go!

Take a swig every time a commentator proclaims Rafael Nadal or Serena Williams the heavy title favourites.
Down a shot if there's a discussion of the alleged unfairness of Rafael Nadal's #4 seed or its effect on the Djokovic-Nadal predicted semifinal.
Take a sip if anybody calls Maria Sharapova 'Cow on ice'.
Drink if Benoit Paire, Jerzy Janowicz or Ernests Gulbis hits an unnecessarily ridiculous dropshot. Finish your drink if it wins them the point. Pour yourself another drink if they lose the point and go on a youtube-worthy meltdown.
Take a shot on every single rain delay.
Finish your drink when grunting comes up. 
Take a swig when Petra Kvitova botches an easy shot. Take two swigs when Tomas Berdych does the same. Hospitalize yourself if they're both playing at the same time. 
Take a shot if the scheduling for the next day makes no sense. Make that two shots if it's quarterfinals day and the matches are all at the same time.
Sip every time the French crowd starts booing a player. Finish your drink when they begin whistling.
Take a swig each time you have to use the Roland Garros mobile app (Android or iPhone, but you really don't want to install it).
Drink deep into the night when matches are cancelled or called off due to darkness (get some floodlights, Paris!)
Finish your bottle if Rafa and Serena actually win both titles. Drink enough to completely pass out if you're FFT president Jean Gachassin, since a French player didn't win.


Enjoy the action, everybody guys! (And feel free adding your own drinking scenarios in the comments)
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Monday, 29 April 2013

Roland Garros 2013 Seeding Scenarios

One of the major debates raging in the tennis world these days is whether the Roland Garros seeding committee should depart from the regular ATP rankings and seed Rafael Nadal higher than his current (and possibly future) #5 ranking. What happens if they don't? With two big tournaments left to play - Madrid and Rome - the rankings might still change in several ways. David Ferrer and Rafael Nadal will contest the #4 spot, while Andy Murray and Roger Federer will fight over the #2 ranking. If ranking calculations are not your forte, here are the major possible scenarios.

The Basic Numbers

 All four players will be seeded in both Rome and Madrid, and will get first round BYEs. Therefore, the points they can earn (in each of the tournaments) are:
R2 loss - 10
R3 loss - 90
QF loss - 180
SF loss - 360
F loss - 600
W - 1000

David Ferrer & Rafael Nadal

 First of all, it's important to note that Ferrer's Estoril results won't be relevant to these caculations - he already has an ATP250 tournament win (worth 250 points) that he can't count, so even if he wins Estoril his current points total won't change.

Stripping away the points Ferrer and Nadal are defending in the two clay Masters 1000 tournaments, Ferrer has 6380 points, and Nadal - 4895 points. That's a difference of 1485 points between the two, which Nadal will have to overcome in order to get to #4. Thus, we can start analyzing.

If Ferrer gets at least 515 points in both tournaments combined, he'll stay #4 until the French Open, regardless of Nadal's result. Thus, Ferrer will be #4 if:

  • He reaches the final of either of the tournaments
  • He makes at least a QF in one tournament and at least a SF in the other
Furthermore, Nadal has to get extremely good results to even have a chance of getting the #4 ranking. If he wins less than 1485 points in both tournaments combined, he'll stay #5. Thus, Nadal has to win one of Madrid/Rome and make the final of the other, and even that might not be enough if Ferrer's results are good enough. If Nadal fails to win Madrid, Ferrer only has to win two matches during the two events to stay #4. 

Andy Murray & Roger Federer

Without the points of Madrid and Rome, Andy Murray has 8480 points (he didn't play in Madrid last year, and lost early in Rome), while Federer has 7310 (he won Madrid and reached the Rome SF in 2012). That's a difference of 1170 points in Murray's favor. 

If Murray gets at least 830 points in both tournaments combined, he'll guarantee himself the #2 seed for the Roland Garros. Murray will be #2 anyway if:
  • He wins either Madrid or Rome
  • He reaches the final of one tournament and the SF of the other
Federer, like Nadal, has to make it far if he wants to get to #2. If he wins 1180 points or less, he'll remain #3. Therefore, Federer has to do one of the following to have a chance at #2:
  • Make the finals at both tournaments
  • Win one tournament and reach at least SF at the other 
The more matches Murray wins in Madrid, the farther Federer will have to go - if Murray wins three matches (Madrid SF), Federer needs W+F, if Murray reaches the Madrid final, Federer has to win both tournaments to stand a chance.

Of course, all of those scenarios can't all happen together - out of the four players, at most one can win each of the two tournaments. The draw in Madrid might even make some of these options unreachable. But until then, you can at least know what you want your favourite player to do.

Edited on May 9: Federer's loss means that he won't be seeded #2 in France; but at most #3 (can even fall down to #4 if Ferrer does really well in Rome and Federer does not).

*********

Personally, I think the Roland Garros seeding committee should follow the rankings as they are. The concept of protected ranking exists in the ATP for cases just like this one, when a player has been away with an injury for a long period of time. The rule, not accidentally, states that protected ranking will be used only for determining entry lists, not for seeding. There's no good reason to deviate from that rule now, and changing the seeding to fit a specific player (or a specific group of players, in this case) is a dangerous and unfair precedent.
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Saturday, 27 April 2013

Time Between Points and Nadal-Djokovic Matches

One of the talking points in men's tennis in 2013 is the not-entirely-new rule about the allowed time between points - 25 seconds and not a moment more. The ATP changed the rule to a lighter version - ducking a serve, not a point, if the server goes over the time limit for the second time in the match - and tightened the enforcement of the rule considerably. Much attention has been drawn to the effect of this change on the game's pace. Carl Bialik, on the Wall Street Journal's blog, suggests that matches in 2013 have gotten faster by an average of about 7%, compared to last year's tournaments.

It has been widely suggested that one of the catalysts for the implementation of the new rule was the disproportionally long 2012 Australian Open Final between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, which lasted  a record breaking 5 hours and 53 minutes. Steve Tignor wrote about their first match in 2013, the Monte Carlo finals:

The tour decided to crack down on slow play in large part because of these two. Their six-hour Australian Open final was the catalyst, but their 4-hour, three-set Madrid semi in 2009 also lives in plodding-play infamy as well. Their points are long, of course, but in the past, when they faced each other, they seemed liberated to take even longer between them than they did against anyone else.
Yesterday was different. This Monte Carlo final lasted 21 games and took 1 hour, 52 minutes. Last year’s Rome final between these two also lasted 21 games, but took 2 hours, 20 minutes. There were, as far as I saw, no official time warnings handed out by chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani, and both guys were moving with dispatch.
These statistics - 1:52 and 2:20 for 21 games - are clearly not enough by themselves, and seemed misleading to me. Taken to the extreme, if every game ends after 40-0 (or 0-40), the match will be much quicker than if every game goes to deuce. Therefore, I checked the number of points played in both matches, and was surprised to see them nearly equal - the 2013 Monte Carlo final had 139 points, and the 2012 Rome Final - 143 points. This piqued my interest, and I decided to compare all of the 34 Nadal-Djokovic matches in terms of the average elapsed time per point^ - the overall match length divided by the total number of points played.

There were several questions that seemed interesting to me before doing the analysis:
  • Will the pair's longest matches (AO '12 for five-setters, Madrid '09 for best of three) be the ones with the longest time per point?
  • Will their Monte Carlo match be the shortest, as we might expect?
  • How did the time/point change over time in the rivalry?
  • Does surface play a part?
Here are the results, sorted by time/point (in seconds) - from shortest to longest:

YrTourn*SurfaceWinFinal ScorePts**TimeTime/pt
07WimbGrassNad36 61 41 RET1321:4145.91
08QueenGrassNad76(6) 751722:1647.44
13MCClayDjo62 76(1)1391:5248.35
07IWHardNad62 75 1161:3448.62
07MiamiHardDjo63 64 1191:3748.91
07RGClayNad75 64 621812:2849.06
08OGHardNad64 16 641602:1149.13
09WTFHardDjo76(5) 631441:5849.17
09CincyHardDjo61 64 1111:3249.73
07WTFHardNad64 64 1251:4449.92
11WimbGrassDjo64 61 16 631772:2850.17
07CanadaHardDjo75 63 1321:5150.45
08CincyHardDjo61 75 1021:2650.59
08RGClayNad64 62 76(3)1982:4951.21
08IWHardDjo63 62 1011:2852.28
10USOHardNad64 57 64 622553:4352.47
09ParisHardDjo62 63 881:1752.50
09DCClayNad64 64 611692:2852.54
07RomeClayNad62 63 1131:4153.63
08HamburgClayNad75 26 622033:0354.09
09RomeClayNad76(2) 621362:0354.26
06RGClayNad64 64 RET1261:5454.29
10WTFHardNad75 62 1231:5254.63
12MCClayNad63 61 861:1955.12
11IWHardDjo46 63 621582:2655.44
11USOHardDjo62 64 67(3) 612684:1055.97
09MCClayNad63 26 611742:4356.21
12RGClayNad64 63 26 752413:4957.01
12AOHardDjo57 64 62 67(5) 753695:5357.40
11MiamiHardDjo46 63 76(4)2053:2259.12
12RomeClayNad75 63 1432:2159.16
09MadridClayNad36 76(5) 76(9)2454:0359.51
11RomeClayDjo64 64 1302:1361.38
11MadridClayDjo75 64 1332:1862.26
YrTourn.SurfaceWinFinal ScorePtsTimeTime/pt
Average1612:2353.17

* AO = Australian Open, Cincy = Cincinnati, DC = Davis Cup WG R1 ESP-SRB, IW = Indian Wells, MC = Monte Carlo, OG = Beijing Olympics, RG = Roland Garros, USO = US Open, Wimb = Wimbledon, WTF = Masters Cup/World Tour Finals
** Pts = Total points, Time = match time (hours:minutes), Time/pt = average elapsed time per point (seconds)

Several interesting observations can be made at first glance -
  • Monte Carlo is in the top 3 of 'quickest play' between Nadal and Djokovic, while the other two matches in the top 3 were played on grass.
  • The bottom of the table is rich in clay matches (more on that later). 
  • The pair's 2011-2012 matches are all (together with Madrid 2009 and Monte Carlo 2009) at the bottom of the table, except for Wimbledon 2011 (which is played on... grass). 
Here's a graphical way of looking at the data. You can compare the time/points and the overall match length for each of the matches:


Curiously, from the 2010 US Open and through the 2011 clay season, the period of Djokovic's ascendancy to the no. 1 spot, the time/point steadily rises. It drops in Wimbledon 2011, and never gets to the same peak again. Of course, time/point includes both the time of play and the time between points, and during the four Masters 1000 tournaments of 2011, Nadal and Djokovic played some of their most grueling matches in terms of rally length (it would be interesting to get those numbers, if they exist anywhere in the hawk-eye archives). Notably, the time/point during the 2012 Australian Open wasn't as high as during Miami, Madrid or Rome in 2011 (although it's, of course, quite high).

Now, let's take a look at the surfaces. If we simply divide the above table into two halves ('quicker' and 'slower' matches), with 17 matches in each, and count the surfaces in each half, this is what we get:

HardClayGrass
Top half (time/point < 52.52)1133
Bottom half (time/point < 52.52)5120

Without going into statistics too much, the numbers for hard courts and clay courts suggest that there's a significant difference between the two halves. In other words, hard court matches between Nadal and Djokovic tend to be in the top half (i.e. quicker), while the clay court meetings tend to be in the bottom half (slower). Generally, 3 matches on grass are not a large enough sample to draw statistical conclusions of this kind, but it's not surprising that the grass matches they did have are in the top half, especially since two of them are the quickest matches they had in terms of elapsed time per point. The overall conclusion is, of course clear - hard courts (and grass, most likely) meetings between the two players are quicker, clay court matches are slower.

It will be interesting to see if future matches between the two, especially on clay, continue the Monte Carlo trend (which goes against the usual pattern of play) and become quicker than what we (and the players) are accustomed to.

What other statistics and information would you like to see about those matches? Are there any more type of matches you'd like to see analyzed that way? Questions and comments will be very much welcomed. 

^ Methodology:

 Sources: I extracted the data of the Djokovic-Nadal head-to-head from Jeff Sackman's wonderful TennisAbstract website. The missing data for their lone Davis Cup meeting was manually filled in from the official match scorecard, which is available on the Davis Cup website.

Data: The ATP statistics include the overall match time (in hours and minutes), as well as the total number of points played during the match. For each match, I calculated ((match time in minutes)*60)/(total points) to get the average elapsed time per point, in seconds. The time measured by tennis officials includes changeovers, medical timeouts and various other stops in play, and therefore the time/point statistic does not reflect the actual time the ball is in play (especially since time between points, as we know, is somewhat volatile).

Graphic representation: Working with excel sucks. The X axis in the graphs is a category axis (and not a time axis), the points on it are equidistant and do not reflect the actual time between Nadal-Djokovic matches.

Raw data, in chronological order of the matches:

YrTourn.SurfaceWinFinal ScorePtsTimeTime/pt
06RGClayNad64 64 RET1261:5454.29
07IWHardNad62 75 1161:3448.62
07MiamiHardDjo63 64 1191:3748.91
07RomeClayNad62 63 1131:4153.63
07RGClayNad75 64 621812:2849.06
07WimbGrassNad36 61 41 RET1321:4145.91
07CanadaHardDjo75 63 1321:5150.45
07WTFHardNad64 64 1251:4449.92
08IWHardDjo63 62 1011:2852.28
08HamburgClayNad75 26 622033:0354.09
08RGClayNad64 62 76(3)1982:4951.21
08QueenGrassNad76(6) 751722:1647.44
08CincyHardDjo61 75 1021:2650.59
08OGHardNad64 16 641602:1149.13
09DCClayNad64 64 611692:2852.54
09MCClayNad63 26 611742:4356.21
09RomeClayNad76(2) 621362:0354.26
09MadridClayNad36 76(5) 76(9)2454:0359.51
09CincyHardDjo61 64 1111:3249.73
09ParisHardDjo62 63 881:1752.50
09WTFHardDjo76(5) 631441:5849.17
10USOHardNad64 57 64 622553:4352.47
10WTFHardNad75 62 1231:5254.63
11IWHardDjo46 63 621582:2655.44
11MiamiHardDjo46 63 76(4)2053:2259.12
11MadridClayDjo75 64 1332:1862.26
11RomeClayDjo64 64 1302:1361.38
11WimbGrassDjo64 61 16 631772:2850.17
11USOHardDjo62 64 67(3) 612684:1055.97
12AOHardDjo57 64 62 67(5) 753695:5357.40
12MCClayNad63 61 861:1955.12
12RomeClayNad75 63 1432:2159.16
12RGClayNad64 63 26 752413:4957.01
13MCClayDjo62 76(1)1391:5248.35
YrTourn.SurfaceWinFinal ScorePtsTimeTime/pt
Average1612:2353.17
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