Analyzing Wimbledon (2014)

The game of tennis raises many challenging questions to a statistician. Is it true that serving first in a set gives an advantage? Or serving with new balls? Is the seventh game in a set particularly important? Are top players more ‘stable’ than other players? Do real champions win the big points? These, and many other questions, are formulated as ‘hypotheses’ and tested statistically. This book discusses how the outcome of a match can be predicted (even while the match is in progress), which points are important and which are not, how to choose an optimal service strategy, and whether a ‘winning mood’ actually exists in tennis. Aimed at readers with some knowledge of mathematics and statistics, the book uses tennis (Wimbledon in particular) as a vehicle to illustrate the power and beauty of statistical reasoning.