Season review: Women’s World Tour
The 2019-2020 season will always come with a COVID-shaped asterisk. But despite the forced truncation, the season just gone produced its fair share of intrigue, excitement and entertainment, from the Farag-ElShorbagy top-seed tussle to El Hammamy’s statement of intent in Cairo. In this piece, Cross Court reviews some of the numbers underpinning the women’s season on the PSA World Tour.
It comes as a surprise to many that winning a little over half of points played is plenty to make you one of the best players around. English Number 1 Sarah-Jane Perry, for instance, won 53.0% of the points she played in 2019-2020. Kiwi ace Joelle King won 52.6%. Raneem El Welily, World Number 1 until her retirement in June, won ‘just’ 58.4% of the points she played last year. Leading the way in this performance metric was Nouran Gohar, who won 59.4% of points she contested during 2019-20. The figures may appear low on first glance, but are put into perspective when considering that winning 55% of points would be enough to see you take each game by an average of 11-9.
It is noteworthy that the highest ranked women won a higher percentage of points than the men. Paul Coll (57.6%) and Ali Farag (57.4%) led the way for the men last year, two percentage points down on Gohar; Coll and Farag’s figures would only have seen them ranked 5th on the women’s leaderboard. The difference between 59% and 56% is small in absolute terms, but a chasm when considering that the room for manoeuvre is probably only the percentage points between 50% and 60% – winning more than 60% of points is unattainable over an extended period, and winning fewer than half of points, though not a guarantee of losing a one-off match, is clearly not a winning formula. The discrepancy between the men’s and women’s games here points to two phenomena: just how dominant the players at the top of women’s game are compared with the chasing pack, alongside the current strength in depth in the men’s game.
Another way to think about dominance on a point by point basis is to consider points difference per game. The players at the top of the women’s game won games by an average of ~3 points (i.e. 11-8) last season, from #4 Camille Serme’s +2.9 to #1 by this metric Gohar (+3.3). But you don’t have to look far down the leaderboard to see players typically play out much closer contests.
On her breakthrough year, Hania El Hammamy won games by an average of +1.5 points, while Joelle King won games by +0.9 points on average. The points data do not take into consideration when each point was won, and must be taken with a pinch of salt – not least because winning a game 11-10 is clearly not possible – but they are a nod towards the relative ease with which players tended to progress through games and matches.
Contrasting points won and conceded per game, the usual suspects cluster near the top of the chart below. A notable absentee is English #1 Sarah-Jane Perry, who, despite winning points (9.9 per game) at similar rate to the best of the best, conceded points (8.7 per game) at a much higher rate than her world ranking of #5 would suggest: for Perry to move up the rankings, it would appear she should focus not on scoring more points, but on conceding fewer. Crashing the top-table clique, on the other hand, was rising star Jessica Hutton, underscoring in numbers her season to remember on the Challenger Tour.
Nathan Lake and Patrick Rooney deserve special mention for their excellent seasons on the PSA Challenger Tour
A player of particular interest on this scatter plot is American Amanda Sobhy. Sobhy is known on Tour for her attacking playing style, stretching the margins above the tin, accepting the risk of unforced errors for the increased chance of an outright winner. Such a gung ho playing style would seem to lend itself to a high number of points both won and conceded, with a corresponding place towards the bottom right of the chart. Sobhy’s data, though, places her towards the top left of the chart, conceding and winning points at a lower rate than most. This is probably explained by the fact that her shoot-out playing style can go one of two ways, producing comfortable victories when things ‘click’ – such as those against Olivia Blatchford-Clyne and Nele Gilis prior to lockdown – but resulting in one-sided defeats – like her loss against Camille Serme in October’s US Open – when the margins go the wrong way.
This metric also illuminates how Nouran Gohar came by her season-topping points metrics – despite winning points at the same rate as many of the top players (10.3), she is head and shoulders above the pack in (lack of) points conceded (7.1).
The final metric to consider is the efficiency with which the top women’s players turned their points into games and games into victories. All players in the top 10 – and in fact all players in general – won approximately the same percentage of points on Tour last season, with highest ranking Gohar (59.4%) fewer than seven percentage points higher than lowest ranked King (52.6%). But, as shown in the chart below, the same number of points won by no means equates to the same number of games won.
While King converted 52.6% of points won into 56.1% of games won, Perry converted the comparable 53.0% of points into 64.5% of games won, over eight percentage points higher from the same start-point, propelling her from 9th on the points won metric to 6th in conversion rate. El Welily’s figures are more impressive yet, turning 58.4% of points won into a staggering 78.0% of games won. Fellow Egyptians Nour El Sherbini (90.5%) and Nouran Gohar (86.2%) were in a class of their own when comparing the matches won metric, with La Panthere Camille Serme (80.7%) the only other player to breach the 80% mark.
Further consideration is warranted by the unusual numbers generated by Hania El Hammamy and Tesni Evans. El Hammamy was the only player to have a better game:match conversion rate than point:game, and is testament to the youngster’s ability to find her way through tight matches. Evans, on the other hand, won a smaller percentage of matches (66.7%) last season than she did games (69.6%). The only top 10 player from either the women’s or men’s side to do so, this anomaly is most likely explained by Evans’ particularly short season (15 matches) and her easy progression through lower ranking tournaments.
Courts are gradually opening up across the globe, as amateurs test out “sides” and the pros get back into shape. The announcement of the tour restart in September has been welcomed by many keen to see the best of the best back on court, as the tapping of living-room racquet skills are swapped for the thudding of court sprints. The unfolding narratives of 2019-20 are still waiting to be told; but with fears of a resurgent virus swirling, here’s hoping the story book stays open long enough for the tales to be written.