Stan Has The Plan When Times Get Tough
Stan Has The Plan When Times Get Tough
The 2019 resurrection of Stan Wawrinka has a fascinating sub-plot that provides an insight into how he halved his ATP Ranking and then halved it again this season.
An Infosys ATP Insights deep dive into Wawrinka’s journey back to the very top level of our sport identifies the Swiss was No. 68 in February of this year, and finished the season by storming northward all the way back up to No. 16.
Wawrinka held a career-high ATP Ranking of No. 3 as recently as July 2017, but two knee operations later in 2017 knocked his ranking all the way down to No. 263.
Wawrinka finished this year ranked 11th on the ATP Stats Serve LEADERBOARD, powered by Infosys Nia Data, which was considerably higher than 62nd place he finished on the ATP Stats Return LEADERBOARD, powered by Infosys Nia Data.
Players Of The Decade: Stan Wawrinka
So what did the Swiss do so well on the serving side of the equation? Buckle down when his service games were under threat. The following data set comes from the 2019 season and includes players who competed in 10-plus matches.
Serve Performance When Trailing In The Game
Wawrinka was ranked 11th overall on the ATP Stats Serve LEADERBOARD, powered by Infosys Nia Data, in 2019, but in four point-score situations where he was trailing in the game, he was ranked considerably higher than his season average.
2019 Season: Wawrinka Ranking Holding Serve / Per Point Score
|
Point Score |
Ranking |
Hold Percentage |
|
0/40 |
3rd |
37.0% |
|
0/30 |
4th |
58.8% |
|
15/40 |
5th |
41.6% |
|
0/15 |
9th |
75.4% |
Wawrinka’s serve performance elevated in the face of adversity, rising to the challenge at these specific point scores exactly the same way as he methodically improved his ranking back towards 2017 markers.
What’s interesting is that when Wawrinka was level in the point score, or ahead, his performance was solid, but not as good as when he was trailing in the point score compared to his peers.
2019 Season: Wawrinka Ranking Holding Serve / Per Point Score
|
Point Score |
Ranking |
Hold Percentage |
|
30/0 |
16th |
97.7% |
|
15/15 |
17th |
82.9% |
|
30/30 |
19th |
80.3% |
|
15/0 |
22nd |
91.8% |
Quite simply, Wawrinka performed better when serving under pressure in 2019, rising to the occasion as he rose up the ATP Rankings.
Wawrinka has an excellent opportunity to keep climbing up the rankings in the first quarter of 2020 as he won only two matches combined at the Australian Open, Indian Wells and Miami in 2019.
He does have to defend a final in Rotterdam (300 points) and a quarter-final in Acapulco (90 points), but don’t be surprised to the see the Swiss star break back into the Top 10 around the middle of the year.