Court conditions, black magic, and rigging it for Andy Murray and Laura Robson. These are the best explanations I have so far for Wednesday’s carnage at Wimbledon, the most upset-filled day at a Slam in the Open era. Nadal was the canary in the mine on day 1; roughly half the seeds were gone within the first two rounds on both the men’s and the women’s side, including five of the top 11 men and eight of the top 13 women.
Wimbledon 2013, updated Week 2 forecast: Murray, Williams emerge as favorites
Upsets rocked Wimbledon in the first week of play. How have they affected the odds for the surviving players?
USA TODAY Sports
The original forecasts are pretty wrecked at this point. To be fair, most other forecasts are wrecked too, so it’s not like Advanced Baseline was the only one that got a lot of it wrong. I’ll probably have an entirely separate post looking at all the potential reasons why, but for now I have to live with the shame of knowing RedFoo is better at this than I am.
To all the people that lol'd me when I said @Stako_tennis has the perfect game for grass. Who's laughing now b*%#hes! Go Sergiy!
— RedFoo (@RedFoo) June 26, 2013
Below are updated forecast tables for both the men’s and women’s draw:
Men
| Player | Quarterfinals | Semifinals | Finals | Winner |
| Andy Murray | 85.6% | 77.4% | 73.6% | 44.2% |
| Novak Djokovic | 75.2% | 58.9% | 43.8% | 27.9% |
| David Ferrer | 86.9% | 50.8% | 20.0% | 8.7% |
| Juan Martin del Potro | 79.2% | 41.6% | 15.2% | 6.1% |
| Tomas Berdych | 77.7% | 24.4% | 12.2% | 5.8% |
| Tommy Haas | 24.8% | 14.2% | 7.2% | 2.9% |
| Fernando Verdasco | 78.3% | 12.6% | 8.8% | 1.6% |
| Mikhail Youzhny | 14.4% | 8.9% | 6.7% | 1.6% |
| Jerzy Janowicz | 55.3% | 38.7% | 5.1% | 0.6% |
| Jurgen Melzer | 44.7% | 29.5% | 3.3% | 0.3% |
| Andreas Seppi | 20.8% | 5.3% | 0.8% | 0.1% |
| Bernard Tomic | 22.3% | 2.6% | 0.5% | 0.1% |
| Lukasz Kubot | 55.5% | 18.2% | 1.1% | 0.0% |
| Adrian Mannarino | 44.5% | 13.6% | 1.0% | 0.0% |
| Ivan Dodig | 13.1% | 2.3% | 0.3% | 0.0% |
| Kenny de Schepper | 21.7% | 1.1% | 0.4% | 0.0% |
Murray’s higher odds are mostly due to his remaining draw being orders of magnitude easier than Djokovic’s. Regarding the bit of mystery left for Murray’s most likely semifinal matchup: Lots of people are already penciling in Janowicz being the only remaining seed left, but AB ranks Jurgen Melzer fairly well on grass. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if Janowicz loses on Monday.
Women
| Player | Quarterfinals | Semifinals | Finals | Winner |
| Serena Williams | 87.8% | 79.4% | 65.6% | 59.9% |
| Agnieszka Radwanska | 81.7% | 46.5% | 13.7% | 9.6% |
| Petra Kvitova | 66.5% | 44.6% | 27.9% | 6.4% |
| Na Li | 62.7% | 33.7% | 8.9% | 5.9% |
| Marion Bartoli | 77.7% | 49.0% | 26.8% | 5.1% |
| Kaia Kanepi | 64.8% | 9.9% | 4.1% | 2.4% |
| Sloane Stephens | 69.0% | 34.1% | 15.9% | 2.3% |
| Kirsten Flipkens | 60.3% | 25.5% | 12.1% | 1.9% |
| Roberta Vinci | 37.3% | 15.6% | 3.4% | 1.9% |
| Sabine Lisicki | 12.2% | 7.0% | 2.9% | 1.7% |
| Carla Suarez Navarro | 33.5% | 17.2% | 8.1% | 1.3% |
| Flavia Pennetta | 39.7% | 12.7% | 4.8% | 0.6% |
| Laura Robson | 35.2% | 3.7% | 1.0% | 0.4% |
| Monica Puig | 31.0% | 9.7% | 2.8% | 0.3% |
| Tsvetana Pironkova | 18.3% | 4.2% | 0.4% | 0.2% |
| Karin Knapp | 22.3% | 7.3% | 1.7% | 0.1% |
I had to triple-count the numbers when I saw how little Serena’s odds actually moved with Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova both gone; a sixty percent chance of winning seemed awfully low.
I’m a little more okay with the general message of the numbers, however, after thinking it through. They’re basically saying Serena’s skill is high enough that her win odds are completely insensitive to the quality of the field and only depend on her ability to not screw up. A sixty percent chance to win the tournament is still an average of 88 percent to win each remaining match; how much higher a boost should she really get? If there’s one thing to remember from this Wimbledon, it’s that upsets really do happen and still need to get priced in, so I’m happy to lean on the side of caution.
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