Visualizations of Day 9 at the 2016 U.S. Open

07 Sep 2016

Day 9 brought us the first half of the quarterfinals of the 2016 U.S. Open. It was a day when the favorites were in top-form, closing out all of their matches in swift fashion. Here we review how both the two women’s and two men’s quarterfinal matches of the day were won.

Wozniacki Shines

With just a 59% chance of winning the match, Caroline Wozniacki was the lowest probability favorite of the day. Unfortunately, her opponent Anastasjia Sevastova suffered an injury during the match that clearly made it an imbalanced contest (reminding us of the injury Ana Konjuh had at Wimbledon this year and her victorious rematch yesterday). We can see from the match chart below that it was really over by the second game of the second set, giving Wozniacki, World No. 74, her ticket to the semifinals.

Kerber Cruises

Taking on 2015 U.S. Open finalist Roberta Vinci, Angelique Kerber looked unbeatable. After a tough first set, in which the women had 7 breaks of service, Kerber played a second set that could even give Serena Williams reservations about a clash in the finals. In fact, after the first game of the second set, Kerber’s chances of winning the match were at 95% and never wavered from there on out.

Monfils Prevails

On a day when 3 Frenchmen were among 4 of the quarterfinalists, at least one would have to end his U.S. Open journey. Monfils was in the unlucky position of having to take on his countrymen, Lucas Pouille, to fight for a place in the semifinal. Pouille, a tennis foot soldier, had a miraculous run at the Open, winning 3 consecutive 5-set matches, the most recent being a win over Rafael Nadal.

Monfils wasn’t about to let him be the fourth to fall to Pouille.

Monfils went into the match the 71% favorite. After earning a break in the 7th game, Monfils raised those chances even more. By the start of the second set, with one set of the board, Monfils’ win chances were approaching 90% and he never looked back. Without a single break point chance in the whole match, Pouille’s wasn’t going to make a comeback this time.

Djokovic Gets Another Break

The most ridiculous match chart of the day has to go to Novak Djokovic. Even though Djokovic faced World No. 11, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in his quarterfinal match, he still had a pre-match probability of taking the win of 92%. With that kind of edge, Djokovic could afford to lose a break in the first set and still have his win chances hardly falter.

When Tsonga appeared to have a knee injury at the end of the second, he soon retired and fans didn’t get a chance to see Djokovic carry out his probabilistic destiny. This is Djokovic’s third incomplete match in the tournament, giving him an incomprehensibly easy path to a final win.

Djokovic has only played 84 games to get to the semifinals. This is the fewest number of games any male semifinalist has every played at the US Open since 1990. In fact, the next fewest games played to reach the semifinalist was Djokovic himself in his invincible 2011 when he needed just 112 games to reach the semifinal.

If you liked this story, share it with your followers or follow this site @StatsOnTheT on Twitter.