Southwest Award Winners! - United States Professional Tennis ...

Aggressive Margin for you!page 14by Gerald Winder - Education ChairmanAggressive margin has been deemedthe most important stat in our sport.Have you ever heard of it? Not sureit is important? Maybe ask formerStanford Head Coach Dick Gouldwhat he may think, since it playedsuch a role in aiding his great playersover the years of his tenure. To myknowledge, he had a couple ofmanagers whose job was to chart,among other stats, the aggressive margin of his playersduring the pre-season practice matches and early seasonmatches. Then they would graph the aggressive margins ofeach of his players, knowing that if their scores wentprogressively up, then they were playing better and betterlevels of tennis, even if they lost any of those matches! Thus,by the time their “real” matches began, they were, hopefully,at peak playing levels while most opponents were still tryingto find themselves.In Martina Navratilova’s final Wimbledon singles title, shenot only had her matches charted for these stats, but also allof the opponents that she drew, so that she knew what shewas doing well, and what her opponent’s strengths/weaknesseswere, along with their aggressive margin scores. So,if this particular stat happens to be so important, why doyou not see it on TV when the stats are given? Well, whenIBM first got the ok to have the original COMPUTENNISprogram for themselves, they actually included the stat intheir first presentations during televised matches for aboutsix months. That was it! I don’t really know why it wasdropped as I have always felt if the playing public andprofessionals like ourselves understood it fully, the playingpublic would benefit more in understanding how to play oursport.Well, all that is nice history, but what exactly is this majorstat in our sport, and what does it actually tell you andwhere did I get it in the first place? Early in my career, Idecided to get as many certifications in as many areas oftennis as I could, one of them being COMPUTENNISitself. Back then, I was hired to chart quite a few matches oftournament level juniors, some college matches, some of myjuniors, and did a few televised matches just to understandthe sport from a different direction, in a way that professionalswho haven’t done this couldn’t do very easily, if atall. Now, the stat itself is derived by adding winners plusforced errors, and subtracting unforced errors. Let’s sayyou play ten matches and chart all of them, including ofcourse, the aggressive margin figure. As long as you have aprogressively higher AM score, then your level of tennis isgetting progressively better, even if you are losing thosematches. Conversely, if you are winning those matches, butgetting a progressively lower score, your game is goingdownhill! As an example, a truly special level match, suchas the Laver-Rosewall of years ago, or the Federer-NadalWimbledon final of a couple of years ago, would register ascore probably in the low 20’s for both players. AD-1college match with quality players might be in the upperteens as a score, and downward as levels become lower inour sport. Actually, you can register a negative AM. I knowthis first hand as, unfortunately, I had one once, honest, justonce! Not a great feeling, for sure. Also, it is not possibleto lose a match if your AM score was higher than youropponent.Of course, all the rest of match stats, such as servingpercentages, points won, forehand errors, backhand errors,etc., certainly have their place, but this article was focusingon the most important one that most teaching pros, perhaps,were not even aware of. For your information, during theAussie Open, IBM had produced a superb graphic of statson both players. It would be fairly customizable for someonereading this to enhance their knowledge on this subject,since most of us are visual learners. Hopefully, IBM willcontinue this effort during possibly Indian Wells or theFrench Open.There are several charting programs available now thatinclude using IPhone and several standalone versions thatyou can use to develop this knowledge. I do not know ifany spcifically include the AM per se, but of course youcould determine it for yourself. But, it was sweet in theoriginal program to have it printed out for both players rightbefore your eyes. I hope all this info has intrigued you todelving into these types of programs, as I feel it will broadenyour understanding of our sport, as it did for myself over theyears. For those reading this far, if you wish to know thepercentage of second serve points won in a match to giveyourself a chance to win, e-mail me and you will get itquickly! Any comments, plus or minus, may be sent tousptapro@msn.com. Have a great Spring!March 2011