Posted by Abigail Lorge, TENNIS.com
When it comes to statistics, I'm no Nate Silver (although I did waste far too much time on Silver's FiveThirtyEight.com last year in the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election). But with the second major of the season looming, I'd like to play my own tennis-centric version of my favorite PTI game, "Oddsmakers."
Chances Serena Williams will win the Grand Slam this year: Although she has temporarily ceded the No. 1 ranking to Dinara Safina, Williams is the premier player in the women's game -- and she said as much in Rome on Monday, when she told reporters, "Quite frankly, I'm the best in the world." That comment struck me not as arrogant but as a statement of the obvious. It's been 10 years since she won her first major as a 17-year-old, and in that decade she has amassed a total of 10 Grand Slam singles titles -- a number that puts her seventh on the all-time list. Her most recent major triumph came at the Australian Open in January. From the closing of the roof for extreme heat midway through her quarterfinal match against Svetlana Kuznetsova through the final, a comprehensive dismantling of Safina, Serena was dominant. Her resounding victory in Melbourne accordingly instigated chatter about whether she could become the fourth woman in history to win the calendar-year Grand Slam.
The French Open is Serena's biggest obstacle in her pursuit of one of the most extraordinary achievements in sports. Only one of her 10 major titles came on the clay of Roland Garros -- in 2002, when she kicked off her "Serena Slam" string of four straight major titles (each at the expense of her sister Venus in the final). I put Serena's chances of winning seven straight matches on the terre battue higher than any other woman's -- 40 percent. And if she wins in Paris and finds herself halfway to the Grand Slam, I think her already formidable competitiveness will go up a notch, and so, therefore, will her chances at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. Venus, a five-time champion at the All England Club, should be the favorite there, so I think Serena's Wimbledon chances are, optimistically, 45 percent (giving Venus a 50 percent chance and the rest of the field a 5 percent chance). Serena's chance to defend her title at the U.S. Open? Call it 75 percent.
So Serena's chances of winning the Grand Slam in 2009: 13.5 percent.
Chances Rafael Nadal will drop a set at Roland Garros: The fact that this is up for discussion indicates that the world No. 1 is as close to a sure thing as any player can be at any major. It's hard to envision the prohibitive favorite losing a five-setter on his best surface unless he gets hurt or sick. This year, Nadal has won 34 of the 35 sets he has played on clay. (Novak Djokovic took the middle set from the Spaniard in the Monaco final and pushed him to a first-set tiebreaker in the final last weekend in Rome.) Nadal lost zero sets -- and only 41 games -- in winning his fourth straight French Open last year (a run that was capped by a 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 embarrassment of Roger Federer).
It's even money that he'll go 21-for-21 again this year: 50 percent.
Chances Nadal will win the Grand Slam: OK, so let's assume Nadal won't roll an ankle or contract swine flu. And let's suppose he doesn't succumb to Federer, still in dogged pursuit of the one major title he lacks, or one of the other "contenders" (a generous designation for any other player in a clay tournament field that contains Nadal). If you give Nadal an 85 percent chance of staying on his feet and winning the French, what are the odds that he'll become the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to win the Grand Slam? Certainly lower than Serena's. If Serena wins at Roland Garros, watch out. But the road gets much tougher for Nadal once the tour moves off clay. Even if he is favored to defend his Wimbledon title, it's hard to give him a higher than 1-in-3 chance there. And although he'll be less tired going into the 2009 U.S. Open than he was last year, given that he won't be traveling to China in August for the Olympics, he has never made it past the semis in Flushing Meadows. His fourth-round match there could be tougher for him to win than the Roland Garros final.
Nadal's chances of winning the Grand Slam this year: 7 percent.
Chances a dark horse will win the French Open: Roland Garros has produced several one-hit wonders. Michael Chang was seeded 15th when he won his only major there in 1989, and Iva Majoli, the 1997 women's champ as a No. 9 seed, is a memorable champion only because the rest of her career was so forgettable (and because she kept finalist Martina Hingis from the Grand Slam; Hingis won the other three majors that year). The chances that a player seeded outside the top eight, my (arbitrary) definition of dark horse, will win this year are slim on the women's side and microscopic on the men's. In the women's draw, there's a chance a player such as Victoria Azarenka (the Key Biscayne champion) or Caroline Wozniacki (a finalist on the clay of Charleston) or veteran Nadia Petrova (twice a Grand Slam semifinalist) could take the title -- call it 10 percent. On the men's side, I'm offering just a 15 percent chance that Nadal doesn't win and a 3 percent chance that the winner isn't currently in the top eight.
Chances for a dark horse champion: 13 percent.
Chances a French player will make the final four: The locals would love to have a homegrown hero to cheer for in the semifinals. That hasn't happened on the women's side since 2005, when pseudo-Frenchwoman Mary Pierce, a lifelong Florida resident, was annihilated in the final by French-speaking Belgian Justine Henin. (Pierce, the 2000 champion, is the last French player to win Roland Garros.) This year, there's about a 15 percent chance that a Frenchwoman -- two-time major champion Amelie Mauresmo, 2007 Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli or teenager Alize Cornet -- will go on a five-match winning streak. Prospects are twice as bright on the men's side, as Gael Monfils was a semifinalist last year. Top 10 players Gilles Simon and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and talented but perennially underachieving Richard Gasquet also could make a run deep into the second week.
Chances for a French semifinalist: 40 percent.
Chances the Celtics will advance against the Magic: OK, this might not be a Roland Garros-related issue, but I can justify a quick reference to the thrilling first-round series between Boston and Chicago on the basis of Bulls forward Joakim Noah's tennis pedigree: He's the son of the last Frenchman to win at Roland Garros, Yannick Noah. Joakim's steal and emphatic dunk this past Thursday night sealed Chicago's Game 6 victory and (temporarily) broke my green-bleeding heart. The Celtics rebounded to win Game 7 on Saturday against coach Vinny Del Negro (a dead ringer for actor Luke Wilson) and the Bulls. But after the sluggish C's dropped Game 1 against the Magic on Monday, their prospects for winning the Eastern Conference semifinals look low: 35 percent. So it's a good thing I have the French Open to look forward to.
