Tennis Data Visualization

If you have not noticed by now, those three words describe my three favorite things. As I come across other people’s efforts, I will post them here as an archive not just for myself but for other fellow tennis enthusiasts! If you have done some fantastic work in tennis data visualization, respond and send me a link! Enjoy!

FiveThirtyEight

The hub of visual storytelling with some of my favorite stories and my original inspirations. I will just continue a list of my favorite articles but feel free to just search “tennis” on their website.

Women Get Equal Pay, But Not Equal Billing, At Wimbledon

Why Some Tennis Matches Take Forever

Late 20s Are The New Early 20s For Tennis Breakthroughs

Tennis Has An Income Inequality Problem

As U.S. Tennis Power Fell, Spanish Men And Czech Women Were Rising

Why Tennis Players Don't Take More Risks On Second Serves

U.S. Women Are Stronger In The Tennis World Than U.S. Men

Financial Times

• The Greatest Men’s Players Ever: Great interactive visualization allows you to compare male tennis players by cumulative win percentage vs. age
• Nadal and Federer: Two Paths to Greatness: The beginning explains the chart and applies it to Top 10, 50, 100, and 500. Then it dives into Nadal and Federer’s distribution. It also gives you perspective on where Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray lie in comparison. The very last page is interactive and allows you to see the top 50 if you hover over each data point. It gives perspective on player’s dominance and nature under pressure. Extremely comprehensive analysis and somewhat of a time sink if you are a data nerd like me!
• Surface Tension in Tennis: Serve v Return for Top 100 on different surfaces.

Other

Stephanie Kovalchik’s blog

Serena Williams' Only Obstacle to a Calendar Slam is Herself

“Are Women Professional Tennis Players Really Less Consistent Than Male Players?” — No. It has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with match format. The actual paper is not out yet but I will be certain to look for it. This is not Dr. Stephanie Kovalchik’s only work in tennis. She has also looked at Trends in Singles Play Intensity on the ATP Tour and you can listen to her discoveries about age trends.

Jeff Sackmann’s blog

Heavy Topspin

Andrew Moss’s blog

Cleaning the lines

Tennis Visuals

Charles Allen’s progress on what could be a very powerful tool to visualize tennis data. I featured one aspect on A Visual History of Serena Williams at the very end.

Other

Men's tennis: How big are the Big Four?

Damien Saunder has done some fantastic work with Hawk-Eye data visualization. One of my favorite visuals is something I mentioned in Tennis Note 8 — Game Trees!

I really liked the way this visual was done. However, it is from a blog that has not updated a while.

RacketLogger allows you to explore different tennis string brands in an interactive graphic.

This is not a data visual but the interactive takes you through top player’s origin courts:

The Top Tennis Player in the World Started Here