Federer's Reactions on Serve

In this stats article I want to discover Roger Federer's reaction on his serve after a couple of different events. For instance, is he serving better the next point right after an ace or a service winner? How does he cope with a double faults? Is he less effective on his serve after a rally over 8 shots? Is there any situations where he becomes more aggressive or defensive?

To realize this stats study, I took from my database all the matches I had from Roger Federer on hard court from 2013 to 2018. In total, I found 628 points that occurred right after the following events:

1. Roger Federer served an ace

2. Roger Federer served a service winner

3. Roger Federer served a double fault

4. Roger Federer played a rally over 8 shots

But before going any deeper in that analysis, what is your point of view? Please take a couple of minutes to think about it. What do you think is the impact of the previous points on Roger Federer's serve? Before making that analysis, I would have said that an ace would have had a more positive impact on the next point than a service winner. I would have thought that after a rally over 8 shots, the serve effectiveness would decrease and as a consequence Roger Federer would have won less points. About the double faults, I had no clue... On recreational players, I think it would be negative but on Roger Federer I didn't really know. The Swiss could frustrate himself or have a positive reaction.

When we see the results, we can say that first of all the differences between Roger Federer's average points won on hard court and right after a service winner, an ace or a rally over 8 shots are almost similars. 71% of points won is his general percentage on hard court and he gets 70% after a service winner or an ace and 69% after a rally over 8 shots. These results are 1-2% below his normal score. For the aces & service winners we can conclude that these shots are so much part of in his game style (dominated statistically by the serve) that they don't have any positive or negative consequences on the next point. However, as I said earlier I was expecting a bigger difference after a rally over 8 shots. Half of the biggest servers on the ATP tour are influenced in a negative way by the long rallies on their serve but it seems not really the case of Mister Federer.

The most astonishing result is the ratio of points won right after a double fault. In that study, Roger Federer won 78% of his points right after a double fault and it means that his reaction was as strong as effective. A double fault could have easily affected his concentration or mood but it had the opposite effect. In Roger Federer's case I would call that the "pride of a genuine champion". It's not how many times you get knocked down that count, it's how many times you get back up.

Roger Federer increases his first serve percentage of 3% after a service winner. As we will see later, the ratio of aces/service winners will also be slightly better than his normal average on hard court. As a consequence, we can conclude that when he has a good timing on serve he can ride on it for the next point. Otherwise, the results after an ace or a rally over 8 shots are almost the same (60%/61%). But we can clearly see that right after a double fault, Roger Federer directly wants to hurt back his rivals and he takes more risks on his first serve than usual. This explains a first serve percentage of 54%.

The ratio of aces/service winners right after a service winner or an ace is almost the same (between 47% to 49%). However, after a rally of 8 shots, the serve effectiveness decreases of 5% and this is mainly explained by the long rally before. But as we saw in the first chart the ratio of points won after a rally over 8 shots is almost the same which means that Roger Federer counterbalances this lower first serve effectiveness by being slightly more effective from the back of the court.

After a double faults, Roger Federer takes more risks on first serve and as we could see that the first serve percentage decreased of 6%. Nonetheless, the ratio of aces/service winners increases of 8%. Roger Federer's mind set after a double fault is "I gave you a free point, I will take it back right away!".

This last chart shows how offensive Roger Federer is after all these kind of situations. We can clearly see that after a rally over 8 shots and a double faults, he came in 7% to 13% more. I like the reaction after a rally over 8 shots where the Swiss directly wants to shorten things up by charging more often the net. He is the boss on court, we play tennis according to his rules and the GOAT doesn't like to extend the baseline rallies. After a double faults, Roger Federer wants to be back in charge as soon as possible and this goes by moving forward much more.

I must admit that I am disappointed by the consequence of an ace. I was expecting much more than that. When we check the results, this is as if nothing special happen for Roger Federer. The percentage of points won, of first serve & the ratio of aces/service winners right after is almost the same as usual. Then, when it came to the percentage of points won at the net, Mister Federer even moved forward less than usual. The most positive things that happened after an ace for the Swiss is that the rivals want to counterbalance this free points by taking more risks on his second serve and as a result they made much more return errors... Nothing really amazing unfortunately!

I hope you liked my little analysis and feel free to contact me if any topic interest you. I might take it into account and realize the stats report of your life... ahahah