Using tennis rankings to predict performance in upcoming tournaments

Abstract

We show how to use ATP and WTA rankings to estimate the probability that a player with a certain ranking advances to a specific round (for instance, the quarterfinals) in an upcoming tournament. We use the results from Grand Slam and Olympic tournaments in the period 2004 – 2014. Pooling the data, which is justified according to our tests, allows us to compute probabilities with relatively small confidence intervals. For instance, the probability of a top 4 tennis player to reach the quarterfinals is 0.722 with a 95% confidenceinterval of (0.669; 0.771). This study was motivated by a request from the Dutch Olympic Committee (NOC*NSF).Based on our results, NOC*NSF decides which Dutch single tennis players to invite to participate at the 2016 Olympic Games of Rio de Janeiro