By Chris Oddo | Friday, November 13, 2015

 

Novak Djokovic produced four winning streaks of ten matches or more in 2015, including a 28-match streak that lasted from March to June.

Photo Source: USTA

It's been a wild and crazy 2015 ATP season, and it isn't over yet. But since we had a long week waiting for the World Tour Finals, we'd figure we'd take a look at some numbers. Thanks to Tennis Abstract’s tremendous archive, we dug in and followed our curiosity, ending up with ten statistics that we thought you’d find entertaining.

Without any further ado:

1. Tiebreak King… Wawrinka?

John Isner actually won more tiebreaks than any other player (40), and Benoit Paire had the best winning percentage among the top-50 in breakers (9-3, .750), but we think Stan Wawrinka is the tiebreak king. He went 33-12 in breakers, and 7-1 vs. the Top-10. Marin Cilic, 26-9, was pretty impressive in breakers as well, but the Croat only played one breaker vs. the Top-10.

2. Novak’s Dominance vs. Top-10

Only one ATP won more than 70 percent of the sets he played against the Top-10, and that man, naturally, was Novak Djokovic. Djokovic won 65 sets and lost just 22 against the Top-10 (74.7 percent). Roger Federer was the only other ATP player to win more than 60 percent of sets vs. the Top-10. Federer went 27-15 (64.3 percent). Only two other players managed to win more than half of their sets vs. the top-10 (Wawrinka and Murray).

3. Take your time, Rafa

According to Tennis Abstract, Rafael Nadal took an average of 47 seconds between points. That number is the highest among the top-50, with Andy Murray (45) and Gilles Simon (43) the next two. What does it mean? Beats me.

4. Serve good, return bad

John Isner was the worst of the top-50 players at breaking serve. The American broke only 10.3 percent of the time in 2015. Ivo Karlovic (11), Milos Raonic and Gilles Muller (11.6) were next on that list.

5. Ivo’s Breakers

Speak of the devil, er, doctor, Karlovic played tiebreakers in 45.2 percent of all sets he played this year. That was tops among the ATP's top-50..

6. Novak Djokovic had the two longest winning streaks on tour this year, and four that lasted ten matches or more

Currently on a 22-match winning streak, Djokovic also holds the longest winning streak of the ATP season of 28 matches (March 7 to June 7). Novak also had two 11-match winning streaks this season.

7. Nadal at the big events

After going 83-11 in 2013 and 2014 combined at the Majors and Masters (88.3 winning pct), Rafael Nadal slipped to 24-10 (70.6) at those events this year. Which Nadal will we see next year at the big events? That question will likely be asked a lot between now and the 2016 Australian Open.

8. Stanimal at Slams

Only Novak Djokovic had a better record than Stan Wawrinka at the majors in 2015. Wawrinka went 21-3 with a title. Andy Murray actually had the third-highest winning percentage at the majors. He went 19-4 (82.6), which is just a tick better than Federer’s 18-4 (81.8).

9. Novak in the $$$

Novak Djokovic earned more than $10 million more than the ATP’s second highest-ranked prize money earner (Murray). Djokovic has earned $16,760,145. Murray brought home $6,486,230.

10. Ace Kings

Ivo Karlovic became the ATP’s all-time ace king when he passed Goran Ivanisevic and finished the season with 10,442 aces. But he was one of three players that reached the 1,000 aced mark. John Isner (1,262) and Kevin Anderson (1,074) also hit the 1K mark. But Ivo topped them all with 1,447.