Wimbledon: Men's Final

Yesterday, we blogged about our tennis measure of focus and mental toughness: Big Point Performance (BPP).  We used a similar approach for the Men's Final at Wimbledon -- which has Nadal facing Djokovic.

Djokovic has had a spectacular year, going 47-1 and has taken the #1 ranking in the world from Nadal -- who held that top spot for 56 weeks.  "Djoko" the Joker has the momentum AND the confidence on his side.  This should be a great match, with new #1 -- facing Nadal, an all-time great -- who will be gunning for Djokovic.

We were a bit surprised to see Nadal outperform Djokovic during their respective quarterfinal and semifinal matches -- in terms of Big Point Performance (BPP).  Thus, our "quant fact" stat will go with Nadal to add to his list of Grand Slam titles -- but other sport psychology factors such as confidence and momentum go to Djoko.  As a result there is no "quant fact" prediction for the Men's Final.  Enjoy the match!

Wimbledon: Ladies' Final

The 2011 Wimbledon Ladies' Final pits popular Maria Sharapova against relatively unknown, Petra Kvitova.  Sharapova is the #5 seed at Wimbledon while Kvitova is #8.  Kvitova has been rising steadily and rapidly in the world rankings.  Sharapova is a slight favorite to win the Championship, and our "Big Point Performance" favors Sharapova as well.

In previous tennis blog posts, and in our book, we devised a measure to study a player's recent performance on Big Points.  This measure of focus and mental toughness looks at break point conversions -- often the key to winning tennis matches.  Our Big Point Performance (BPP), gives the nod to Maria Sharapova to win another Wimbledon title, because she outperformed Kvitova in this stat during their quarterfinal and semifinal matches.  (This selection will count as part of our book's blog's "quant fact" prediction.)