With Wimbledon 2023 in full swing, let’s look at Math in Sports: Tennis and Mathematics. Tennis fans of the last decade are experiencing the game at a particular time. All-time greats, like Roger Federer, Djokovic, Venus, and Serena Williams have been dominating the game in front of our eyes. Stats are a powerful tool for predicting wins and measuring greatness. Join Spark Math by Spark Education, as we look at the numbers behind the greatest tennis players in the game’s history.
Serena Williams by the Numbers
In celebration of the WTA agreeing to pay professional women tennis players the same as male players, let’s take a look at the stats of one of the greatest women to ever pick up a racket: Serena Williams.
$94,816,730 in prize winnings
858-156 Career Wins and Losses
367 Career Wins (All-Time Leader for Women)
23 Grand Slam Singles titles (The record)
14 Doubles Titles (With her sister Venus)
5 WTA Championships
4 Olympic Gold Metals
Sports Math Pop Quiz!
What is Serena’s career win rate?
Hint: Winrate can be calculated by dividing her total wins by the total number of games played.
How much prize money on average did Serena earn per win?
Hint: Look at her total earnings and her total wins.
Break Point Percentage
In crunch time, break points can turn the tide and win matches. A break point occurs when the returning player can win the game by winning the next point. Being the returning player is inherently more difficult in tennis and the greats all excel at securing break points. To emphasize the difficulty of securing a break point, we will look at the break point percentage of 3 of the best men’s tennis players of all time.
Rafael Nadal has a 44.95% break point conversion rate, which is the 2nd highest ever. Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic rates are 44.10% and 44.27% respectively. That means that 3 of the best players lost over half of their break points!
How do we calculate break point percentage
We need to know how many points the player has converted and the total points. From there we will divide the points converted by the total points.
Break Points Converted/Total Points= Break Point Percentage
Try to calculate Andy Murray’s break point percentage.
Andy Murray’s Total Points=8251
Andy Murray’s Break Points Won= 3547
What is his break point percentage?
Average Serve Speed
Average serve speed isn’t necessarily a predictor for wins and losses, but it is a fun stat to look at. Fun fact: Sam Groth has the fastest recorded non-outlier serve in competition at 147 mph. Let’s work on calculating the average serve speed of your child’s favorite tennis player.
For finding an average we need to know Addition and Division
- Add together the serve speed for all the instances you want to take an average of
- Take the sum of that average and divide it by the number of serves.
Example:
Serve 1: 103
Serve 2: 99
Serve 3: 109
Serve 4: 102
Serve 5: 105
103+99+109+102+105=518
518/5=103.6mph
Serve up an Ace with Spark Math!
While you enjoy Wimbledon 2023 and the rest of the awesome tennis matches upcoming, now you and your kids will have some insights on the pros. If you find them itching for more fun math subjects and math games, check out Spark Math. We have classes for students of all skill levels from Pre-K to 6th grade
Looking for more information about math in sports? Check out our blog all about Math and Baseball!
From math students looking for a challenge, to those who want to find a way to become a math all-star, Spark Math is there for your family. Check out our Spark Math blog for great news and activities the whole family can enjoy. Looking for a weekly online class filled with learning activities, gamified learning, and all led by real experienced math teachers? Sign up to try a free demo class today! Looking for more great resources, blogs, and activities from Spark Math for the summer? Check out our Pinterest Page!
