The stats that show that Zverev is the best in Miami – so far

He’s not the one who’s drawn the most attention, nor the one who has impressed the most since the start of the tournament. But the numbers tell a different story: Alexander Zverev is indeed, so far, the best player at the Miami Masters 1,000, according to TennisViz (with figures collected by Tennis Data Innovations), one of ATP’s main statistical collaborators.

To establish its benchmark “shot quality” index, which you can sometimes see on the television screen, TennisViz has created a clever algorithm combining the speed, spin, depth and height of shots in the four main areas of the game (serve, return, forehand and backhand), which it then uses to rate them on a scale of up to 10.

Adding up his average scores since the start of the tournament, Zverev achieves a total score of 33.7, ahead of, in order, Jannik Sinner (33), Daniil Medvedev (32.9) and Grigor Dimitrov (31.4). Dimitrov is the lowest of the four semi-finalists, but if we take into account only his quarter-final performance against Carlos Alcaraz, the Bulgarian scores 34.4, which would put him on top.

Zverev best serve and backhand, Medvedev best return, Sinner best forehand

In detail, the German does the best – and this will come as no surprise – with his service (9) and backhand (8.7), two areas in which he leads the field. Daniil Medvedev is the best on returns (8.5) and Jannik Sinner the best on forehands (8.9). Of course, neither of this is a big surprise either.

Of course, all these statistics are no indication of what’s to come in the semi-finals. In fact, the term “best player” that we attributed to Zverev at the start of this article is a bit of a misnomer. It would be more accurate to say that he is the player who has produced the best quality shots since the start of the tournament, bearing in mind that the quality of these shots is directly dependent on that of his opponent.

It’s now up to Dimitrov, with the skills he has, to derail the fine German machine whose engine, so far, is running at full throttle.

You might also like this

“Perfect” tennis by Dimitrov makes Alcaraz feel “13 years old”

tennis majors

Zverev and other top players trying to figure out how to stop Sinner

tennis majors

Heading into rematch with Sinner, Medvedev vows to think positively about Melbourne heartbreak

tennis majors