What statistics can tell us about strategy in tennis

Abstract

In this paper we analyse tiebreak results from some tennis players in order to investigate whether we are able to identify a non-aleatory distribution of the points in this crucial moment of the game. We compared the observed results with a binomial distribution considering that the probabilities of winning or losing a point are equal. Using a χ2 test we found that, excepting some players, the greatest part of the results agrees with our hypothesis that the points in tiebreaks are merely aleatory.