Okay, so I’ve been messing around with trying to predict tennis matches, specifically focusing on Reilly Opelka. It’s been a wild ride, let me tell you!
I started by just, you know, watching a bunch of his matches. I figured if I watched enough, I’d start to see patterns, get a feel for his game, his strengths, his weaknesses. I devoured matches on YouTube, Tennis TV, whatever I could find. I scribbled down notes like a madman – first serve percentage, break points won, unforced errors, the whole nine yards.
Diving into the Data
After a while, just watching wasn’t enough. I needed numbers, cold, hard data. So I started digging around online for stats. There are a few sites out there that track this kind of stuff, and I spent hours, seriously, hours, copying and pasting data into spreadsheets.
- First serve percentage
- Aces
- Double faults
- Winners
- Unforced errors
- Break points saved/converted
- And a ton more…
My spreadsheets got HUGE. Like, ridiculously massive. I started color-coding things, trying to make sense of it all. I looked at his performance on different surfaces (hard, clay, grass), against different opponents, in different tournaments. I was trying to find anything, any little detail, that would give me an edge.
Building a “Model” (Kind Of)
I’m no data scientist, not even close. But I started playing around with simple formulas in the spreadsheet. Things like, “If his first serve percentage is above X, he wins Y% of the time.” Or, “Against players ranked lower than Z, he wins this often.” It was super basic, but it was something.
I tested my “model” (I use that term loosely) by looking at past matches. I’d plug in the stats leading up to the match and see if my formulas predicted the right outcome. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it was way off. It was frustrating, but also kind of exciting, like I was slowly cracking a code.
Still Working On It
Honestly, I’m still in the thick of it. I haven’t magically become a tennis prediction wizard. My “model” is still pretty crude, and there are so many factors I haven’t even touched yet – like his opponent’s form, head-to-head records, even the weather!
It is still in process, but I have successfully predicted the correct result.
But I’m learning a ton, and it’s been a really fun project. It’s made me appreciate the complexity of the game even more, and I’m definitely more invested in watching Opelka’s matches now. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll actually be able to predict his matches with some decent accuracy. For now, though, it’s back to the spreadsheets!
