There was some interesting results on Darks H2H thread recently. I have never really took much notice of them, as they can be misleading, taking into account each individual match between the players. Some matches one of the players could have been playing through injury, or at a time when one player was at top form, and the other just joined the tour etc.

One of my posts read:

So according to H2Hs, Mary Pierce appears to be better over 3 sets than her peers, which would suggest she is either mentally tougher, or fitter than them. In reality, that is probably not true (although i would argue the case for her ;) )

We all know the situation with the Graf/Durie H2H

GS2 pointed out:

Which would suggest Venus is much better than Justine and Serena :huh:

And of course how can Davenport only have beaten Maria once, when she has beaten her 6-0 6-0??????

Kournikova is 10-0 down against the Williamses, but 3-1 up against Capriati. Again that stat does not provide the whole picture.

Do you guys think H2Hs are worth anything?

Head to heads are becoming increasingly erratic and unreliable in the days where careers are shorter, fields are deeper and injuries are more plentiful.

However I believe head are interesting stats and they can be relevant. I wouldn't say necessarily important but certainly relevant.

The thing to look at first is the context of the head to head, this is what is indicative of it's relevance. Some head to heads are 'erroneous', but I do believe that for the most part they are useful.

To use Liam's and GS2's example of Henin, Serena and Venus:

Serena vs Henin 6-3 it's not surprising really, Serena is a better player than Henin so she leads the head to head, Justine is the more consisntent player on clay, so she has beaten Serena most of the times they have played on clay, Serena has beaten Justine whenever they have played on hard or grass. All pretty routine. With Venus and Justine, it is lopsided, but if you look at it, they haven't met since Justine has won a slam. Nevertheless, in general Venus is a better player. So overall Venus and Serena lead their head to heads with Justine, because they are both better than her.

Justine leads most of her head to heads with most of the tour because she is better than them. I think if you look at head to heads, 99% they will show you the right results about players' games matching up.

And to give an honourable mention to the Lindsay Sharapova head to head, it wouldn't seem half as strange if there wasn't a double bagel. Most of the times they have met Sharapova has been a slam champion or soon to be slam champion in her prime of life. Lindsay is basically playing a younger version of herself. Hardly surprising that Sharapova leads it 4-1. I think it would be a bit different if Sharapova had been playing 98-01.

As I said there are some discrepencies if you look hard enough, but largely in my experience head to heads do work. :)

I agree with SW, he says it all really....

*However I'd say Justine is better than Venus*


Also H2Hs are useful when trying to predict the ouytcome of matches as they can tell you whether somebody's game fits really well into another player's even if that player is better than them...

There's not much separating Serena and Venus really, so I couldn't say personally that Justine is the better player than either. But I respect your opinion though SG :)

I like your sig btw roflmao

Im keeping mine like this until Serena wins her next event :lol:

Good question, but really, they're just interesting statistics, the only H2H that's really reliable is Justine-Sveta :lol: Otherwise it's impossible to tell, I mean yes, it can tell you if a certain player matches up well with another, i.e. Lindsay and Amelie, but a player can lose a few matches in a row, then win a few, then lose again, so most aren't genuine indicators of who is going to win a certain match, take Lindsay-Venus for example...

Linday won 8 of the first 9 matches...

Venus then won 11 of the next 13

And Lindsay won 4 of the last 5 :lol:

You can see who was in form when, but after the first 9 meetings, could you see Venus winning so much afterwards?

Well in her current form it'll be the next toruney she enters....

Oh wait that means it's at least a month away if it's serena.....

Venus was robbed in LA 04! roflmao

the h2h would've been equal, she was 5-0 up first set :lol:

anywy moving on :lol .................

H2h's arent always conclusive. I mean take steffi vs durie par example. Jo leads 4-3, those 4 coming when steffi was an upstart. I mean you could hardly say Jo has mental superiority over one of the greatest tennis players ever!

I never really use H2H's as a real predictor for matches. Its all about the next matches :)

When's maria playing again? ;)

If i want to predict a match, i look at the current form of the players rather than their match history. If anyone who didnt know better was to predict Henman vs Fed for example, they would expect a tight match, and they would expect Venus to thrash Justine (which wont be likely in the next couple of months)

But Lindsay should have won the Wimby final ;) roflmao

Yes, that's a good point about players being young, I mean look at Justine-Venus, you couldn't really say Venus is 7 times better than Justine, well maybe dl could roflmao

Ye Venus' head to head with Martina is pretty similar like that. Venus' rivavlry with Martina and Lindsay are funny like that though. I did think that it was only a matter of time before she started to dominate her rivalry with both these players. Same with Serena and Martina, and Serena has always owned Linds (sorry :P )

Mind you, I never would have predicted that Lindsay would beat Venus three times in 2004, although I wouldn't have predicted Venus would have done so badly in 2004 full stop :lol:

:rolleyes: Shush!!!



:rolleyes:

Im sort of glad Venus didn't win that match as she probably would've beaten Serena in the final then, Serena could've done without 3 consecutive losses to Venus roflmao

Yep you do get a blur line with older players facing younger ones, it's the main reason Vicario leads her head to head with Venus as well :)

Venus is 7 times better than everyone! roflmao

maybe i'm a little biased ;) roflmao

I'm happy with venus's h2h's though :D

Serena: 7-7
Kim: 6-4
Justine: 7-1
Seles: 9-1
Pierce: 7-3
Dementieva: 4-2
Myskina: 3-2
Ivanovic: 2-0

Do you like my avatar SW :P roflmao

Venus leads 6-3 ;)

Venus' head to heads with Kim and Amelie are a little close for my liking she needs to get a few Kim thrashings in before she retires.

Ditto for Martina :D

Oh! Thought it was the other way round :doh:

I absolutely hate it when venus plays mauresmo :angry: :yikes:

Mauresmo beat her in 2004 and 2005, in really close 3 setters :(

roflmao 2004...the year Serena got humiliated in finals :rolleyes:

everyone like my Lindsay avatar! :D

She needs to dethrone her at Wimbledon for revenge for the Antwerp loss :devil:

and nobody likes my Nadia sig :( :angry: roflmao

Lindsay was treating everyone on the tour that summer with absolute distain roflmao

She beat Serena 6-1 6-3 in LA, then 6-1 6-1 over myskina at San diego :bow:

Venus was lIndsay's main competitor that summer :D

I like it :D

She got some fine legs ;)

Ye it's good :D I've been struggling to see the Keira Knightly likeness all day though :lol:

no your right, nadias better looking :P

Liam's Nadia obsession is still mind-boggling roflmao

Yep, service with a smile :D

I know roflmao

I kinda like nadia though, she's such a grumpy cow :lol:

I still dont know why she does that :lol:

Here's Serena's head to heads

Venus 7-7
Justine 6-3
Lindsay 10-4
Hingis 8-6
Sharapova 4-2
Clijsters 7-1
Mauresmo 9-2
Capriati 10-7
Myskina 5-0
Dementieva 4-0
Kuznetsova 2-0
Petrova 6-1
Vaidisova 2-0

Just for fun: Graf 1-1

Nothing wrong with those ;)

tbh i had never seen her play until she played Serena this year, but i think her game is a joy to watch when shes on form

I went through a Nadia fan phase too, when she won all those clay-court events :lol:

Well at least Lindsay's not the worst roflmao

*cough* KIM MOMO*cough*

roflmao

The only one that I don't like is the Jen one, as Serena lost to her 3 times in 2004 and it should be 11-6 in Serena's favour or something as she shouldn't really have lost that Open match :angry:

its hard to believe lindsay only notched up 4 wins :o

To be fair 2 were absolute beat-downs :D