French Open 2012 - Part 2

In today's post, I am continuing my picks for the French Open champions.  You can read the first part here.

First, let's look at each champion's best previous performance at the French Open:

French Open Champions

Previous Best FO Result	# of Men's Champions	# of Women's Champions
Winner	7	3
Runner-up	2	3
Semifinals	0	2
Quarterfinals	1 (Costa)	2
4R	1 (Gaudio)	1 (Li Na)
2R	0	1 (Myskina)
Did Not Play	1*	0

*Rafael Nadal won the first French Open he played, in 2005.  

Of the men that I have not yet eliminated, Federer and Nadal have both won the French Open, Murray made the semifinals, and Tsonga has never been past the 4th round.  Because all of the champions since 2000 (except Gaudio) have been to at least the quarterfinals, I am eliminating Tsonga.  This leaves me with:

1. Novak Djokovic (#1 seed but not defending champ, AO Winner)
2. Roger Federer
3. Rafael Nadal
4. Andy Murray
5. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (never previously to QF)

For the women, 10 of the past 12 winners have previously been to the quarterfinals.  Using this as a guideline, I am eliminating Radwanska and Kvitova (neither has been past the 4th round).  Note that Li Na had never been to the quarterfinals previously until she won the French Open last year.  This leaves:

1. Victoria Azarenka (#1 seed but not defending champ)
2. Maria Sharapova
3. Agnieszka Radwanska  (never previously to QF)
4. Petra Kvitova  (never previously to QF)
5. Samantha Stosur (1R)
6. Serena Williams
7. Marion Bartoli (3R)
8. Carolina Wozniacki
9. Li Na
10. Vera Zvonareva (3R)

Next, let's look at the number of clay court warm-up tournaments won by the eventual champion in his/her winning year.  The plots below show bar plots of the number of warm-up tournaments won by men (top) and women (bottom).

The 2 men who did not win a warm-up tournament were both ranked outside of the top 20 when they won (Costa, Gaudio).  Because I am only considering men ranked in the top 5, I will require that my pick wins at least one warm-up tournament.  Federer and Nadal have both won clay court warm-ups this year, but Murray did not (he just lost in the final warm-up of the year).  This leaves me to choose between Federer and Nadal.

For the women, 4 of the 12 did not win warm-ups.  However, 3 of these 4 were finalists at the Australian Open (Henin, Ivanovic, Li) in the same year.  So I will require that my pick either has won a warm-up or was a finalist at this year's Australian Open (Sharapova).  This eliminates Wozniacki and Li (assuming she does not win this week), leaving Sharapova (AO finalist) and Williams (2 warm-up wins).

Now it is time to pick my favorite to win this year's French Open.

Federer vs. Nadal: Nadal has only lost once at the French Open, winning 6 of the last 7 championships.  Federer is on a hot streak of his own, going 47-3 since last year's US Open and winning 7 of his last 10 tournaments.  Federer has never beaten Nadal at the French Open, winning his only championship when Nadal was eliminated by Soderling.  Because Federer has not won a grand slam in over 2 years and Nadal has only lost once at the French Open, I am going to pick Rafael Nadal.

Sharapova vs. Serena Williams: Serena has yet to lose a clay court match this year, winning 2 tournaments and still playing in another.  Given that she also won the French Open in 2002, I am assuming that she will be the overwhelming favorite on the women's side this year.  However, Serena was in a similar position going into last year's US Open, then lost in the Finals to Stosur, a player who had never won a grand slam and who Serena had beaten a few weeks previously.  Sharapova is the number 2 player in the world, reaching the finals of Wimbledon and the Australian Open.  However, in both finals she lost to players who had never been in a grand slam final before.  So its safe to say that both players have a lot on the line at the French Open.  Serena has had some bad loses in the past at the French Open (although she was out with injury last year), and last year Sharapova made the semifinals.  Because of better results at the French Open in the past few years and the consistent grand slam performances in the past year, I am going with the upset and picking Maria Sharapova. 

I realize that I made my conclusions using a lot of subjective opinion.  If I have the time, I hope to build a model to predict this year's champions and compare to the picks that I just made.