Who’s Got the Momentum on Grass?

Overall skill is the primary predictor of the outcome of any tennis match. But momentum – a trend of increasingly better performance – can indicate when a player may be playing above their current skill rating. As we gear up for the first days of the Wimbledon main draw, it is a good time to have a look at which of the event’s players will be entering the Southfields’ Grand Slam on the biggest surge?

The charts below show the male players currently rated above 1900 on serve or return skill on grass who have had an overall positive slope in their skill trends in the last 18 months (Figure 1). Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, and Grigor Dimitrov are the only players to be on the “accelerating” list for both serve and return skill. Alcaraz hasn’t had a lot of experience on Grass, having only competed at Wimbledon in 2021 and 2022 before his grass-court events this year. I think this has caused some to underestimate his ability on grass, at least before he took the Queen’s Club title just a few weeks ago. That win could suggest that Alcaraz’s massive gains on return performance could be enough to offset the more modest improvement he has had on serve.

Figure 1. Grass-court serve and return skill trajectories of top ATP players with the most gains over 2022 and 2023.

Despite an almost straight line trajectory upward in 2022, Sinner’s skill trajectory had flattened out on serve and return, which has to diminish confidence about his prospects at SW19. Dimitrov, on the other hand, has been making clear gains but is still at an overall lower skill level than the top seeds.

Nick Kyrgios had one of the most consistent streaks of his career in 2022. Although we could still expect him to bring a high-level of serve performance here and there this year, with the amount of time he has been away from competition (and the variety of off-court distractions that have plagued his career) it would be a surprise to see him make it to the second week.

When we take the same look on the women’s side, we find a few of the strongest competitors with equally big momentum (Figure 2). Sabalenka is the only of the top players to have made big strides on serve and return, here serve skill being the strongest skill in her arsenal at the moment. Rybakina is also known for a massive serve but, interestingly, it is her return game that has seen the most improvement on grass. Rybakina is on track to add over 100 points to her return skill on grass since the end of 2022, which could be just the kind of edge she needs to defend her title.

Figure 2. Grass-court serve and return skill trajectories of top WTA players with the most gains over 2022 and 2023.

Ons Jabeur, who was one match win away from the Wimbledon title last year, had a surging defensive game going into the 2022 finals. Jabeur has struggled to get back to that level this year so a repeat of that result isn’t likely.

It is notable that Iga Swiatek, the reigning No. 1 of the WTA, doesn’t make either momentum list. This doesn’t mean Swiatek isn’t at the top of the skill ratings. Her current grass-court serve skill rating is 2197, which makes her 2nd only to Sabalenka. On the return, her skill rating is a fierce 2180, which makes her the most highly rated women’s player on defense. But that is actually a notable drop from where she was in 2022, when she was rated nearly 100 points higher.

Whether, in spite of the overall strength of Swiatek’s return ability, the direction of that trend will effect her bid for the Wimbledon title is one of the questions we will have to wait to see play out over the next two weeks.