Does the man with an extra day of rest at the Australian Open have an advantage?

Question

It seems the Australian Open is the only Grand Slam event in tennis that does not have both men's singles semifinal matches on the same day. This means the man who won his semifinal match on Thursday will have 2 days of rest before the final, and the man who won his semifinal match on Friday will only have 1 day of rest. It would seem that the man who has 2 days of rest would have an advantage, especially if both of the semifinals went 5 sets.

Has there been any analysis or statistics (such as win-loss record) that show that the man with 2 days of rest indeed has an advantage?

Answer 1

Well, after disappointment in finding the useful tennis databases failed to give match dates, decided to slog it out a bit to try to at least get you something slightly useful.

I used date-restricted Google searches (such as this one) and skimmed the news articles results that were known-legitimate publications until coming across articles showing the other semifinal was to be played the next day. And this is what I managed to scrabble together for the finals result (using Wikipedia for result) of those players who got the extra day off by playing the earlier semifinal:

2017: Federer Win
2016: Djokovic Win
2015: Murray Loss
2014: Wawrinka Win
2013: Djokovic Win
2012: Nadal Loss
2011: Djokovic Win
2010: Murray Loss
2009: Federer Loss
2008: Tsonga Loss
2007: Federer Win
2006: Baghdatis Loss
2005: Safin Win
2004: Safin Loss
2003: Agassi Win
2002: Johansson Win
2001: Agassi Win
2000: Agassi Win
1999: Enqvist Loss
1998: Korda Win
1997: Moya Loss

So if I made no mistakes, the extra rest lead the final match series just slightly: 12-9.
A slight advantage shown, but nowhere near statistically significant in that sample size (a binomial 95% confidence interval of winning anywhere from 34%-78%).
So, you'd absolutely need more data before a conclusion can be made. It may seem a hint that it has an impact, but it's quite possible that it has no impact (or even a losing one!)

And, indeed, such a trend could still be masked by seeding, injuries, and a million other things.

If I've run statistics right, it looks like you'd need well over 50 years of data to be able to have much hope of drawing any conclusion even in a large case, and even more if the impact is subtle.

But long story short: it appears all hints so far... is that I'm trending towards basically everything jamauss said!

Answer 2

The sport of Tennis is way behind other professional sports as far as statistical data and analysis goes, so it's not likely you will be able to even find the data to perform this kind of analysis.

As someone who has been watching all of the grand slam tennis events for over 20 years, I can just share my opinion that the extra day of rest does not matter very much. The players at the top of the game are all very fit and their bodies are able to recover quickly. It would surprise me if there was any pattern indicating that an extra day of rest gave one player an advantage over another.

I also think you would need to take into consideration other factors such as total time on court for their previous 6 matches, distance traveled during those matches, and perhaps quality of opponent.