Federer has 'lousy' record in matches where he scores 'more points': Research

Swiss star Roger Federer has a 'lousy record' in certain aspects of his tennis, according to a new piece of research.

The research, which has been carried out by Dr Ryan Rodenberg from Florida State University, relates to matches Federer has played in which the overall victor actually wins less points than his opponent.

According to Metro.co.uk, until 2011, Federer had played 28 matches of this type, in which he had an abysmal record, and has only won four of those matches, adding that those are 24 contests in which the seven-time Wimbledon champion has scored more points in the course of a match than his opponent, yet still been defeated.

The research, which analysed more than 61,000 matches from 1991 to 2011, mentioned that Federer's rivals fared much better in this type of matches as he has a win rate of just 14 per cent, adding that the reasons for Federer's record are two-fold.

The research said that while on one hand, Federer fights to win every point, the other factor is his opponent, who typically adopts a high-risk strategy in an attempt to beat Federer, often dropping a few cheap points along the way if needs be, and if the gamble pays off, Federer will end up winning more points, but not the match.

The matches are examples of Simpson's Paradox, named after British statistician Edward Hugh Simpson, which throws up seemingly bizarre statistical quirks when groups of data are combined, the report added.