FTL2026 - NEW MATCH POINT CALCULATION BREAKDOWN - PART 1 (SERVICE POINTS)

Over the next 3 days, I'll breakdown the New Match Point Calculation for the FTL2026 season, and provide a rationale for the necessary changes. Today, we'll start with the Service Points portion of the calculation.  

 

OLD CALCULATION:Service Points had no Maximum or Minimum.  The calculation was as follows:

0.1 X # of Aces MINUS 0.1 X # of Double Faults  

NEW CALCULATION:

Service Points will have a Maximum of 4.0 points and a Minimum of -1.0 points.  The calculation is as follows: 

0.04 X Service Points Won % MINUS 0.05 X Service Games Lost %

 

RATIONALE:

Aces and Double Faults are easy statistics to grab from a players service game, but sadly it doesn't provide enough information or context to properly reward a player with points for their service games.  Lets be honest, in the end the only thing that really matters is whether or not a player was able to hold serve, and a players Aces and Double Faults can contribute to that result, but its not the be all and end all.

 

Lets talk about 2 specific scenarios. 

 

Scenario 1 - In the first set, Rublev hits 8 aces, doesn't hit a double fault, and yet still gets broken once out of 5 service games.  Rublev wins 65% of his points on his serve. 

Scenario 2 - In the first set, Shelton hits 1 aces, 2 double faults, 13 service winners, and doesn't get broken once.  Shelton wins 70% of his points on his serve

 

According to the Old Calculation, Rublev would get 0.8 points for that set (8 aces X 0.1), meanwhile Shelton would receive MINUS 0.1 points for that set (1 ace X 0.2 - 2 double fault X 0.1).  Safe to say, that doesn't seem appropriate.   Meanwhile, lets look at the math for the New Calculation.

 

Rublev

0.04 X (65%) - 0.05 X (1 of 5 )

=0.04 X 65 - 0.05 X 20

=2.6 - 1

= 1.6

Therefore Rublev would receive 1.6 points service points for that set

 

Shelton

0.04 X (70%) - 0.05 X (didn't get broken) 

=0.04 X 70 - 0.05 X 0

= 2.8 - 0

=2.8

Therefore Shelton receives 2.8 points service points for that set