Winning points/ winning games

Fascinating quote from Roger Federer this week, which is directly relevant to pharma: "In tennis, perfection is impossible... In the 1,526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80% of those matches... Now, I have a question for all of you... what percentage of the POINTS do you think I won in those matches? Only 54%. In other words, even top-ranked tennis players win barely more than half of the points they play. When you lose every second point, on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot"

While that low number is surprising, all time there are only 3 tennis players that have a point win percentage over 54%

Nadal - 54.49%

Djokivic - 54.48%

Federer - 54.10%

Winning key points is clearly an important skill that separates the greatest from the great. In pharma, suggesting that attrition at phase I or phase II is in any way comparable to attrition at phase III would be an equivalent - there should be intense pressure on improving phase III success rates, which might actually make phase I and phase II harder.