Tennis Random, Random (On Court)

[ashkor87]

Just to make my life harder, Medvedev says the main stadium court is much faster than last year, whereas stadium 2 is slower. He is, of course, a self-proclaimed hardcourt expert, and rightly so!

[meganfernandez]

Just to make my life harder, Medvedev says the main stadium court is much faster than last year, whereas stadium 2 is slower. He is, of course, a self-proclaimed hardcourt expert, and rightly so!

To make your life even harder still, the balls are extremely slow. They are shredding.

[ponchi101]

Which to me, is a much more important element than the court.
As long as the court is even and the bounces are the same all over it, it takes little time for players to adapt. but if the ball is shredding, the same ball you served two games ago is not longer the same. That is a big difference.

[meganfernandez]

Sorry to ask, but... What's the deal with this? Is the meaning the obvious one?

Screenshot 2024-03-15 at 3.08.50 PM.png

[skatingfan]

Sorry to ask, but... What's the deal with this? Is the meaning the obvious one?Screenshot 2024-03-15 at 3.08.50 PM.png

I can't speak to that one - I've never had the urge to give myself a wedgie.

[meganfernandez]

Sorry to ask, but... What's the deal with this? Is the meaning the obvious one?Screenshot 2024-03-15 at 3.08.50 PM.png

I can't speak to that one - I've never had the urge to give myself a wedgie.

It was or still is a thing with young male athletes. Maybe just tennis players? I don’t know. I can’t even describe it well enough to google it.

[ptmcmahon]

Am I getting deja vu? I feel like we discussed this before?

[ponchi101]

Am I getting deja vu? I feel like we discussed this before?

We have. But the mystery remains, so the question pops up again. Why do they do that?

[ashkor87]

Am I getting deja vu? I feel like we discussed this before?

We have. But the mystery remains, so the question pops up again. Why do they do that?

because they are immature jocks who need to grow up?

[meganfernandez]

Am I getting deja vu? I feel like we discussed this before?

We have. But the mystery remains, so the question pops up again. Why do they do that?

because they are immature jocks who need to grow up?

It's like a living meme, though. There's a message and it might be the obvious one but I want to know. I did bring it up before but couldn't remember if it was answered. It came up again with more evidence.

[ponchi101]

You all know how much I dislike sports cliches (and cliches in general). I really hate it when people talk about the "intangibles", and when they use the "easy power" cliche and such.
And I really don't like it when they try to make overly complicated explanations. The one I dislike the most is: "S/he played the important points better".
The reality is that that statement is BS. It is a dumb tautology.
We tend to forget that tennis is the ultimate ZERO SUM game; if you win a point, your opponent lost it. It is not like, for example, basketball, where when you shoot a triple, and you don't make it, nothing happens. You opponent does not get points from your mistakes.
I say this. Due to the structure of the game, and the scoring system, even supremely equal players will have scores that are like, well, tennis scores. Assume two players are exactly balanced. What would that mean?
Well, it would not mean an infinite game, lasting forever. One or the other WILL win the match, because even randomly generated scoring produces tennis like scores. Even randomly generated scores produce streaks.
So I made a simulator. It works like this:
ALL points are randomly generated. No bias, no reasoning; this thing is randomly generated, meaning every player has a 50% chance of winning the POINT. And even doing this, the scores generated are EXACTLY like tennis scores. Again, you don't get the infinite game, nor the infinite set. You get sets that are all over the place: 6-2, 6-1, 7-5, etc. If you play it long enough, you will get the odd sets in which the player that LOST won more points.
You can try it here. The set will be played to completion (meaning, NO TB's; that coding would be too much), and you will see all points being played.
So, no. Novak DID NOT play the important points better than Roger at W 2019, and Hana Mandlikova DID NOT play the important points better than Martina in the 1985 USO final and Tracy Austin certainly DID NOT play the important points better than Martina in the 1981 USO final.
It was just that somebody had to win.
SIMULATOR HERE

[ti-amie]

What you're saying about the scoring system in tennis and how it's different from other sports is really good. What a change of perspective that gives me. Thanks.

[ponchi101]

Think about this.
Take away racquet sports (they all have similar scoring systems in which the scoring is built in structures). The sole other sport in which the losing team can win more points than the winning team is volleyball, which also has a structured scoring.
In baseball, basketball, football (american) and hockey, the reality is that you are playing just ONE MATCH. The scoring of the first quarter gets carried over to the 2nd, and so on. In Tennis, we see it a lot: the score of one set is meaningless to what will happen in the next.
0-6 first set, and the player ends up winning the match.

[ashkor87]

one of the following will win the whole thing: Rybakina, Sabalenka, Swiatek.
these players will NOT win the whole thing: Coco, Pegula
Kostyuk and Pavlyuchenkova will 'do well' as defined above.
Osaka will not survive Samsonova
Noskova will not be able to beat Swiatek again - the court is much slower than the AO
Pliskova will beat Pegula in the second round (though I swore never to bet on or against Pliskova!)
Yastremska will beat Raducanu

these are predictions entirely based on court speed and the draw. Some of them may be 'far out' but we shall see.

now that IW is done, we can eveluate these predictions made by the 'court speed' theory
Swiatek did win
Coco and Pegula did not
Kostyuk and Pvs did well
Osaka did survive Samsonova
Noskova did not beat Swiatek
pliskova and Ystremska pulled out, so not counted.
in pure numbers, that makes it 6 out of 7 - the theory did well!

[ashkor87]

The men:
one of the following will win the tournament: Alcaraz, Djokovic, Zverev
Sinner, Medvedev will NOT
Michelsen will beat Tommy Paul in the second round assuming he survives the first round, which he may not
Taylor Fritz will 'do well'
all these, again, based on court speed and the IW draw

Again, let us see how the theory dd:
Alcaraz did win
Sinner and Medvedev did not
Micehelsen did not beat Paul
Taylor Fritz did well (half point for that)

so overall, 3.5 points out of 5.. not bad!