Tennis Random, Random (On Court)

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

Tsonga interview in French with English subtitles.

[dmforever]

I wish him the best of luck. Unless I'm forgetting something, he seems like a really good guy. Even when you know you have to do it, it must be a hard decision to make.

Kevin

[Deuce]

Not surprising for Tsonga - it's been several years of injuries, and a free fall from the top echelon...

I remember first seeing him at a junior tournament, where he was playing with his friend and countryman Mathieu Montcourt. I was impressed with both of them, but I felt that Montcourt had the more complete game at that time.
Montcourt never made any significant impression at the pro level - and he was once fined for betting on matches (not his own matches).

Sadly, Montcourt died suddenly of cardiac arrest at just 24 years old.
Whenever I've seen Tsonga play at the pro level, it has always made me think of Montcourt.

[ponchi101]

One of the few players* that perhaps would have won a slam or two had they not been born during the triumvirate's dominance.
Best of luck, I hope he stays around tennis.

Off Topic

*Ferrer, Berdych, Tsonga

[Deuce]

Apropos of nothing, the slapper is ranked 630 in the world in juniors even though he's the #1 seed at this event, the lowest-level junior tournament. He's probably not someone we're going to see on the tour in a few years.

I wanted to respond to this earlier, but forgot to...

I would suspend him for maybe for 4 or 6 months or something. No-one was hurt - it was just a slap. It is unacceptable, of course - and it needs to be punished... but you don't take tennis completely away from a 15 year old kid for that.

Also, we have no idea what happened during the match. In Junior tournaments, players call their own lines - there are typically no linesmen before the Semis (this was apparently a 1st round match), and the umpire in the chair (sometimes there is no umpire at all) is just there to overrule the players' calls if he sees something obvious. Maybe the player who got slapped was cheating with his line calls during the match, and/or was behaving like a complete jerk - we don't know.

Also... the kid who got slapped should have become suspicious as soon as the slapper dropped his racquet into the net!

[ponchi101]

We have been talking about players' injuries and retirements.
Stat from the NBA: only FIVE players have played every game this season. Non is a starter.
No All Star player has played every game.

The difference, of course, is that the games still get played. The people that paid their tickets still get to see something.

[Deuce]

We have been talking about players' injuries and retirements.
Stat from the NBA: only FIVE players have played every game this season. Non is a starter.
No All Star player has played every game.

The difference, of course, is that the games still get played. The people that paid their tickets still get to see something.

More players are missing more games in team sports now than 20, 30, 40 years ago, as well. Very likely for the same reasons as in tennis - they are much more spoiled and entitled than players of the past were.
And, as pointed out, the effect of players on teams missing games is not as great as it is in individual sports, because players on teams are replaced, and the games are still played.

Other, even more significant differences between team sports and tennis are that, when a player misses a game in team sports, it is not always due to injury - it could be because the player is 'benched' by the coach, or due to being suspended (which we know very rarely happens in tennis)...

The games are also more condensed in the NBA, NHL, and MLB than matches are in tennis - 82 games in 6 months in the NBA and NHL, double that in MLB (not counting playoffs) - that's over 13 games per month for 6 consecutive months (82 games). When was the last time a tennis player played that many matches over a 6 month period? Tennis players don't play 82 matches in an entire year, let alone in any 6 month period...

[Fastbackss]

I think that there is a gulf between "the way the past was" and "spoiled and entitled."

Is there an element to it? One could successfully argue that.
Is it an easy crutch to be used and possibly taken advantage of? Sure.
Have there been advancements in what physios do? In what science says? Sure. There are full teams to prolong the career of the players.

It would be better to maximize at selected tournaments than a scatter shot of playing more tournaments, but calendar layout is a story for another day.

[ponchi101]

I think that there is a gulf between "the way the past was" and "spoiled and entitled."

Is there an element to it? One could successfully argue that.
Is it an easy crutch to be used and possibly taken advantage of? Sure.
Have there been advancements in what physios do? In what science says? Sure. There are full teams to prolong the career of the players.

It would be better to maximize at selected tournaments than a scatter shot of playing more tournaments, but calendar layout is a story for another day.

You may be correct about that gulf you talk about, but there is no denying that contracts and prize money are way above what used to be good money in the past. The winner of the USO, for example, makes more in one tournament than many very successful players did in their entire career (not corrected for inflation, of course).
The prolonging of careers could also be studied. Sure, we are spoiled by the fact that players like Roger, Rafa and Novak are playing well into their late 30's. But remember all the others that did not. Roddick, for example, retired quite early for today standards. Plus, there is, to me, a paradox there: if players are retiring from matches more frequently (i.e. they are getting injured more and more) why are they retiring, as a group, later in life? Would seem contradictory. The opposite explanation could be that since they retired from the match, they avoided further injury.
But as always, there are so few studies and so little data in tennis. We really don't even know, numerically, if the retirements from today are truly more than in the past. It feels like that, but there is no such study. For example, if in the 1970's there were 25 retirements in one year (just an example) and in the 2020's there were 250, you could say it is obviously an increase. But if there are ten times more matches, then the ratio is the same.

[Deuce]

I think that there is a gulf between "the way the past was" and "spoiled and entitled."

I don't see a significant gap at all.
It's not just the difference in prize money.
It's not just the difference in endorsement money.
It's not just the difference in attention (there was no internet when the players of yesterday were playing, AND there was much less attention from mainstream media, as well)...

Have you been to a tournament in the past 20 years or so? Have you seen the way that players are treated at the tournaments? They are treated like demi-gods and Royalty, with people literally waiting on them hand and foot at every turn. This, of course, leads to very large egos, and a feeling of entitlement.

The only huge gulfs which exist are in the areas of the huge difference in prize money, the huge difference in endorsement money, the huge difference in the amount and degree of attention the players get, and the huge difference in they way they are treated at tournaments, etc. And all of this is true of all professional sports - not just tennis.
If you don't believe that these elements lead to a feeling of entitlement among the players, then I really don't know what to say...

But as always, there are so few studies and so little data in tennis. We really don't even know, numerically, if the retirements from today are truly more than in the past. It feels like that, but there is no such study. For example, if in the 1970's there were 25 retirements in one year (just an example) and in the 2020's there were 250, you could say it is obviously an increase. But if there are ten times more matches, then the ratio is the same.

^ While there may be more tournaments today than there were back then, if anything, today's individual players play FEWER matches per year than the players of 20, 30, 40 years ago did...

[patrick]

We have been talking about players' injuries and retirements.
Stat from the NBA: only FIVE players have played every game this season. Non is a starter.
No All Star player has played every game.

The difference, of course, is that the games still get played. The people that paid their tickets still get to see something.

Who are they?

[ti-amie]

[Deuce]

Firstly, unless she’s playing Su-Wei Hsieh in her ‘next tournament’ (whenever - or IF ever - that turns out to be - I'll believe it when I see it), I’m pretty sure that practicing with ‘The Magician’ won’t help her very much.
Secondly... it’s likely the angle and/or the shading, but in that photo, she looks about 20 years older than she actually is.

[ponchi101]

We have been talking about players' injuries and retirements.
Stat from the NBA: only FIVE players have played every game this season. Non is a starter.
No All Star player has played every game.

The difference, of course, is that the games still get played. The people that paid their tickets still get to see something.

Who are they?

The commentators (Doris Burke and Mark Jones, whom I believe are good at it) did not even say who they were, because their point was that indeed, the news players don't see playing every game as a responsibility. Burke brought up the story of how Jordan used to say that if somebody had bought a ticket to watch him play, he had a duty to do so.
They were very partial to the idea that the top players are not the same as the top players of yore. Of course, the Suns were getting blown off court by the Clippers because they sat 4 of their 5 starters, for no reason whatsoever. They all were on the sideline .