Azure
G.O.A.T.
My goat
Stats - precedence over sport?
- Thread starter Azure
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D
Deleted member 742196
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I enjoy stats. I really do.
Stats are incredibly informative for telling you how something happened. Not just what happened.
Tennis stats?
They’re stuck in some bygone era. Seriously, have we seen any real advancement of stats in the last decade with all this incredible technology at our fingertips?
Another perspective on stats is that they allow for people outside the established subculture to more easily relate.
I’m quite confident most people here would know a Home Run is something important even if they didn’t technically know what it was. What about a goal in football? Most people would also know it’s something important even if we don’t all follow the sport. A six in cricket? Same thing probably.
Tennis? Most people outside of tennis wouldn’t even know how to quantify it beyond who won and lost.
What’s an ace to a person that doesn’t know the sport? What’s a break point for that matter? Or a set point? These are exceedinly abstract terms for the casual viewer flipping through channels.
I’ve long since believed tennis needs to update its language, at the heart of this is statics. I am deeply passionate about the nuances of the tennis scoring system, which is built around a handful of important points.
So why not call break points and set points and tiebreak points and match points important points?
Why not give us the people that love tennis, as well as the people that don’t know it, something better and easier than the mess it is right now?
Stats are incredibly important excepting that when it comes to tennis they aren’t quite there yet. They haven’t evolved enough to tell you about someone’s sytle, their pace, their mindset or their strategy.
But perhaps this is difficult in tennis because it is a contest over the same point? Most other sports I know have a straightforward linear progression of points being added. I can take a shot in basketball and miss, and you aren’t awarded the result of my miss. I can score a load of goals and use the winding down clock for shutting you down - again that linear scoring system.
Perhaps tennis will never really be able to tell you how something happened - between the surfaces, the styles, the weather, and the wills of the players it might just be too abstract.
And maybe that’s not such a terrible thing in the end.
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TheGhostOfAgassi
Talk Tennis Guru
If you talk about sex in a statistical way, what happens?
Magic getting lost.
Tennis is not sex, but its not too far off a comparison.
Magic getting lost.
Tennis is not sex, but its not too far off a comparison.
Azure
G.O.A.T.
Excellent post and a very different viewpoint.
Tennis does have a difficult scoring system. Cricket is weird because it's complex to understand. I agree that football, basketball are much easier to understand because the scoring system is very simple arithmetic progression.
The stats we are talking about here is something beyond the mere scoring. It has been relegated to a definition of a flimsy and temporary title of greatest by mere counting of slams. Of course there are others who delve into a deeper level and what is usually called cherry picking of stats. Regardless, for a viewer, follower or the media houses, this is excellent clickbait. What about the players themselves?
In my view the players are putting themselves to torture by chasing the horizon.
Azure
G.O.A.T.
I see what you are trying to say here. It is not just sex, it's every act I believe. Most of these top players love tennis. There is no doubt about that, else they would have ended up like kyrgios. The sad part is records are never going to be out of reach and everytime these top players are on court these days I feel that they are not enjoying it anymore but are playing to safeguard these records.
D
Deleted member 742196
Guest
LOL
There are times when I feel like a complete idiot.
What you just said “tennis is not sex but it’s not too far off a comparison” was everything I was trying to say.
Standaa
G.O.A.T.
How would you propose to change the scoring system? Believe me it’s not that difficult for a person who wants to understand it to understand it. Tennis doesn’t need to change its scoring system because of people who aren’t fans who just switch between channels on TV.
And Agassi has said something beautiful about it:
D
Deleted member 742196
Guest
How would you propose to change the scoring system? Believe me it’s not that difficult to understand for a person who wants to understand it. Tennis doesn’t need to change its scoring system because of people who aren’t fans who just switch between channels on TV.
And Agassi has said something beautiful about it:
Oh I wouldn’t touch the scoring system. I think tennis has the most nuanced and best scoring system of any sport.
Whoever came up with it designed it completely around the excruating ethos of sport: a contest of wills.
I’d change the terminology of stats.
The first thing would be to scrub the subjective nature of unforced and forced errors. Just call them errors. Have a sub tier of UFE/FE if you want that highly sketchy data.
Does anybody even have the remotest confidence this is not completely subjective? How is it Wimbledon consistently has the best winners/UFE ratio of the slams?
The second would be have a metric called important points. Break points, set points, tiebreak points and match points under the umbrella of important points.
Right now to figure out which player does better under pressure it’s impossible.
Those would be the first places I’d look towards. I’d probably also look to establishing ratios - winner/error ratio for example is probably quite meaningful.
Not just better stats, different ways of expressing the ones we already have.
But the most important thing would be to have all tournaments use the same format to present their stats.
Currently, every damn tournament presents the information differently and one real consequence of this is the casual viewer that doesn’t know tennis never gets a chance to ever absorb bits about tennis over a lifetime of peripheral vision.
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Azure
G.O.A.T.
I recall Federer once saying that the guys doing the scoring have no idea of what constitutes a forced and unforced error.
D
Deleted member 742196
Guest
Nobody has any idea.
It’s the most useless information.
When confidence in officiating is always such a hot topic try to imagine the lack of confidence in evaluating and recording information?
It’s so meaningless even the players disregard it.
Azure
G.O.A.T.
The dumbest is during a serve. If the returner's racket even slightly touches the ball, the stat is so tricky to term as a FE, UFE or a winner
Standaa
G.O.A.T.
Interesting. I agree that determining what’s a FE and what’s an UE is, to some extent, subjective.
But I disagree on the "important points" part. So instead of a having BP, SP, MP, these would all be called the same? What is an important point is first of all highly subjective, and even if we all agreed it’s the points you’ve listed, calling them the same is nothing but confusing. For example a set point doesn’t need to be more important than any other point. And anyone who wants to watch a tennis match should know what a "set" and a "point" is.
I honestly didn’t know that each tournament present stats in a different way. Can you give me an example?
D
Deleted member 742196
Guest
Honestly they just make the stuff up, it’s the only explanation.
Let’s say I record the event as a FE by mistake. I know immediately it’s a mistake, in a moment of distraction I made a human error, it was supposed to be an UFE.
What’s my incentive to go back and clean it up? What’s the system keeping track of me?
Are there any actual consequences of just not making stuff up?
So really if I want this or that tournament to present itself as rewarding offence or defence, it’s incredibly easy.
Or indeed this or that player.
Azure
G.O.A.T.
I am not so sure because these stats may be used for several purposes?
D
Deleted member 742196
Guest
Difference in presenting information - let’s look at the most basic thing the scoreboard itself.
The above is just the 4 slams. We aren’t even beginning to talk about stats. Just the scoreboard itself
Only someone that already knows tennis would understand how to quickly process the different formats.
So let’s not think about you and me but that casual viewer that doesn’t know tennis who probably has flicked through it hundreds of times over the course of their life.
Would it be too much of stretch to think that given the uniqueness of tennis scoring system and given the different formats of even presenting scores, that viewer wouldn’t really absorb much over those hundreds of snippets of viewings?
Forget about stats, that’s a whole other mess when it comes to presenting information.
Important Points
Totally agree with you on this. There is a difference between a break point and set point. A match point and a mini-break. We can’t easily quantify what that difference exactly is, we just know there is one.
But we do also know they are important. These are the points around which matches are won and lost.
My suggestion would be to keep all these separated but also express them as a total. It’s up to the viewer how deep they want to go into understanding the tale of the match. But give us this rich data.
How do know today how many set points were needed? Or match points? This is incredibly useful information.
It’s honestly a shame that we have the information but the powers that be won’t collate/archive it.
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D
Deleted member 742196
Guest
I’m all for useless stats that everyone can ignore, have as many as you want.
But please can we also have some ones which are dearly needed in some kind of organized and archived way?
Azure
G.O.A.T.
The sets end when one reaches 6 with a difference of two while in a tie break it's 7. It's inconsistency right there, which can be corrected.Difference in presenting information - let’s look at the most basic thing the scoreboard itself.
The above is just the 4 slams. We aren’t even beginning to talk about stats. Just the scoreboard itself
Only someone that already knows tennis would understand how to quickly process the different formats.
So let’s not think about you and me but that casual viewer that doesn’t know tennis but probably has flicked through it hundreds of times over the course of their life.
Would it be too much of stretch to think that given the uniqueness of tennis scoring system and given the different formats of even presenting scores, that viewer wouldn’t rally absorb much over those hundreds of snippets of viewings?
Forget about stats, that’s a whole other mess when it comes to presenting information.
Important Points
Totally agree with you on this. There is a difference between a break point and set point. A match point and a mini-break. We can’t easily quantify what that difference exactly is, we just know there is one.
But we do know they are important. These are the points around which matches are won and lost.
My suggestion would be to keep all these separated but also express them as a total. It’s up to the viewer how deep they want to go into understanding the tale of the match. But give us this rich data.
How do know today how many set points were needed? Or match points? This is incredibly useful information.
It’s honestly a crime we already have the information but the powers that be won’t do much with it.
Azure
G.O.A.T.
it atleast is still on the topic of stats. You haven't yet mastered the art of sabotaging threads. What do you think is the mentality of these players now clearly playing for the records? Does it make you happy, sad, interested, annoyed??
Standaa
G.O.A.T.
Difference in presenting information - let’s look at the most basic thing the scoreboard itself.
The above is just the 4 slams. We aren’t even beginning to talk about stats. Just the scoreboard itself
Only someone that already knows tennis would understand how to quickly process the different formats.
So let’s not think about you and me but that casual viewer that doesn’t know tennis but probably has flicked through it hundreds of times over the course of their life.
Would it be too much of stretch to think that given the uniqueness of tennis scoring system and given the different formats of even presenting scores, that viewer wouldn’t rally absorb much over those hundreds of snippets of viewings?
Forget about stats, that’s a whole other mess when it comes to presenting information.
Important Points
Totally agree with you on this. There is a difference between a break point and set point. A match point and a mini-break. We can’t easily quantify what that difference exactly is, we just know there is one.
But we do know they are important. These are the points around which matches are won and lost.
My suggestion would be to keep all these separated but also express them as a total. It’s up to the viewer how deep they want to go into understanding the tale of the match. But give us this rich data.
How do know today how many set points were needed? Or match points? This is incredibly useful information.
It’s honestly a crime we already have the information but the powers that be won’t do much with it.
But why would the viewer even care about some scoreboard if he doesn’t know the rules, and most likely not even the players? Isn’t it enough for him to just watch the game, and if he likes it, he can come back with a knowledge about the score system next time? How can someone who doesn’t know the sport be even engaged in following the scoreboard? If he doesn’t know what a set or a game is, then it’s really irrelevant what the scoreboard looks like.
It’s true that we don’t get the statistics about uncoverted SPs or MPs. But honestly it all depends whether the player failed to convert them on a BP or a GP. So we’re back with BPs again. I think it’s fine as it is. We can just agree to disagree I guess.
D
Deleted member 742196
Guest
One important reason: the larger implications
I don’t follow football/soccer - don’t know the rules, can’t immediateky tell formations, have no idea when a team is on offence or playing defence but in a quick flash I know who is winning.
Over hundreds of little snippets I can tell the team with 5 goals (professional league) probably has a reasonably high chance of winning.
Same applies to basketball, hockey, American football, baseball.
So what are some of the larger implications? Less viewership, less casual tennis fans. I think the demographic is important because aside from the 7/8 larger tournaments the audience for smaller tournaments can’t get any footing, which means aside from the top players the bulk of amazing and great players have no real opportunities to find a career in tennis.
And it is at this point where the subject of stats is merged with the overall conversation of the importance of stats.
This afternoon I walked into the local club to have my rackets strung, there was some kind of local tournament. One of my friends was with me, a casual viewer. Once in a while we watch a big match on television or something.
But today? As I excitedly was going on about this or that break point, or the difference between this or that momentum shift at basic rec level tennis, she hardly seemed to understand.
She’s actually watched a couple full matches but can’t even tell the difference between an important moment or not.
My theory here is it’s bad for tennis if the only people that can follow it are the people that have made some attempt to play it.
Stats presented in a consistent and understandable way for both the casual and learned viewer is exceedingly important.
It’s a way we understand what we are even seeing.
Let’s try a different approach.
Do you track people’s heights in feet/inches or cm?
How do you know someone is tall or short when they tell you their height? If you’re a foot and inches person and I express my height in cm [as Europeans do] to contextualize it you probably need to convert the information. The same for the reverse.
It works the same way for stats.
Post Script
Re your last point, it isn’t just the stats of the match itself. Stats and archives are the only reliable way we have of quantifying trends and past events because of quick data processing.
Would it not be interesting at this point to know how many set points by Federer ended up in wins and losses of those sets by decade?
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D
Deleted member 742196
Guest
What do you think is the mentality of these players now clearly playing for the records? Does it make you happy, sad, interested, annoyed??
Somewhere in the above you mentioned dismay at the difference between 2017/2018 Federer.
I think you might be correct.
2017 Fed seemed just happy to be back on court. I don’t know if this is true, I think it is.
2018 Fed doesn’t seem happy on court. So why is he out there? He doesn’t need to be. Why should anyone with such an overwhelming amount of success be voluntarily unhappy?
There are stats and then there are records.
I don’t necessarily think stats are bad one way or the other.
Chasing records?
To me it’s the quickest way to kill your passion for playing in the first place.
Azure
G.O.A.T.
Yes I was referring to both fed and Rafa. Both are unhappily chasing records. The happiest I have seen Rafa in defeat was 06 wimbly. He was happy to just have reached the finals and give his best. He even went around the courts with his runner up trophy while giving it his best in the match. That is what I like to see. Not misery.
D
Deleted member 742196
Guest
Glad someone like you popped around the forum because for quite a long time there were only a handful of us in here that wanted to see these great players play, wins and losses be damned.
I can’t ever pretend to understand the daily ins and outs of a professional tennis player, let alone the mindset of established champions like Nadal, Djokovic or Federer.
I imagine some days it must feel quite intoxicating and other days are a grind. I’m sure they love what they do but there’s an awful lot of sacrifice and work that goes into it, which can’t always be easy.
AnOctorokForDinner
Talk Tennis Guru
I wouldn't consider AO a real major in 1972-82 even though it was formally categorised as one in the rankings since 1977, since most top players - almost everyone except Vilas and Tanner - continued to ignore it until 1983, when Lendl and Wilander played.
Azure
G.O.A.T.
Thank you! One may say that I am not 'invested' enough!
It's so hard to be an elite athlete for so long. They don't need the record chasing in addition to all the playing they already do.
tennis_pro
Bionic Poster
What a pro thread I don't know what to say
Azure
G.O.A.T.
It wasn't and that's one reason why Court has so many titles. Ergo it becomes silly that Serena is under tremendous pressure to reach a number that was probably inflated on account of other ladies from Europe and America simply not willing to travel long distances and preferring to play in their backyards.
Azure
G.O.A.T.
By partly anointing it to your name, are you trying to steal my thunder??
AnOctorokForDinner
Talk Tennis Guru
UE/FE is entirely real, the problem is inconsistency between tournaments/statisticians and lack of the middle ground. Ideally, a third category of semi-(un)forced errors would be introduced to accommodate all errors that aren't clearly on the forced or unforced side.
Of course, it's obviously possible to standardise UE/FE algorithmically - collect all matches and have a machine study them to determine the average rate of errors from any position (considering how the ball flies and where the player is). There will be tens of thousands of slightly different positions, but also tens of thousands of match videos to analyse, so there's enough material. Then, based on the rate, we can call errors from positions with, say, <35% error rate 'unforced', those from positions with >65% error rate 'forced', and anything in-between will be the middle ground. Conducting such an analysis would be quite resource-consuming, though, so it's likely not happening in the near future.
Azure
G.O.A.T.
With today's big data capabilities the above is perfectly feasible. The knowledge gleaned from this exercise will be very enlightening as well. Good one.
ibbi
G.O.A.T.
These guys didn't start it. Lendl, and particularly Sampras did. I agree with your general impression that it's ridiculous to obsess over stuff like this instead of just appreciating the sport, but in an ever more computerized, stat driven world there seems little chance that it's ever going to go back to being about the eye test.
tennis_pro
Bionic Poster
lol never
AnOctorokForDinner
Talk Tennis Guru
Not exactly the same situation, but AO was still underattended on the women's tour as well until early 80s, true.
Of course, Court's number is inflated so Williams Jr is the goat already, although her stats are also inflated by this painfully weak era in recent years, but so was Graf's and you could argue Martina's, though I say her career competition value was clearly the highest of all ATGs (longevity + constantly dealing with other ATG in Evert and then Graf and some lesser stars as well along the way), and if we also give doubles any significance, she may still be the overall GOAT.
Azure
G.O.A.T.
Of course all this craze started late 80's and 90's. It's gotten worse now. It's almost like these athletes are there to just win another and move on to win like bots, another one.
Azure
G.O.A.T.
(not tennis_hands)
Azure
G.O.A.T.
I will always like anyone who says Navratilova is the goat but again, I don't think she was motivated by records all that much. She trained like crazy and was revolutionary in changing the women's sport to something more athletic and some of the finest players of the sport have all contributed to the sport in such ways. I wish we could leave it at that.
D
Deleted member 742196
Guest
I am all for the idea of trying to hunt around for definitions using data and analytics.
I really really like your concept of “semi-unforced errors”, the terminology would probably add to some of the inherent confusion but that’s easy enough to polish.
It’s great that you sort of poked around trying to arrive at how to make sense out of the chaos.
It is my view the backend [numbers] should accomodate as much complexity as can be squeezed in but the front end [language] should always be as efficient and simple as possible.
Above all though would be consistency and standardization. It took an awfully long time for everyone to agree what a metre or foot was, as soon as everyone did all kinds of amazing things were possible.
But you’re probably right though. I just don’t see tennis as having the sort of cohesiveness to get such undertakings done. There is no league, there is no player’s union, there is no commissioner, nobody’s out there can cobble the whole sport together to address such glaring issues.
There’s just a bunch of players and a bunch of tournaments.
AnOctorokForDinner
Talk Tennis Guru
No problem praising all of Court, Evert, Navratilova, Graf and S Williams as players above all players who had the greatest presence and influence on the sport. A deserved mention as well to less decorated but historically significant players in Lenglen & King for their promotion of the sport, and Connolly & Seles as the biggest what-ifs, teenage champions whose tennis dominance was cut short by a tragic event.
AnOctorokForDinner
Talk Tennis Guru
Lumping together BPs and TBs and MPs is a mess, though. I say, as a basic layout: a) break points = game points on opponent serve; b) game points = game points on own serve [a terribly overlooked stat!], c) tiebreak success, in % as it is now. Set points & match points are separate and can also be broken down by those three categories (SP/MPs on return, on serve, in TBs).
But there's a concern that such mechanical standardisation would probably serve to robotise players further, d'ya think? More analysis, less emotions, or more on purpose in case analysis tells some players they perform better when firing themselves up - either way, all calculated. I like to see some play as instinct tells them to, that adds a refreshing perspective. We've already had stylistic variety narrowed down in this era...
Im(moral) Winner
G.O.A.T.
I blame PETE.
D
Deleted member 688153
Guest
Good thread.
Stats are nice but I could easily enjoy tennis without them.
Stats are nice but I could easily enjoy tennis without them.
Azure
G.O.A.T.
So true. Stats should be for analysis alone, not for making players, bots.
Azure
G.O.A.T.
I think yes, to a large extent he started this craze.
Azure
G.O.A.T.
Thank you. Yes but I am not sure it would be easy to market it.
D
Deleted member 688153
Guest
I think stats and records are necessary in all sports really. It is definitely an important part of marketing them and the commentators need something to talk about. I personally wouldn't need the numbers to enjoy it but I'm probably unusual.
Azure
G.O.A.T.
I didn't mind them until I saw Federer not enjoying, Rafa frustrated and Serena have a meltdown. All of this is due to the undue pressure to get to seemingly foolish (to me) numbers that promise false immortality!
D
Deleted member 742196
Guest
Completely agree with both.
Nice post.
The first one was raised by @StANDAA earlier in the thread. I’m not suggesting do away with them, more put them into a subcategory called “important points”
The value of this becomes meaningful when reading match scores.
Here is a question - have you ever found yourself reading who won or lost a match after it happened and having absolutely no idea whether it was a good or bad one?
The score line doesn’t tell much really.
You can tell a 7-8 game in baseball or a 100-98 basketball game was a tight affair just from the score line. And if you cared about one or the other teams from that score line you then dig into the details of a match.
But how often just from a tennis score do you find yourself looking for the details? We all know a 6-2 set might be more competitive and compelling than a 7-5 one.
Important points are a little window into how close the match was. For the casual viewer, for the quick glance. If you walk in halfway through a match it becomes immediately apparent from that metric to know how tense the affair is.
For further detail of course pursue the others which make up the important points.
As to your second point yip, absolutely, what one does with information is always a question.
I do think that just the nature of tennis, in that players are tussling over the same point, and it is as much a contest of wills as skills, renders stats less useful in the moment than in other sports.
And maybe this is best after all.
AnOctorokForDinner
Talk Tennis Guru
I think that would be nicely solved by showing a stat for 'points per game' (PPG). The higher PPG is, the more contested individual games are, even if the scoreline may not indicate it if most games are still won by one player. A pretty straightforward statistic - 5 is one-sided, 6 is decent, 7 is tight, 8 is a war. One look, and you can gather how competitive it was with solid accuracy.
