Azure
G.O.A.T.
My goatI looooove Martina. Just an amazing person all around. In everything. What a life.
My goatI looooove Martina. Just an amazing person all around. In everything. What a life.
Having never contributed to goat threads on this forum, I feel that I am missing out a major driver of the sport.
Any sport is driven by stats - highest goals in a year in football, number of world championships in F1, number of centuries in cricket...the list is endless in each sport and so it is with our sport too.
In tennis, more so than in other sports it is almost an insult to compare eras owing to the political scene that existed in the past eras, the skewed importance to certain slams, surfaces of the courts at slams changing to the mere homogenisation coupled with great strides made in medicine and technology today.
The past few years - starting from 2005 have been a lot about records - will Fed overtake Pete, will Rafa overtake Borg, will Djokovic lead h2h against these two and now the very notion of greatness is being justified by stats.
Federer looks highly disgruntled on the courts and there's no doubt that he wants to keep the record, Rafa clearly is chasing slam record and the fact that physical limitations are out to get him are clearly frustrating to him. Djokovic, if he is close to eclipsing these two in the records and god forbid he faces problems, we are going to see a very angry man on the courts.
Are we killing the joy of watching players play without the need to chase something on the courts? How vital are stats other than for armchair critics to evaluate? On the flip side, if there were no stats do you think the players wouldn't be motivated enough? If so, how did the past greats even play without such driving forces?
Discuss.
Excellent post and a very different viewpoint.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 advancement of stats come in the last decade while all this incredible technology?
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.
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.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.
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.
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 come 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.
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:
I recall Federer once saying that the guys doing the scoring have no idea of what constitutes a forced and unforced error.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 highly 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 as meangful than having them apart.
Not just better stats, different ways of expressing the ones we already have.
I recall Federer once saying that the guys doing the scoring have no idea of what constitutes a forced and unforced error.
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 winnerNobody 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.
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 as meaningful than having them apart.
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.
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
I am not so sure because these stats may be used for several purposes?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.
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?
I am not so sure because these stats may be used for several purposes?
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.
it atleast is still on the topic of stats. You haven't yet mastered the art of sabotaging threads.@Azure - sorry, I know this was a sort of different direction on the subject of stats that you had in mind.
Questioning leads to encouragement!
Someone should think about trademarking it.
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.
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??
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.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.
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.
About Borg, I think he really cared. He lost four US Open finals. Remember that from 1977 to 1985, the AO was the last of the 4 slams. Had Borg won the USO, I’m sure he was going to Australia to cash the cheque that year.
Thank you! One may say that I am not 'invested' enough!I’m really 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.
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.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.
By partly anointing it to your name, are you trying to steal my thunder??What a pro thread I don't know what to say
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?
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.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.
lol neverBy partly anointing it to your name, are you trying to steal my thunder??
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.
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.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.
(not tennis_hands)lol never
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.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.
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.
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.
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.
So true. Stats should be for analysis alone, not for making players, bots.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...
I think yes, to a large extent he started this craze.I blame PETE.
Thank you. Yes but I am not sure it would be easy to market it.Good thread.
Stats are nice but I could easily enjoy tennis without them.
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.Thank you. Yes but I am not sure it would be easy to market it.
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!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.
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...
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.