Gary Duane
G.O.A.T.
While watching the 2nd and 3rd sets of the USO final, which I missed last night but recorded, I stopped to check times for ads and for blank space between points.
I focused on Nadal as the slowest, and here is what I found:
30 seconds between service points because the clock is started at about 5 seconds. So for a love game there is a minimum of 2 minutes time watching him set up. For a deuce game we wait for him at least 4 minutes. But that's if he makes every 1st serve.
If he hits a let, he resets for 20 seconds. Then for the second serve, another 10 seconds.
Commercials last 90 seconds, so that's baked into the cake. With a 75 set there will be 6 ads, so add to that another 9 minutes.
At 1/0 Rafa took around 75 seconds to finally get to the other end of the court and serve. At one point Shriver interviewed Laver between the end of one game and the next.
I'm sure Rafa takes more time than anyone else, but there are other guys who are not exactly speedy. So there is a huge amount of waiting around. Maybe it is not so noticeable live because there is more going on, but I can hardly watch tennis live on TV now. It is so slow.
Set 2 and set 3 took about 15 minutes each for me to see every shot in every point simply by fast forwarding through TV breaks and breaks between points. I'd estimate a 5 hour marathon match like the one years ago between Rafa and Novak probably takes little more than an hour if you fast forward between all the delays.
If I didn't love tennis, I'd never be able to watch a match on TV. It's so slow.
Each shot in a point takes about a second. Next time you see a 40 shot rally, time it. It won't even last 50 seconds. Since the average point is really not many shots, probably the average point takes about 5 or 6 seconds. Certainly 10 seconds at the max, and that is probably way too long. Any game that lasts more than a minute, for the actual play, is probably unusual.
For the most part I can no longer watch a live match on TV. Am I the only one here like that?
I focused on Nadal as the slowest, and here is what I found:
30 seconds between service points because the clock is started at about 5 seconds. So for a love game there is a minimum of 2 minutes time watching him set up. For a deuce game we wait for him at least 4 minutes. But that's if he makes every 1st serve.
If he hits a let, he resets for 20 seconds. Then for the second serve, another 10 seconds.
Commercials last 90 seconds, so that's baked into the cake. With a 75 set there will be 6 ads, so add to that another 9 minutes.
At 1/0 Rafa took around 75 seconds to finally get to the other end of the court and serve. At one point Shriver interviewed Laver between the end of one game and the next.
I'm sure Rafa takes more time than anyone else, but there are other guys who are not exactly speedy. So there is a huge amount of waiting around. Maybe it is not so noticeable live because there is more going on, but I can hardly watch tennis live on TV now. It is so slow.
Set 2 and set 3 took about 15 minutes each for me to see every shot in every point simply by fast forwarding through TV breaks and breaks between points. I'd estimate a 5 hour marathon match like the one years ago between Rafa and Novak probably takes little more than an hour if you fast forward between all the delays.
If I didn't love tennis, I'd never be able to watch a match on TV. It's so slow.
Each shot in a point takes about a second. Next time you see a 40 shot rally, time it. It won't even last 50 seconds. Since the average point is really not many shots, probably the average point takes about 5 or 6 seconds. Certainly 10 seconds at the max, and that is probably way too long. Any game that lasts more than a minute, for the actual play, is probably unusual.
For the most part I can no longer watch a live match on TV. Am I the only one here like that?