Low-ranked Pro vs. Joe? what would the score be?

Sure, the top ATP guys would destroy most amateurs easily but what
about the lower ranked guys?

A recent experience got me pondering this. Let's say you barely beat
person A.

- Person A loses to person B in a close match like 6 & 6 or 6 & 5.
- Person B then beats C (ITF ranked low 1100's) like 5 & 5 or so.

Does this mean that person A might not actually get blown away by the
low ranked pro?

Ya know, ratings in tennis are not so clear cut. It's sometimes like rock, paper, scissors - I can beat someone, that someone can beat a 3rd person, that 3rd person can beat me. But people who play in the pros don't use rocks or paper; they take out the panzerfaust!!

When someone is even beginning to make a career out of tennis, you know that you're most likely out of your league.

Since Texas beat Oklahoma but lost to T. Tech, and T. Tech lost to Okalahoma but beat Texas, what is the speed of train going from point A to point B at any given moment?

(there's a reason why the matches are played instead of letting statistical modeling determine the winner - when it comes to competition there's no such thing as a "logical" winner)

onehandbh said:

- Person A loses to person B in a close match like 6 & 6 or 6 & 5.
- Person B then beats C (ITF ranked low 1100's) like 5 & 5 or so.

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If B is a regular 4.5-5.0 joe, then C was fooling around..

ITF 1100 should beat a 4.5-5.0 joe 0 & 0.. maybe 1 & 1 if joe has a good serve and has a couple of great serving games.

Problem is getting the top 400 player to take the set seriously.
If they really tried, we'd get some points, but bagel x 3 is quick and painless.
Remember, first of all, they're more consistent. They've seen almost everything a duffer can throw at them. A 130 serve is fast, but they've seen it hundreds of times from different servers.
They got placement over us, for sure, but more important, they got fitness and quick movements against our best shots.
It's usually very hard to double bagel someone, as you slip from boredom mostly, and can lose ONE courtesy game.

If Joe Scmho was a 5.0-6.0 player and was having the day of his life against top 1000 level player, he might win a game. Might.

That would concur with most of my tournament experience. One game, and then the rest just blurr by in fleeting moments.

Tennis would be more popular if they would capitalize on the unique fact that most fans are also players. How about a "dream match" between a top pro vs Joe with Joe given a 40-love headstart each game?

I'm not sure very many, if any, top ranked players would consider such a matchup. First of all, their plates are already pretty full. Motivation would be a problem, even when some big money is involved.
And if you consider the old tried and true axiom.... "always try to play with BETTER players"..... then the idea pretty much gets shot down.
Now for sure some top pros would hit with a 4.5 for ..... $50,000, or possibly half that. But can you find the sponsor?
I'm pretty happy trying to hit with some 5.0's around here, and maybe higher if they wanted to practice against a real lefty serve, but overall, water finds it's own level, and alas, it's true.

Make it a reward for winning 4.5 nationals or something. You'll get press about the event and maybe somebody watching will decide to join the USTA so they can get a "dream match" too.

NamRanger said:

If Joe Scmho was a 5.0-6.0 player and was having the day of his life against top 1000 level player, he might win a game. Might.

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By the ability of players I classify as 5.5-6.0, theres many of those ranked in the 600-1000 range

TonLars said:

By the ability of players I classify as 5.5-6.0, theres many of those ranked in the 600-1000 range

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I think the players you are talking about are a little better than how you rate them



Generally 5.0-6.0's are about top junior tennis players to D2/D1 college players. A top 1000 pro is no joke; he'd smoke most players easily due to experience, better physical strength, and better and more consistent technique.

If your definition of a "Joe" is a tennis enthusiast who has a day job and gets to play at most 3 times a week, he would be real lucky to beat a "low-ranked pro" who practices 4 hours a day, hits the gym for a couple of hours, sneaks in some teaching for another couple of hours, and plays at least two competitive tournaments a month.

LeeD said:

I'm not sure very many, if any, top ranked players would consider such a matchup. First of all, their plates are already pretty full. Motivation would be a problem, even when some big money is involved.
And if you consider the old tried and true axiom.... "always try to play with BETTER players"..... then the idea pretty much gets shot down.
Now for sure some top pros would hit with a 4.5 for ..... $50,000, or possibly half that. But can you find the sponsor?
I'm pretty happy trying to hit with some 5.0's around here, and maybe higher if they wanted to practice against a real lefty serve, but overall, water finds it's own level, and alas, it's true.

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Having some sort of tournament where the winner gets to play a low-ranked
pro might be interesting. Have some financial incentive for the pro
AND the amateur. Like X number of $$ depending on the outcome.
I think it might drum up some interest and also help people appreciate
just how good the pros are. There seems to be quite a few people in
tennis who see tennis on TV (or even live) and fail to appreciate just
how hard pro tennis is. Not sure how the pro would be selected. Maybe
the winner of a local futures or challenger tournament.

Money would be the incentive

I think you would get a lot of the lower ranked pros to play Joe Schmo if there was sufficient money to be won. For example, $20,000 only if pro beats JS 2 sets to zip, with JS winning just 1 game, $50,000 if pro beats JS with double bagel, and $250,000 if pro beats JS two sets to zip with JS winning not even one point. You would need a real umpire and linesmen including hawkeye, challenges, etc. And the pro gets zero if JS wins 2 games or more.

But I don't know whether any sponsor would be interested in such an event.

tangoll said:

I think you would get a lot of the lower ranked pros to play Joe Schmo if there was sufficient money to be won. For example, $20,000 only if pro beats JS 2 sets to zip, with JS winning just 1 game, $50,000 if pro beats JS with double bagel, and $250,000 if pro beats JS two sets to zip with JS winning not even one point. You would need a real umpire and linesmen including hawkeye, challenges, etc. And the pro gets zero if JS wins 2 games or more.

But I don't know whether any sponsor would be interested in such an event.

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Given how little the prize money is for winning a futures tournament,
the amounts probably don't have to be that high.

I think you guys are looking for another BobbyRiggs.
Back to basics, we all try to hit-practice-play with BETTER players. Why look for WORSE players, except for $$$$$$.

I hate to use NTRP rankings as an example, but here it goes anyways:

I think some people are under the impression that as you move to a higher NTRP ranking, that the gap between you and someone else shrinks, not true. The difference between a 5.0 and a 7.0 is the same as that between a 3.0 and a 5.0. That's a 2.0 difference either way.

I'd say I'm a 5.0 player, I've beaten quite a few low to mid-range level d1 players, and I've hit with players who are top 1000: jarmaine jenkins and oren mativassal, luke jenson (2 years ago, he's still very good), tim neily too, (not sure how high he got ranked though). If you think a top 1000 player in the world is going to hit winners off any shot that I hit, your wrong. If you think I'm not going to win one point, your wrong. What will happen is I'll loose 0 and 0 and I'll get a couple duece games. It will be a blow out and it won't be close at all, but they won't hit winners off every ball I hit.

Another thing that needs to be stated is that ITF rankings (especially junior ITF rankings) are very biased. The point system puts a lot of value on how many tournaments are played and not enough emphasis on results. For example, a local country club that I used to work at hosts a men's open tourney, the winner gets about 5k, so obviously it attracts some big names: the person who won it peaked at top 200, was currently a top 500 player, and actually had a win over fed in '01 and a win over safin in '02. The second place player was jarmaine jenkins, and I believe his atp ranking was around 850 at the time we made the draw.

Anyways, in the early rounds we saw a top 25 nationally ranked junior (18 year old) beat another 18 year old who was ranked top 50 in ITF, relatively easily (3 and 3). We saw the top 50 ITF ranking, gave the a seed, but didn't look at his match results. After the match, we went back and looked at the kids record. He had so many early round losses, but played so many tournaments, his ranking sky rocketed. Since then, we started putting much more effort into seedings, looking at head-to-head match ups, rankings, career high and recent results.

Moral of the story is that rankings are decieving and in order to truly predict who the better player is one must find as much information as possible.

onehandbh said:

Having some sort of tournament where the winner gets to play a low-ranked
pro might be interesting. Have some financial incentive for the pro
AND the amateur. Like X number of $$ depending on the outcome.
I think it might drum up some interest and also help people appreciate
just how good the pros are. There seems to be quite a few people in
tennis who see tennis on TV (or even live) and fail to appreciate just
how hard pro tennis is. Not sure how the pro would be selected. Maybe
the winner of a local futures or challenger tournament.

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No kidding. The USTA leadership really fails hard in this respect. Look at how many posters here (hardcore tennis players) regularly rate 5.0 players as 3.5.

LeeD said:

I think you guys are looking for another BobbyRiggs.
Back to basics, we all try to hit-practice-play with BETTER players. Why look for WORSE players, except for $$$$$$.

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The purpose of the event would be to promote tennis and get people to
appreciate and better understand pro tennis. Yeah, it's sort of a gimmick.

When I lived in Minnesota there was a local player who was trying to make it on the tour. He was probably ranked in the top 100. Since he was busy with the tour, he didn't often play the local tournaments, but when he did he usually won the final 0, and 0. No one locally was close to him, but he was nothing special on the tour, so my opinion is, "No, a weekend warrior isn't going to give even the lowest rated touring pro a close match."

Steady Eddy said:

When I lived in Minnesota there was a local player who was trying to make it on the tour. He was probably ranked in the top 100. Since he was busy with the tour, he didn't often play the local tournaments, but when he did he usually won the final 0, and 0. No one locally was close to him, but he was nothing special on the tour, so my opinion is, "No, a weekend warrior isn't going to give even the lowest rated touring pro a close match."

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Whos that?

TonLars said:

Whos that?

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Todd Martin na, he is from Michigan and he was a special player.. Maybe the Fish ? He somebody too

I think it depends on how "lower ranked pro" is defined. If it is someone in the 1000s who has been out there for awhile (versus someone just starting out) then I think there could be some interesting games. If its a 400+ guy the match would not even be close unless the 400+ guy ate bad pizza or something.

It would be cool to see but I think this goes on already at many futures tournaments. You have the really good guys in qualies and then there is a small group of players who are essentially Joes. They love the lifestyle and have the cash to live it, but only get points (or point more likely) through event location (the more remote the better), purchasing wild cards, sheer luck (the W/O), etc. They do play full time though which I guess by definition a Joe would not, so there would be some difference.

onehandbh said:

Given how little the prize money is for winning a futures tournament,
the amounts probably don't have to be that high.

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Yeah I think they might do it for $1000! Or a wild card.

Julieta said:

Yeah I think they might do it for $1000! Or a wild card.

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Some money would be good, given how little the prize money is for most
futures.

TonLars said:

Whos that?

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I think his name was John Matke. This was in the early 80's, (1980s, not 1880s).

Steady Eddy said:

When I lived in Minnesota there was a local player...

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TonLars said:

Whos that?

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Mike Cottrill said:

Todd Martin na, he is from Michigan and he was a special player.. Maybe the Fish ? He somebody too

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This happens alot, but Minnesota and Michigan are two different states.

Honestly the avwerage joe has many chances to do this type of thing - just sign up for local open tournaments. Odds are you'll bump into some pretty good D1 players or maybe a former pro or two, depending on the event. IIRC - don't smalller ATP tournaments have a tournament where anyone can sign and try to play thier way into the main draw? I could be wrong, but I recall someone telling me they tried to do this for the Legg Mason.

The average 3.5 or 4.0 would get totally destroyed, if the pro didn't get to bored.

Honestly, playing a pro is not fun, it's PAINFUL! I played a game of pick-up B-ball with a guy who was a former D1 player. IT was NOT fun.

IIRC there used to be a show called pros vs. Joes. A few Joes got lucky, but these were usually former college athletes. There was one episode where they joes has to hit volleyes off of Ginipri's forehand - hit right at them. They mostly ended up just getting pegged. PAINFUL.

Okazaki Fragment said:

Tennis would be more popular if they would capitalize on the unique fact that most fans are also players. How about a "dream match" between a top pro vs Joe with Joe given a 40-love headstart each game?

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They did this on Japanese TV with a complete beginner who was trained by a former pro and at a serious tennis camp for two weeks (and pretty decent), against Ai Sugiyama. She still beat him.