Wimbledon announces it will abolish grass seeding formula

[stringertom]

Lol, I was literally watching that a couple days ago.

One of my ATG films!

 

[LETitBE]

Lest we forget...the nadal is only in the 1,2,3 seed because of his prowess on clay to start with

 

[Subway Tennis]

Correct, and hopefully so.

@Mainad will be better placed to forecast this, but in my opinion there is almost no chance of getting that curfew removed. A lot of powerful people with plenty of free time and resources and, frankly, the inclination to fight to keep it in place.

Very stubborn and extremely wealthy and connected people in that area and they want to retain the status quo.

 

[Enceladus]

I am disappointed with this decision. It is clear that the organizers of Wimbledon can't stand up per their positions, opinions, after a wave of great criticism, they changes them.

 

[Marfrilau]

Aiming to seed players based only on who you think is the best is fine, until you realize that there is no objective and fair way to accurately do that.

1. Form is always up and down, the "real" best players are constantly changing and shifting, people can only predict what happens if player A plays player B in x,y,z conditions, and nobody can predict the future. That's not even adding in the headaches of matchups. So doing this isn't feasible. Unless you are in favour of basing the seeds off the odds from gambling companies. They have to actually do some proper analysis so they don't lose money.

2. Imagine for example a #5 seeded player sustains an injury and comes back to play his first tournament being unfit and out of practice. It is assumed by everyone, even the player, that they aren't among the 5 best players in the tournament anymore. Would it be right then to strip that player of their #5 seed? No, because we know that player has earned that seed by proving his worth in other tournaments in the past 12 months, and taking it away would be undermining the player. Please try saying otherwise to the players, they'd laugh at you, these are their careers and they expect things to be fair and based off some actual objective measure.

So I beg to differ. Nadal deserved the #2 seed last year based off actual objective measures based off the past 12 months. Doesn't matter if he ended up losing, because then you'd have to admit that seeding is 95% flawed in all other tournaments.

But the Wimbledon seeding formula was just as objective as just using the rankings. Basing seeds on the results of the past 12 months isn't inherently more objective or fair than any other formula that is based on results. I'm just pointing out that in this case the Wimbledon formula was more accurate in predicting Federer over Nadal than the normal rankings were.

And again, I'm pretty sure that the main goal of seeding is to keep the top players in the tournament as long as possible in order to maximize profits not as a reward for players.

 

[ADuck]

But the Wimbledon seeding formula was just as objective as just using the rankings. Basing seeds on the results of the past 12 months isn't inherently more objective or fair than any other formula that is based on results. I'm just pointing out that in this case the Wimbledon formula was more accurate in predicting Federer over Nadal than the normal rankings were.

And again, I'm pretty sure that the main goal of seeding is to keep the top players in the tournament as long as possible in order to maximize profits not as a reward for players.

Of course it is, because tennis is played on a 12-month cycle. The most recent tournament results are far more relevant than that of 2 years ago. 75% of Wimbledon points from 2 years ago is just too much considering,
1. How much can change in 2 years, and
2. That no other tournaments from 2 years ago are considered
Those two things together made the seeding process place far too much relevance on a tournament that occurred 2 years ago. I'm not suggesting the whole thing be torn down and replaced, but it definitely was in need of some tweaking. I would have either removed that part and put more relevance on grass court events in the past 12 months, or kept it but in addition added a lower % of points from other tournaments of 2 years ago.

You can point out that Wimbledon was more accurate in this case, but as I already pointed at in my last post, you can't justify seeding post-tournament. It's obviously not as simple as that.

 

[Cashman]

The 10 million pay out to the players is the real story.

Zero obligation to do it, really wonderful to see.

Bread and circuses for the plebs.

 

[Marfrilau]

Of course it is, because tennis is played on a 12-month cycle. The most recent tournament results are far more relevant than that of 2 years ago. 75% of Wimbledon points from 2 years ago is just too much considering,
1. How much can change in 2 years, and
2. That no other tournaments from 2 years ago are considered
Those two things together made the seeding process place far too much relevance on a tournament that occurred 2 years ago. I'm not suggesting the whole thing be torn down and replaced, but it definitely was in need of some tweaking. I would have either removed that part and put more relevance on grass court events in the past 12 months, or kept it but in addition added a lower % of points from other tournaments of 2 years ago.

You can point out that Wimbledon was more accurate in this case, but as I already pointed at in my last post, you can't justify seeding post-tournament. It's obviously not as simple as that.

None of this explains why it's less objective or less fair. As long as it's calculated the same for all players then any formula you come up with is objective. Why is focusing on the results of the last 12 months the objective thing to do? If results from 2 years ago is less relevant then why aren't results from 11 months ago less relevant than results from a month ago?

If your point is that using results from 2 years ago leads to a less accurate formula then fine. But it doesn't make it less objective or fair.

 

[ADuck]

None of this explains why it's less objective or less fair. As long as it's calculated the same for all players then any formula you come up with is objective. Why is focusing on the results of the last 12 months the objective thing to do? If results from 2 years ago is less relevant then why aren't results from 11 months ago less relevant than results from a month ago?

If your point is that using results from 2 years ago leads to a less accurate formula then fine. But it doesn't make it less objective or fair.

I was trying to point out that seeding isn't based only on who the best players are in the current conditions. There's no objective way of accurately predicting the rank-order of players for every tournament. There's just too many factors. If there was, we'd know the results before they happened. So, all this to say, Federer beating Nadal doesn't justify the seeding, as that logic can be used to discredit the seeding in 95% of other tournaments.

That was arguably a separate point from my first argument about the formula needing to be tweaked, but was necessary to make. Does that clear things up? If I misunderstood you and weren't talking about that, then ignore the above.

I've already explained why I believe recent results are a more accurate representation of a player's level. On why we don't make tournaments from 11 months ago less relevant, well it aint a perfect system, but it's fairer to count the points over the past 12 months equally as they occur as part of the 12-month cycle of tournaments. Every tournament is played in unique conditions, so reducing the importance of a tournament that can only occur once every 12 months wouldn't be fair.

 

[TearTheRoofOff]

But the result of the random draw put Kyrgios in the bottom half. Are you saying that if Rafa was seeded 1 Kyrgios could have been in tho top half?

Yes.

 

[tennis tom]

"The actual type of grass that is used is 70%"Lorina" perenial ryegrass and 30%"Barcrown" creeping red fescue."

- The Wimbledon Grass

.

 

[blablavla]

He got a ridiculously hard draw cause he didn't get an appropriate seeding.

was it Novak in R1 and Fed in R2 and Rafa in R3?

 

[blablavla]

Some posters don‘t like the good tennis.

even some umpires don't like intelligent tennis