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June 2005 Article Wild Cards Archives:
Tennis Server
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Format For Men's Grand Slams by Dr. Richard E. Trueman
For many years, in the Grand Slam tournaments, women pros and the WTA have
diligently worked for equality with men players in regard to prize money,
and they have basically succeeded. Now, it's time for men pros and the ATP
to achieve equality with women players in terms of the effort required to
win Grand Slam matches. Why should men have to play best-of-five-set
matches, while the women play best-of-three-set matches? Almost without
exception, in all tennis tournaments other than Grand Slams, both men and
women play best-of-three-set matches. Is there some meaningful rationale for
men to play longer matches in the Grand Slams, other than to demonstrate
that they're stronger than women? There certainly are good reasons to
consider changing this situation.
As the seven rounds in a Grand Slam proceed, long matches test the strength
and endurance of the players. Long matches can become survival contests.
Obviously, players must be in very good physical condition to play, but in
many cases, what we see is players struggling to finish long matches,
sometimes over two days, as was all too common during this past 2004 Wimbledon,
with its many rain delays. This certainly affects the level of competition
unfavorably, and fan enjoyment is not enhanced by watching two players
trying to outlast each other during long matches. In addition to the
advantages to both players and fans of having shorter and more competitive
matches, the burden of tournament schedulers would be appreciably lessened.
The effect of rain delays would be not nearly as disruptive as it has been
in the past, and fans would get to see more matches completed on their
scheduled day.
Based upon analyses of the 2004 Wimbledon and 2002 U. S. Open tournaments
(shown in the Appendix below), it appears that employing the suggested
best-of-three-sets format would reduce the number of sets, and thus the
playing time, by over 30 percent. Under the current system, the number of
5-setters played is usually under 10 percent of the total matches,
and players coming back to win after trailing 2 sets to 1 would appear to
have probably no better than an even chance of pulling out the match. So
going to the shorter format would have a minimal effect on the tournament
results. The overall reduction in playing time and stress would surely be a
boon to players, fans, and tournament schedulers, and the quality and
competitiveness of the matches would be at a higher level.
APPENDIX: To get some idea of the numbers involved and the expected effect
of such a change in the current policy, let's look at some specific results
of an analysis of the men's matches in the 2004 Wimbledon tournament:
Of the 126 completed matches in the seven rounds, there were:
If these matches had been best-of-three-set matches, all 63 of the 3-set
matches would have ended at two sets. Of the 4-set matches, 9 would have
ended after two sets, and 3 of the 5-set matches would also have ended after
two sets. The remainder of the 4-set and 5-set matches would have lasted
three sets, so there would have been:
A reasonable estimate of the reduction in the number of sets would then be
34 percent [100 x (157/460)].
Of the 19 5-set matches, 8 players won after trailing 2 sets to 1. Thus 8 of
the actual 126 pairings, just over 6 percent, would have changed if the
best-of-three-sets format had been used.
A second analysis, that of the 2002 U. S. Open men's matches, gave very
similar results. Of the 117 completed matches, the total number of sets
played was 440. Under a best-of-three-sets format, the total number of sets
played would have been 284. The estimated percent reduction would have been
35 percent [100 x (156/440)]. And in the 22 5-set matches, 11 players won
after trailing 2 sets to 1. In this case, 11 of the 117 pairings, or just
over 9 percent, would have changed using the best-of-three-sets format.
Dr. Richard E. Trueman is a retired Professor of Management Science who has published several articles on statistical analyses of sports. He organizes, and participates in, a weekly seniors round-robin doubles competition in San Luis Obispo, California. If you wish to provide a comment to the author of this Wild Cards column, please use this form. Tennis Server will forward the comment to the author.
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