I've not played tennis since school. Maybe 20 years. Juliane and I were going to have some lessons with a friend who is a tennis coach, but then we were really busy and now she has a broken foot and a broken back. Maybe at the end of summer!
I've been musing today on how one would effectively handicap tennis (with a level of granularity similar to golf).
How about one player needs to win by two points, and the lesser player uses no-advantage scoring to win a game. Then a really bad player could win a set by getting one break of serve, and the better player has to get two breaks of serve to win a set (and hold serve too). And then the lesser player can win by winning one set and the better player must win by two sets.
Heh... There's a separate argument going on in some real circles about whether no-add scoring should be used for ALL tennis. =(
I'm looking at something along those lines, but really I have two use cases. General handicapping between players of widely disparate skill (e.g., how golf handles it), but also very specialized handicapping between two ranked and very skilled players who are simply one band (or so) apart.
The former is tough. The latter is almost a different problem altogether.
There's always ongoing debate on how to "fix" all sports. This is super interesting for me right now, as I am in the early stages of developing a sport myself. I'm trying out new formats and rules and ideas all the time. It's refreshing to be able to pretty much do what I want, based on player and audience feedback, without the weight of 100 years of statistics.
Because that's a big thing when changing any sport. The biggest developments in tennis have been:
1. The beginning of the Open Era, where professionals could compete alongside amateurs (though now everyone is a professional). This is the biggest by far. It used to be that once a player won a few major tournaments, they would turn pro, never enter the grand slams again, and go on tours of what we'd now call exhibition matches. That Rod Laver won the calendar Grand Slam both as an amateur and a professional, either side of 1968, shows just how good he was in his generation.
2. The ATP rankings, both to determine who is the best in a year or in the previous 52 weeks, and to determine who gets to play in what tournament. Before the rankings, the tournament organizers would pick players, including some just because they were big names, excluding others who would have been good enough to take part. With the rankings, all players of a certain rank or better can take part, if they want, with wildcards and qualifications to fill out the rest of the field.
3. Tie breaks. One of the best scoring inventions ever.
No-add scoring is already used in doubles matches on the ATP tour, and in most exhibition matches. I'm not a big fan. It speeds up matches, but gives too much help to the receiving player/team.
Match tie breaks, playing a 10 point tie break instead of a third set, is also used in doubles matches. I'm also not a fan.
The first change I think should happen, to speed up matches, is to eliminate let calls. If a ball hits the net on the serve, just play the point! It's always random anyway, so the scoring effect should end up benefiting the server only 50% of the time.
Also I think they should eliminate the pre-match on court warmup for the players. It goes on for ages, and isn't interesting. Announce the players, give them six balls each to get their serves dialed in, and get one with the start of the match!
For tournament structure purposes, I think there should be a third place match on the final day of the tournament, before the final. It could be a one set match, or a no-add match tiebreak type thing, to control the length so it doesn't run too long for TV schedules. Often a final won't happen because a player is injured or withdraws for other reasons, and then the third place match could become the main event. The third place match would be worth bonus money and rankings points to the winner. It works for the Olympics, to award the bronze medal, so why not other tournaments?
If you have no-ad scoring, and you get rid of Let calls, that will have a huge impact.
Also, remember. There are people who get paid millions of dollars just for playing tennis. If you get rid of the let call, these people will take advantage of it. They will practice like crazy and be able to somewhat consistently deliver serves that use the top of the net to make them impossible to return.
I think a better option is to get rid of the double fault. One fault should be it. Done. You are a professional tennis player. You shouldn't fuck up a serve ever.
Another thing I would like to see is to get rid of the stupid challenges. Just have the computer immediately and always decide if the ball is in our out every time the ball hits the surface. The more judging is done by the computer, the better. In all sports.
Double faults allow loads of "safe" risk taking for players on their first serve. It makes the game a lot more rounded, and a lot more interesting and exciting to watch. Not allowing that margin of error on the first serve would make all serves boring and safe. Do an edit of a match and only show second serves. Yawn.
That said, I think it would be a GOOD thing for players to practice half-ball-hitting-the-net non-let-call serves! It would have the opposite effect of getting rid of second serves. It would open up a whole other avenue of skill progression.
I agree on the challenges though. Every call should be checked all the time, automatically. If there is an error make a real rule that says when to replay the point or if the point should stand. For example, if you get the ball back into the court (or even the doubles court) and the call was incorrect, you get to replay the point. That way every player will always try to get the ball back in. Incentivize continuing play.
I don't understand why they don't do this with baseball already. On the TV they can show a real-time update on balls and strikes. Why not use that not for error checking the umpire, but for real game play?
Double faults allow loads of "safe" risk taking for players on their first serve. It makes the game a lot more rounded, and a lot more interesting and exciting to watch. Not allowing that margin of error on the first serve would make all serves boring and safe. Do an edit of a match and only show second serves. Yawn.
That's true, but is making the game shorter and/or more exciting a higher priority? What's more exciting to watch, a bunch of aces or really long volleys back and forth? If you force people to make safe serves, you'll get a lot more back and forth drama when people are able to return.
That said, I think it would be a GOOD thing for players to practice half-ball-hitting-the-net non-let-call serves! It would have the opposite effect of getting rid of second serves. It would open up a whole other avenue of skill progression.
This part would be exciting except for the fact that there's no way to return that nonsense. If someone is really good at making this serve, it will be the most boring thing to watch ever.
Except for that one time someone is able to miraculously return the ball.
I don't understand why they don't do this with baseball already. On the TV they can show a real-time update on balls and strikes. Why not use that not for error checking the umpire, but for real game play?
Conservative thinking and tradition. Same reason Soccer doesn't do ANYTHING.
That's true, but is making the game shorter and/or more exciting a higher priority? What's more exciting to watch, a bunch of aces or really long volleys back and forth? If you force people to make safe serves, you'll get a lot more back and forth drama when people are able to return.
It's not about making the games or matches shorter, it's about making the length of the matches less variable or more predictable. This is desirable for tournament scheduling and TV scheduling. Of course a match score can be 6-0 6-0 and be over quickly, or it could be 7(18)-6 6-7(24) 7(15)-6 and last hours and hours. Both of these are three set matches, but how the hell can you plan for that?
No advantage scoring means that there is a maximum of 7 points per game. That's it. No lets means a maximum of 2 serves per point. That's it.
Take a look at the International Tennis Premier League (I'm watching the final match right now). It is formatted purely for TV coverage and predictable live shows. There are always 5 sets per match. They have no advantage scoring, and no lets. They also have a serving clock, which counts down 20 seconds, and starts beeping at 20 seconds until the player starts their service motion. They also have power points, in which the receiving team can ask for the next point to count double to whoever wins it. Finally, sets go to a tie break at 5-5 not 6-6, and in the tie break, at 6 points each, the next point is deciding point, with the winner of that point taking it all. Again, the maximum points in a tie break is 13.
All of these make the games shorter and more predictable, and the number of sets fixed. The overall team rankings, and the deciding factor of winning a match, and who to gets into the final, is based on games won (not who wins the last set of the match), as that stat is the one that is most variable.
So games, sets and matches can be over slightly more quickly than planned, but then you can have more features and interviews and replays and commercial breaks. But they can't last much longer than planned.
Also, unreturnable no-let net hitting serves would be no more boring than unreturnable serves.
Sampras dominated with his serve, but the current era of tennis is based around good returning. Djokovic, Federer and Murray are unfazed by big servers. There just isn't anyone out there who can serve so well that the top players can't counter it. And no matter how tall the big servers are, players develop skills to counter that too:
I am not a huge tennis fan, but today I saw that Rafael Nadal was playing and I thought "I should watch some Rafael Nadal before he retires" so I put it on my Chromecast while I was cleaning my room. What resulted was a match that even I could tell was absolutely crazy. Put aside some time and watch at least highlights of Rafael Nadal and Lucas Pouille. Here's the full match if you like. It's epic sporting.
I've been on vacation for the first week of the US Open, so not seen any matches. Two nights ago I watched Wawrinka and Dan Evans battle it out for four sets, and it looked like it was going to be the match of the tournament so far (despite me not seeing any others) but Evans faded in the final set.
Last night I only started watching Nadal vs Pouille at the start of the fourth set, but it kept up the drama right until the last point. It was, indeed, epic sporting.
The ATP are trying to push the hashtag Next Gen of tennis players, and they picked out the best performing 18 to 21 year olds to promote over the next year or so. Theim has already broken through to be a top ten player, but a lot of attention is on Nick Kyrgios and some others.
Pouille got lucky in (I think) Madrid this year, making it in as a lucky loser, then having two walkovers to get to the semi-final. I thought "Does he really deserve to be in a 1000 tournament semi-final?" Turns out, yeah. Pouille is the real deal.
Once the Big Four retire, all attention is going to skip over the lost generation of tennis (Dimitrov I'm looking at you) and land right on Theim, Pouille, Zverev, Edmund, Fritz, Tiafoe and, sure, Kyrgios.
Comments
Adjust the weight as necessary.
Not granular enough for you, but it's a start.
I'm looking at something along those lines, but really I have two use cases. General handicapping between players of widely disparate skill (e.g., how golf handles it), but also very specialized handicapping between two ranked and very skilled players who are simply one band (or so) apart.
The former is tough. The latter is almost a different problem altogether.
Because that's a big thing when changing any sport. The biggest developments in tennis have been:
1. The beginning of the Open Era, where professionals could compete alongside amateurs (though now everyone is a professional). This is the biggest by far. It used to be that once a player won a few major tournaments, they would turn pro, never enter the grand slams again, and go on tours of what we'd now call exhibition matches. That Rod Laver won the calendar Grand Slam both as an amateur and a professional, either side of 1968, shows just how good he was in his generation.
2. The ATP rankings, both to determine who is the best in a year or in the previous 52 weeks, and to determine who gets to play in what tournament. Before the rankings, the tournament organizers would pick players, including some just because they were big names, excluding others who would have been good enough to take part. With the rankings, all players of a certain rank or better can take part, if they want, with wildcards and qualifications to fill out the rest of the field.
3. Tie breaks. One of the best scoring inventions ever.
No-add scoring is already used in doubles matches on the ATP tour, and in most exhibition matches. I'm not a big fan. It speeds up matches, but gives too much help to the receiving player/team.
Match tie breaks, playing a 10 point tie break instead of a third set, is also used in doubles matches. I'm also not a fan.
The first change I think should happen, to speed up matches, is to eliminate let calls. If a ball hits the net on the serve, just play the point! It's always random anyway, so the scoring effect should end up benefiting the server only 50% of the time.
Also I think they should eliminate the pre-match on court warmup for the players. It goes on for ages, and isn't interesting. Announce the players, give them six balls each to get their serves dialed in, and get one with the start of the match!
For tournament structure purposes, I think there should be a third place match on the final day of the tournament, before the final. It could be a one set match, or a no-add match tiebreak type thing, to control the length so it doesn't run too long for TV schedules. Often a final won't happen because a player is injured or withdraws for other reasons, and then the third place match could become the main event. The third place match would be worth bonus money and rankings points to the winner. It works for the Olympics, to award the bronze medal, so why not other tournaments?
Also, remember. There are people who get paid millions of dollars just for playing tennis. If you get rid of the let call, these people will take advantage of it. They will practice like crazy and be able to somewhat consistently deliver serves that use the top of the net to make them impossible to return.
I think a better option is to get rid of the double fault. One fault should be it. Done. You are a professional tennis player. You shouldn't fuck up a serve ever.
Another thing I would like to see is to get rid of the stupid challenges. Just have the computer immediately and always decide if the ball is in our out every time the ball hits the surface. The more judging is done by the computer, the better. In all sports.
That said, I think it would be a GOOD thing for players to practice half-ball-hitting-the-net non-let-call serves! It would have the opposite effect of getting rid of second serves. It would open up a whole other avenue of skill progression.
I agree on the challenges though. Every call should be checked all the time, automatically. If there is an error make a real rule that says when to replay the point or if the point should stand. For example, if you get the ball back into the court (or even the doubles court) and the call was incorrect, you get to replay the point. That way every player will always try to get the ball back in. Incentivize continuing play.
I don't understand why they don't do this with baseball already. On the TV they can show a real-time update on balls and strikes. Why not use that not for error checking the umpire, but for real game play?
Except for that one time someone is able to miraculously return the ball. Conservative thinking and tradition. Same reason Soccer doesn't do ANYTHING.
No advantage scoring means that there is a maximum of 7 points per game. That's it. No lets means a maximum of 2 serves per point. That's it.
Take a look at the International Tennis Premier League (I'm watching the final match right now). It is formatted purely for TV coverage and predictable live shows. There are always 5 sets per match. They have no advantage scoring, and no lets. They also have a serving clock, which counts down 20 seconds, and starts beeping at 20 seconds until the player starts their service motion. They also have power points, in which the receiving team can ask for the next point to count double to whoever wins it. Finally, sets go to a tie break at 5-5 not 6-6, and in the tie break, at 6 points each, the next point is deciding point, with the winner of that point taking it all. Again, the maximum points in a tie break is 13.
All of these make the games shorter and more predictable, and the number of sets fixed. The overall team rankings, and the deciding factor of winning a match, and who to gets into the final, is based on games won (not who wins the last set of the match), as that stat is the one that is most variable.
So games, sets and matches can be over slightly more quickly than planned, but then you can have more features and interviews and replays and commercial breaks. But they can't last much longer than planned.
Sampras dominated with his serve, but the current era of tennis is based around good returning. Djokovic, Federer and Murray are unfazed by big servers. There just isn't anyone out there who can serve so well that the top players can't counter it. And no matter how tall the big servers are, players develop skills to counter that too:
Last night I only started watching Nadal vs Pouille at the start of the fourth set, but it kept up the drama right until the last point. It was, indeed, epic sporting.
The ATP are trying to push the hashtag Next Gen of tennis players, and they picked out the best performing 18 to 21 year olds to promote over the next year or so. Theim has already broken through to be a top ten player, but a lot of attention is on Nick Kyrgios and some others.
Pouille got lucky in (I think) Madrid this year, making it in as a lucky loser, then having two walkovers to get to the semi-final. I thought "Does he really deserve to be in a 1000 tournament semi-final?" Turns out, yeah. Pouille is the real deal.
Once the Big Four retire, all attention is going to skip over the lost generation of tennis (Dimitrov I'm looking at you) and land right on Theim, Pouille, Zverev, Edmund, Fritz, Tiafoe and, sure, Kyrgios.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4rugk5_rafael-nadal-vs-lucas-pouille-highlights-ᴴᴰ-2016_sport