channel vision
Robert Kirby
With the Wimbledon finals upon us it is interesting to reflect on what might be called the hidden statistics of professional tennis. Two Dutch academics from Tilburg University have been doing this, basing their results on the analysis of some phenomenal number of points played at Wimbledon 88 883, to be exact. Their findings are published in a fascinating document called Testing Some Common Tennis Hypotheses: Four Years at Wimbledon.
There are 17 hypotheses, their statistics either supporting or dismissing popular beliefs: after winning a set there’s a good chance a player will lose the first game in the next set; serving with new balls provides a slight advantage; real champions play their best tennis on the big points; after breaking an opponent’s serve a player is more likely to lose his or her own next one.
Other interesting “gee whiz” facts emerge. For instance, the average time in play for one point is five seconds. At that rate a six-points game lasts only 30 seconds. A four-set men’s singles match lasts two and half hours, during which the ball is actually in play for only 20 minutes. (Is it true that in rugby actual play only fills some 15 minutes of the 80?) The rest of the time is taken up by players getting ready, taking rests between games and all the other accumulation of small delays, not to exclude sometimes having to wait for the crowd to quieten down.
Which means, of course, that commentators feel it’s incumbent on them to blather away for two hours and 10 minutes, that is, presuming they don’t do what many of them already do, which is to blather away while play is under way as well. This is where commentators Messrs John McEnroe and Pat Cash like to blather on mainly about themselves.
There’s apparently not much evidence underwriting the favourite commentator’s belief that the seventh game in a set has some special significance. This mythology is in the same league as the score of 111 in cricket, the ominous “Nelson”, when wickets are supposed to tumble. Statistically they don’t, but it’s part of the fun to expect them to. Exploding myths is a largely joyless exercise.
I must have a drop of errant Dutch blood somewhere for here’s another one going bang, the one which says that whoever wins the fourth set in a five-setter usually wins the match. Not according to the figures, at least when seeded players are competing. It seems to hold true with lesser ranks. And when it come to the famous new balls, the Dutch chappies found out that players tend to serve more double faults with these than at other times.
It’s a fascinating document and it can be found on the Internet at netec.mcc.ac.uk/WoPEc/data/Papers/ dgrkubcen199673.html.
Still on sport, the NatWest one-day cricket series in England has been a runaway victory for the Aussies, who on two occasions quite humiliated England and then delivered a solid whacking to the Pakistanis in the final. This last match was at Lords, where the officials strictly forbade the use of those offensive plastic hooters, the waving of vast flags and, of course, fireworks. It’s the first of these modern-day curses that is the worst, that continual very flat G from hundreds of the damned things.
The strongest complaint has come from the players, who find the noise and the hoodlum behaviour of the crowd very distracting, They also don’t like being attacked by rampaging fans or having fireworks thrown at them. The Aussies have got it right. Anyone venturing on to the field at Australian cricket venues gets promptly nabbed with an automatic $10 000 fine plus a night in chooky. He also gets banned from that venue for a period. It’s easy to see why such tough action is necessary. Zero tolerance for unruly crowd behaviour diminishes the chances of rioting and all that goes with it. It has to start with the hooters and the Lords cricket officials have shown the way.
How utterly low can you get in the way of trailer-park television tastes? Watch SABC3 for a charming selection, like one of their The World’s Most … series: elegant, informative early-evening diversions like The World’s Most Gruesome Car Accidents and The World’s Most Grotesque Physical Deformities, and a real humdinger called Bizzarro, in which people do things like stick hot meat skewers through their eyeballs.
Just right for the dinner hour.