Analyzing developments in mens and womens professional tennis
Tennis is the Lonely Sport Tennis, or as it was known anciently, “real tennis,” was a game of royalty and aristocracy. King Henry of VIII of England (yes, that King Henry the VIII) and King Louis X of France were two notable players—qualifying the nickname, “the sport of Kings.”
Sources:Skip forward approximately 473 years from Louis X’s death. Time to brush up on your history folks; an important turning point in the French Revolution was the Tennis Court Oath (1789). According to Wikipedia (and I’m not going to try to find another source): The oath was both a revolutionary act, and an assertion that political authority derived from the people and their representatives rather than from the monarch himself. Skip forward another 221 years. Tennis has become a global phenomenon, with millions of devotees and thousands of touring professionals. Agassi, one of the most revered figures in the game, publishes his autobiography, “Open.” In it, he admits that 1) he hates tennis, 2) that tennis players are among the least educated athletes in the world, and 3) that tennis is a lonely sport. #1 is hardly debatable. What’s Agassi’s incentive to lie? He must truly hate tennis, a saddening fact indeed. #2 is possibly true. Laura Robson, a promising young junior, only spends 3 or 4 hours a day being home-schooled and treats tennis like “a full-time job.” 1 The result? Quote from Andy Murray, currently #4 in the world and British #1: “I don't think she quite understands the scoring system yet.” 1 It’s not entirely surprising that Robson and Roger Federer (currently #3 in the men’s rankings, promising candidate for the Greatest of All-Time) both started playing tennis at age 6: “For promising junior players, refining the kinesthetic sense is the main goal of the extreme daily practice regimens we often hear about. The training here is both muscular and neurological. Hitting thousands of strokes, day after day, develops the ability to do by “feel” what cannot be done by regular conscious thought. Repetitive practice like this often looks tedious or even cruel to an outsider, but the outsider can’t feel what’s going on inside the player — tiny adjustments, over and over, and a sense of each change’s effects that gets more and more acute even as it recedes from normal consciousness.” 2 Robson indeed does not understand many things, but is beginning to understand the “kinesthetic sense” that David Foster Wallace writes about here. Tennis is the lonely sport: “We’re all on each other’s food chain. All of us. It’s an individual sport. Welcome to the meaning of individual. We’re each deeply alone here. It’s what we all have in common, this aloneness” (112) 3. It goes without saying that ten out of every hundred people you meet plays tennis. Of those ten, maybe five play tennis well. In the United States, tennis’s status is overshadowed by bigger attractions (with bigger ad-revenue): baseball, football, and basketball. Singles is perhaps one of the more individualistic activities one can engage in. There is no goalie, no point-guard, and no linebacker. Instead, you are all of those at once. So why is tennis the sport of Kings? It’s lonely at the top, the higher up you go. 1. Chadwick, Justin. "Cheeky Robson puts Murray in his place" Sydney Morning Herald. 7 Jan. 2010. Web. 30 Jul. 2010. <http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-sport/cheeky-robson-puts-murray-in-his-place-20100107-lwih.html> 2. Wallace, David Foster. "Roger Federer as Religious Experience." Play Magazine 20 Aug. 2006. New York Times. Web. <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1>. 3. Wallace, David Foster. Infinite Jest. New York: Back Bay, 2006. Print. ___________________________________________________________________ An Apology: The Argument for Equal Prize Money in Tennis Let me be frank. This blog has been unfair.
I originally created this blog to cover recent developments in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP; for men) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA). So far, my two articles have focused on Roger Federer and Andre Agassi respectively, two male professional tennis players. Because of my schedule, I have only been able to update once a week, on issues that have been most interesting to me. And those issues have primarily rested in the ATP. So let us address one of the foremost issues on tennis forums: that of equal prize money for men and women tennis players. I have heard much rancor on online tennis forums about this issue, and few have defended equal prize money. Few have defended the rights of women to be paid equally. Ironically, most of those complaining are men. According to a Talk Tennis poll, only 18.60% believe women should be paid the same at all events. Some of the comments you’ll see on the forum are just plain sexist or misguided: “They'll deserve equal prize money when they start wearing bikini and thongs on court.” --Equinox “I think only 1 professional tour should exist, open to men and women at the same time, then we'll see how much money the Williams sisters, Davenport, Sharapova and co, really deserve to win, I mean ZERO $” --spinbalz From reading the forums, the complaints against equal prize money are divided into two categories: 1) Women only play best of three sets in Grand Slams, whereas men play best-of-five
2) Women do not generate as much revenue in tickets sales and/or promotion for the tournaments through which they get paid as male tennis players do
The first complaint almost seems valid. If women play best-of-three sets, it should correspondingly follow that their matches are shorter and less physically demanding. However, this assertion is not sound, as we shall see in a subsequent example. Two reasons to discount the first complaint: A) Best-of-three does not necessarily mean less tennis.
B) Best-of-three does not necessarily confer worse quality.
Illustrative stat for A: The ladies’ final at Wimbledon in 2005 lasted 45 minutes longer than the men’s.1 B: Let me just delve into a personal anecdote regarding this year’s U.S. Open. I was there on Labor Day, and saw two matches on Arthur Ashe: Nadia Petrova vs. Melanie Oudin and Roger Federer vs. Tommy Robredo. Which match got the bigger turnout? Oudin’s. It did not matter that it was a womens’ match. In fact, after Federer was up a set and a break against Robredo (and the match’s result became fairly inevitable), scores of people started to leave the stadium to watch John Isner vs. Fernando Verdasco at Louis Armstrong Stadium. (If you were there on Labor Day at the U.S. Open as well and can corroborate my experience, shoot me an email at admin@atpblogger.com). Why did crowds leave? Because to an American audience, watching Federer beat someone in the round of 16 against whom he has an undefeated record (Robredo) is infinitely less entertaining as watching North Carolina native John Isner (underdog in the match) take on a Spaniard from overseas. As for the second complaint: paying women less is bad business. It just is. What kind of message does it send to CEOs of sponsor companies who happen to be female? What kind of message does it send to female players? What kind of message does it send to young girls (with tennis aspirations or not)? And as raftermania on Talk Tennis forum pointed out: “Tennis players are getting paid the big bucks because of the prestige of their sport. It's not about who's working harder physically. If you're going to pay people based on this logic, then blue collar workers should be paid more then those lazy lawyers who sit on their butts all day.” Grimjack writes: “Prize purses aren't thank-yous for excellent play or hard work. They're capitalist-based thank-yous to the players for providing entertainment and thus successfully/profitably promoting the event and its sponsors.” In 2006, Venus William wrote an piece in The Times criticizing Wimbledon for its then unequal prize money distribution: “I feel so strongly that Wimbledon's stance devalues the principle of meritocracy and diminishes the years of hard work that women on the tour have put into becoming professional tennis players.” 1 What you see on the tennis court is a small distillation of the individual who is playing. To get to that point (to get to Centre Court Wimbledon) the player has probably hit millions of tennis balls, spent countless hours on the court, and suffered scores of painful losses. Professionals in any sport have spent much more time in training than playing on live on TV. Serena Williams, Roger Federer, and Rafael Nadal have probably hit thousands of tennis balls into the net! Sure, winning a best-of-five set tournament may be more physically demanding. But what you see on the TV (the actual play) is a mere iota of the ocean of work the players have put in on and off the court. We need to be thoughtful: the players are not only paid for their play, but for their life’s work. And to say that one’s life work is worth anything less, and that one should be paid less, either because of sex or the simple scoring system, is wrong. Those do not--and should not--matter. To those still unconvinced: walk in Venus Williams’ shoes. I challenge you to put in two decades of work perfecting your skill in a sport. And I ask you to imagine being paid less for playing 45 minutes longer than the mens’ final. I ask you, is that fair? 1. Williams, Venus. "Wimbledon has sent me a message: I'm only a second-class champion." The Times. 26 June 2006. Web. 14 Nov. 2009. <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/tennis/article679416.ece>. ___________________________________________________________________Breaking News Update7: Federer just lost in the second round of the Paris Masters, to Julien Benneteau of France. The score was 3-6, 7-6 (4), 6-4.
Federer just lost in the finals of his hometown tournament in a tightly contested match to Djokovic, who won 6-4, 4-6, 6-2.
Three things to glean from the highlights video: 1) Djokovic is playing extremely well (see first point). 2) Federer is human (0:17, 3:00). 3) Federer is still capable of producing shots of eye-dropping magnitude (2:25, rally at 3:55) How do I know Federer is human? One year ago, on the very same court, against a player in similar playing form, Federer won fairly comfortably. Who was this player? Feliciano Lopez, who plays similarly to Djokovic (with a western-grip forehand, an aggressive-baseliner game). (Lopez, however was ranked #42 and Djokovic #3 in the world this point last year.) Compare the shot that Federer missed at 3:00 in the highlights video to this shot: Watch closely at 1:38-1:54: Could Federer’s loss to Djokovic be any indication that Federer is not the player he was a year ago? To answer this question, let’s probe the perspectives of three players: Nalbandian(Federer’s contemporary and adequate rival in terms of head-to-head), Federer himself, and finally the winner of the match, Djokovic. Last year at Basel, Federer won in emphatic fashion, 6-3, 6-4 over David Nalbandian. Nalbandian, last year’s Basel finalist, commended Roger’s play as “almost perfect." 1 Additionally, Federer lost just seven points on his serve in the entire match. 2 What about this year's final against Djokovic? Federer: "I tried hard, I was just outplayed … there are no excuses. Novak played tough and saved a ton of break points. I needed to play much better on attack.”3 “He played tough and he played well when he had to, and saved a ton of break points that were crucial.” 4 Djokovic: "Winning in Basel makes my success even more special. We all know how well Roger plays at home - he has won here three times. I'm extremely happy with how I approached the match and my strategy."3 Now, let us not discount the fact that Federer has had an amazing year, with titles at Cincinnati, Wimbledon, Paris, and Madrid to his name. And let us take into consideration what one Talk Tennis forum member, Rorschach, pointed out: “Starting 2010 Federer will have more slam titles than the entire field....combined" With Safin retiring, the tally looks like this: Nadal -6
Hewitt-2 Djokovic-1 Roddick-1 Gaudio-1 Moya-1 Del Potro-1 Ferrero-1 Total= 14 However, the question remains, is Federer the player he was at this point last year? We need to take into consideration that Federer just lost two finals in the last three months, in two tournaments that are among his favorites. This is quite an atypical occurrence for Federer. And the fact remains: Basel is probably the most important tournament for Federer in terms of representing his hometown. As you may know, Federer cried fairly emotionally when he lost in the 2001 Basel final against Tim Henman: In Federer's last two losses, a younger opponent prevented him from defending his title (four in a row at Basel, six in a row at the US Open) Finally, let’s look at the other important statistic: What is Federer’s 2009 record in matches that went to a deciding set(best two out of three)? 3 and 7. ( You can look this up here5) Quite poor! In percentage terms that is 30%. The three wins: Two wins over Roddick, one win over Ferrer. The seven losses: Murray twice, Djokovic three times, Tsonga once, Wawrinka once. 5 Federer can still beat Roddick when it matters (4-0 this year). But he is having a hard time beating those of the younger generation in Masters Series tournaments. We shouldn’t be asking the question, ‘Why is Federer doing so poorly in Master Series tournaments?’ We should be asking the question, ‘Why are Murray and Djokovic doing so well?’ ( Murray's 2009 record is 63-9, and Djokovic's is 71-18, the most wins on tour6) Did Federer lose? Or did Djokovic win? The latter seems more likely. Sources: 1. Ledsom, Mark. "Federer completes hometown hat-trick in Basel." Reuters. 26 Oct. 2008. Web. 10 Nov. 2009. <http://www.reuters.com/article/sportsNews/idUSTRE49O1L020081026> 2. "Federer beats Nalbandian in Swiss Indoors final.” Associated Press. ESPN, 26 Oct. 2008. Web. 10 Nov. 2009. <http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=3665156&type=story>. 3. Williams, Scott. "Djokovic ends Federer's Basel reign" Agence France Presse. Google News, 8 Nov. 2009. Web. 9 Nov. 2009. <http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jmDzUQv6qzwyIJAowNdqDy-bT8zQ>. 4. “In His Hometown Tournament, Federer Loses to Djokovic” Associated Press. New York Times, 9 Nov. 2009. Web 9 Nov. 2009 <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/sports/tennis/09tennis.html> 5. Note: Yahoo Sports states an error for Federer's 2009 record. It is actually 59-9, and not 56-8, according to the ATP website. The discrepancy is due to Yahoo Sports not counting the 3 wins and 1 loss at Monte Carlo and for Davis Cup. 6. Dunbar, Graham. "Federer loses to Djokovic in Swiss Indoors final." Associated Press. Google News, 8 Nov. 2009. Web. 10 Nov. 2009. <http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i-YhxUfxwb9L7hKlDaG8nZGhp7_QD9BRGUA01> 7. Petrequin, Samuel. "Federer loses in second round of Paris Masters." Associated Press. Google News, 11 Nov. 2009. Web. 11 Nov. 2009. <http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gxRAFYZzJZjUX5evQAHnjN5Fm8qQD9BTMR600> |
Updates |
|