Tennis: [Part 2] 2019 U.S. Open

[kanuck87]

I agree, and not trying to take away from it, but, it's a level of dominance from one era over another that warrants a critical look. I recognize that it's not the popular view, but demographics and participation around sports is an interesting topic to me, and I find things are never quite as straight forward as it seems.

The sad thing is that it's not just the Top 3. There are literally a handful of other players born in the 80's with better performances in majors than just about anyone born in the 90's. Who's the most accomplished player born in the 90's? Probably either Nishikori or Thiem?

For sure, there's Wawrinka, Murray, Del Potro and Cilic. Even Tsonga and Berdych compares pretty favourably to anyone born in the 90's in terms of performance in majors.

Edit: Forgot about Ferrer as well.

 

[discostu]

The sad thing is that it's not just the Top 3. There are literally a handful of other players born in the 80's with better performances in majors than just about anyone born in the 90's. Who's the most accomplished player born in the 90's? Probably either Nishikori or Thiem?

For sure, there's Wawrinka, Murray, Del Potro and Cilic. Even Tsonga and Berdych compares pretty favourably to anyone born in the 90's in terms of performance in majors.

Edit: Forgot about Ferrer as well.

Good list. I'd also add Roddick and Isner to the 80s list. Also, I was corrected on the previous page, as Niahikori is actually born in the 80s as well.

 

[GQS]

Rafa was well on his way to winning in 3. Women play best of 3, men best of 5 so in most cases there's going to be a big difference in time played. Rafa's matches are always longer than necessary because he takes a ton of time and once in a point, he grinds out hugely long rallies.

Federer vs Novak this year was another 5 hour match and even the 5th set between them took 2 hours. If you look at many if not most men's matches and just count the first 3 sets, that's usually longer than most women's matches. That's even assuming women play a ton of 3 set matches which they often don't because alot of those matches end in blowouts.

And this isn't even including the fact that almost every memorable tennis match played involves men. There's barely any women's matches that people talk about as soon as its over and yet people will remember Federer/Novak at Wimbledon this year just like they remember the Federer/Nadal battles at Wimbledon from 12 years ago etc.

 

[ViD]

So refreshing to see the new Safin-Kafelnikov two punch duo in Russian men tennis, it’s been over ten years since we had elite male players.

 

[JianYang]

Federer vs Novak this year was another 5 hour match and even the 5th set between them took 2 hours. If you look at many if not most men's matches and just count the first 3 sets, that's usually longer than most women's matches. That's even assuming women play a ton of 3 set matches which they often don't because alot of those matches end in blowouts.

And this isn't even including the fact that almost every memorable tennis match played involves men. There's barely any women's matches that people talk about as soon as its over and yet people will remember Federer/Novak at Wimbledon this year just like they remember the Federer/Nadal battles at Wimbledon from 12 years ago etc.

The context of this discussion was about pay equity. I think the most fair way to distribute prize money would be based on the amount of revenue each each gender brings in.

Now, I'm assuming that's close to 50/50, but I could be wrong. Tennis does a great job marketing the woman's game relative to other sports.

 

[discostu]

The context of this discussion was about pay equity. I think the most fair way to distribute prize money would be based on the amount of revenue each each gender brings in.

Now, I'm assuming that's close to 50/50, but I could be wrong. Tennis does a great job marketing the woman's game relative to other sports.

It's hard to pin down exact revenue breakdowns, but, at present, the Men's side is the heavier earner. However, there have been periods, specifically the Seles-Graf years, where television audiences higher for the women's matches.

Regardless of the exact breakdowns though, the treatment of the women's side as just as important has likely helped with the and overall revenue of the sport. I've seen stats that attendance at the US Open is pretty close to 50/50 for men and women. That type of ratio likely is a source of envy from other sports.

Edit: I was curious so I looked it up, and over the weekend, the women's final actually earned a higher television rating in the US than the men's. That's one market, but, it's generally the most lucrative market.

 

[Tuggy]

 

[kihei]

Talk about poise and assurance at an early age. Kind of takes my breath away.

 

[MsMeow]

Talk about poise and assurance at an early age. Kind of takes my breath away.

And confidence without being an asshole.

 

[Say Hey Kid]

It's hard to pin down exact revenue breakdowns, but, at present, the Men's side is the heavier earner. However, there have been periods, specifically the Seles-Graf years, where television audiences higher for the women's matches. Regardless of the exact breakdowns though, the treatment of the women's side as just as important has likely helped with the and overall revenue of the sport. I've seen stats that attendance at the US Open is pretty close to 50/50 for men and women. That type of ratio likely is a source of envy from other sports. Edit: I was curious so I looked it up, and over the weekend, the women's final actually earned a higher television rating in the US than the men's. That's one market, but, it's generally the most lucrative market.

Agreed. The fact that one poster used the length of the 2 finals was just sad. We're talking about this big, important issue and he based his entire argument on Nadal not finishing off his match in 3 sets!

 

[MsMeow]

Agreed. The fact that one poster used the length of the 2 finals was just sad. We're talking about this big, important issue and he based his entire argument on Nadal not finishing off his match in 3 sets!

I see a lot of posts where some guys will make a comment about the women's game and it's loaded with sexism but they don't come out and say it. I've seen a couple of guys say that women should play best of 5 in majors. Women are obviously not as strong as men so it would be insane to go best of 5 because there would be more injuries and the quality of play would be watered down.

 

[Maestro84]

Talk about poise and assurance at an early age. Kind of takes my breath away.

It's incredible how a 19 year old can be so business-like both on and off the court. I remember when I got my first office job, I was nervous asf to talk to anyone for the first few weeks and I'd often stutter and say things in ways I'd never say them lol

 

[discostu]

I see a lot of posts where some guys will make a comment about the women's game and it's loaded with sexism but they don't come out and say it. I've seen a couple of guys say that women should play best of 5 in majors. Women are obviously not as strong as men so it would be insane to go best of 5 because there would be more injuries and the quality of play would be watered down.

I think we've all seen those comments.

It's funny, as tennis compensation is based precisely on what many sports fans claim they want, which is that players get paid only if they perform. But, even with that, people find ways to criticize it.

I actually wonder if the tennis industry wants best of five matches. Sure, when they're good, they're really good. But, I'd argued that a bad best of five match is worse than a bad best of three match. The former gets extra tedious. Plus, television networks don't want 5 hour sporting events. They're difficult to schedule and keep audiences interested.

Throw in your points about the physicality likely reducing the calibre of play, and it would be a bad, and costly decision for all involved to move to it. But, it gets thrown out there by many people who seem generally opposed to equal pay.

The last couples of months, I've been more curious on the topic of player compensation in general. I thought this article, which came after Bianca's Rogers cup win, was pretty interesting

https://www.cbc.ca/sports/tennis/the-buzzer-bianca-andreescu-rogers-cup-pay-gap-1.5246335

 

[Say Hey Kid]

I think we've all seen those comments. It's funny, as tennis compensation is based precisely on what many sports fans claim they want, which is that players get paid only if they perform. But, even with that, people find ways to criticize it. ...

I agree with your whole post, but I especially like this. Now that the top players are getting guaranteed contracts in all the major league sports, imagine if half of the All-Stars' salary was based on their playoff performances. It would be really exciting and interesting and 95% of the players would be unaffected. Would Tavares play better in the playoffs? j/k I don't dislike him.

 

[John Price]

 

[tony d]

Bianca's had quite a run. Seems to be professional in her ways as well, hoping for continued success for her.

 

[Cole Caulifield]

The US open highlights are the most hilarious thing I've ever seen. Three minutes into the highlights there's exactly 1 winning shot by Andreescu. You watch those highlights without looking at the score and you're 100% certain Williams blew past Andreescu. Just wow...

 

[tony d]

Yeah, the focus is still going to be on Serena - Like it or not. She's the GOAT, she's a more well known name than Bianca. It's not something I agree with but it is what it is.

 

[Cole Caulifield]

Yeah, the focus is still going to be on Serena - Like it or not. She's the GOAT, she's a more well known name than Bianca. It's not something I agree with but it is what it is.

I understand that. For example, Bianca started on court 9, and Serena kept getting the best possible courts/time slots, and I am fine with this at this juncture of both player's careers. But the highlights of the game are something different. It's like they're trying to re-write history or something. It's trumpian in its will to distort the truth and spin a narrative at all costs. I just think highlights of the match should reflect what happened in the match, show what were the key moments of the match. Serena blasting a winner in a lost game when it's the only sequence of that point you show is not a key moment of the game and it's a bit silly IMO.

 

[discostu]

I understand that. For example, Bianca started on court 9, and Serena kept getting the best possible courts/time slots, and I am fine with this at this juncture of both player's careers. But the highlights of the game are something different. It's like they're trying to re-write history or something. It's trumpian in its will to distort the truth and spin a narrative at all costs. I just think highlights of the match should reflect what happened in the match, show what were the key moments of the match. Serena blasting a winner in a lost game when it's the only sequence of that point you show is not a key moment of the game and it's a bit silly IMO.

I saw an ad from IBM that referenced their analytics system and how it's used for the US Open. I found this article that references it a bit (was for Wimbledon, but I assume the same system is used).

How UK Companies are Using the IBM Watson AI system

IBM's Watson engine pulls in information to create video highlights based on crowd noise, social traction, facial recognition and sentiment analysis of players following points to auto-curate highlights packages.

If they are using crowd noise, that would explain it. It's also not a great system if that's the result. I can understand the need so you don't have people manually cutting highlight packages for every first round match, but, you'd think they could afford a producer to cut their highlight package for the final.

 

[MsMeow]

If you're in the GTA CP24 has the rally on right now

 

[Cole Caulifield]

I saw an ad from IBM that referenced their analytics system and how it's used for the US Open. I found this article that references it a bit (was for Wimbledon, but I assume the same system is used).

How UK Companies are Using the IBM Watson AI system



If they are using crowd noise, that would explain it. It's also not a great system if that's the result. I can understand the need so you don't have people manually cutting highlight packages for every first round match, but, you'd think they could afford a producer to cut their highlight package for the final.

There's a limit to how much you can automate things. If that's really how things were done, then the algorithm really needs reviewing.

 

[discostu]

There's a limit to how much you can automate things. If that's really how things were done, then the algorithm really needs reviewing.

Once the machines take over, they're not going to be too happy you said that.

 

[TheFuture06]

I was so excited for Bianca winning the US Open and representing Canada so well. She handled herself with such grace in all that pressure. She made our country proud.