Wimbledon 2012 Becomes First Indoor Slam

Wimbledon 2012 is over and we aim to cover the major themes as discussed by the media using the data and science available to understand what happened. Many might have wondered what was going on with the tournament as it seemed there were two very different tournaments being played. One a grass court spectacle and the other an indoor tennis tournament favoring a different style player.

As we have pointed out in the past, the ATP tour rolled out the 32 player seeded draw to ensure there were fewer upsets so the top seeds could reach the finals of tournaments. Though Rafael Nadal was upset, 4 of the top 5 seeds reached the semifinals. The Wimbledon gods smiled on Federer where he faced no top 28 seeds until the semifinals. Then he played his next and final two matches indoors vs. Djokovic and a Palooka named Andy Murray in the finals. Though the Murray match was a close affair at first, the match was converted into an indoor venue midway ultimately changing the elements of the Championship. Federer is the first winner in Wimbledon history to face 3 players in a row (who he was 26-2 versus) over 30 years old at the tourney.

What to make of Nadal’s loss after 5 ESPN analysts picked him to win the tourney and we saw him as a heavy favorite? In the last 2 years, the majority of Nadal’s losses to players not named Federer and Djokovic have been to players 6’3″ or taller who tend to hit flat down the line passing shots off Nadal’s topspin forehand. These players, like Mardy Fish, Juan Martin Del Potro and Robin Soderling have massive firepower off both sides.

The 6’5″ Lukas Rosol played in the same vein in an out of his tree, partially indoor match firing 22 aces and facing only 4 break points in 25 service games. When he wasn’t firing aces, he was blasting huge groundstrokes hitting 65 winners including 14 winners off Nadal’s serve. Nadal may be the only person in history to play 51 games in a match with only 16 unforced errors (in 276 points) and lose.

Tied at 2 sets a piece with sunlight dimming, Nadal expected to complete his match the next day. However, the Wimbledon tournament officials determined to finish matches on schedule for television, decided to play the last set under lights with the rooftop closed.

When the rooftop is shut at Centre Court the tennis environment changes noticeably. Players have complained of getting a clammy feeling as all wind is eliminated and a centrally controlled environment of 74 F / 33 C degrees is implemented. Humidity condenses and impact of sunlight on the tourney goes away.

So for Nadal, a match that was being played at dusk suddenly became a mid afternoon match with indoor lighting meant to simulate mid-day. Moreover, the impact of his slower spin shots which wreak havoc in outdoor conditions with wind and the “Magnus” effect are negated since there is no wind to vary the spin of the ball.

There hasn’t been a more terrifying set of circumstances against a Spaniard as Nadal faced in the fifth set since the Spanish Armada wrecked on the shores of Ireland. After 4 sets, Nadal had more aces than Rosol and trailed in winners by only 9 shots. In the 5th set, Rosol hit 33% of his aces with 7 to Nadal’s 3 getting in an incredible 19 of 23 first serves. When he wasn’t serving 5th set aces, Rosol hit 20 winners to Nadal’s 5 doubling his margin of winners in the match in one set alone. And just like that, Wimbledon became any man’s tournament.

The Indoor / Outdoor scenario played itself out time after time as Federer was blessed with an indoor semi-final against Djokovic. At the 2011 US Open final Federer and Djokovic were about the same in winners and aces with the decisive figure being unforced errors where Federer hit 59 vs Djokovic’s 35. At the 2011 Australian Open, Djokovic hit 10 more winners and 10 less unforced errors than Federer. But in mid 2012, an older Federer playing without interference from the elements hit only 10 unforced errors to Djokovic’s 21 over 4 sets while hitting more winners and aces.

In the final, the first two sets against Murray were a close affair as Murray has split 16 matches vs Federer evenly. But the match again turned dramatically when the roof was closed. In the first two sets, Murray held a slight edge in aces with Federer having a slight edge in winners. But Murray had a lopsided advantage in unforced errors hitting only 9 to Federer’s 24. After the roof was closed the match turned dramatically as Federer hit 32 winners in the last 2 sets and only 14 unforced errors. Pete Sampras looked down from the tennis pantheon and thought to himself “how many slams would I have won with a rooftop?”

The issues with Wimbledon’s rooftop are well known. In 2009 when the rooftop first premiered, Andy Murray slammed it for the impact on the game. He claimed which was later confirmed by an International Tennis Federation scientist that the grass became more slippery as the closed roof and artificial environment caused humidity to condense on the grass. In Murray’s first service game where he was broken in the third set of the final in 2012, he slipped full to the ground 3 times on different points he lost.

Other players describe the air under rooftop as treacle, slowing the ball down during play. The shot spot system has shown that serves can slow down as much as 5 mph indoors. from when the roof is not closed. Professor Steve Haake, of Sheffield Hallam University’s department of sports engineering, who is also a consultant to the International Tennis Federation says ‘We have conducted blind tests on top tennis players, and they are so sensitive they can tell immediately there has been even the smallest changes to their rackets and strings.’

The New York Times also sites that for the first time, night time matches are being played at Wimbledon, upsetting what players are used to from a scheduling perspective.

And what of Wimbledon itself. This was the oldest men’s round of 16 in history with the average age of competitors 27.8 years old. At the 2010 Australian Open there was a 21 year old breakout talent, Marin Cilic, who made it to the men’s semifinal. At this year’s Wimbledon, 2.5 years later, the youngest person in the men’s round of 16 was again Marin Cilic. Wimbledon who has had breakout titlists under 22 such as John McEnroe, Jimmy Connnors, Bjorn Borg, Boris Becker, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi has not had a 21 and under winner since Roger Federer in 2003. As John McEnroe says in an ESPN on Novak Djokovic, and is quoted in the blog, tennishasasteroidsproblem, “The level of play is mind-boggling,” says John McEnroe, commentating for NBC during a recent match. “I’m still trying to figure out how these guys do it.”

Surprising as in every other sport in the world, besides cycling, career longevity is declining. Tennis oldsters are hanging onto the top 10 like some sort of characters from “Interview With a Vampire”.

Meanwhile, the US has little new tennis talent. Donald Young continues his downward spiral. Ryan Harrison exited in the second round like last year. John Isner also exited early. No Americans under 24 moved up in the top 100 as a result of the tourney.

And tennis ratings are at there lowest point ever as the Federer / Nadal era has brought such decline in the sport that Wimbledon broadcasts are no longer available on network television. Feeding the tennis world the same matches over and over in finals over a 10 year span has left fans to say, “I’ll watch it when something is different” Tennis has entered the last tier of sports viewing and what happens when Federer and Nadal retire?

Palookas Named Andy – The Making of the Roger Federer Legend

More quick metrics following Nadal’s latest domination of the French Open. Our own ratings have Nadal at Number 1 with 7 Frenchies beating a cumulative field twice as good as Borg did in his 6 slams. Nadal has also passed Sampras on the cumulative power list of quality slam victories.

A former pro player mentioned to us that Nadal and Djokovic were beating Federer when he was not at his peak. And, that Federer, as the winner of 16 slams, is just better. This is mind numbingly dumb as 99% of society believes that in any sports endeavor when someone beats someone else, the winner is better than the loser. Nadal’s 6 title wins at Grand Slam finals without a loss to Federer the last 5 years dictates pure superiority. But not for that slim .1% of the tennis intelligentsia and innumerates like Peter Bodo. No wonder other sports fans don’t take tennis seriously. So we have a new metric to cut through the argument.

At #3 in the world, Federer is still at his peak. Since Federer’s first loss to Nadal at the 2006 French Open final when he was 24, Federer has reached the finals of more than 40 atp tournaments or about 47% of his total finals. There has been very little dropoff in performance unlike for example, Lleyton Hewitt, who reached only 9 finals or the last 20% of his career finals after his 2004 loss to Federer at the finals of the US Open and quickly fell out of the ATP top 3. Our eyes don’t deceive us, Federer at his peak is simply not as good as Nadal or Djokovic at their peak.

Below, we have a table that looks at the players Nadal beat in his Grand Slam finals vs. the players Federer and Sampras beat for their championships. Nadal owned Federer 6 times (from Federer at 24 years old to 29, beating him on every surface) and Djokovic twice to win 8 of his 11 championships. Putting a cumulative score on the number of slam wins of Nadal’s opponents, that amount is 106. For Sampras his cumulative score is 48. Federer’s cumulative score is 43 of which 27 come from beating Nadal and Djokovic before they turned 21.5 years old.

Unlike Nadal and Federer, Sampras 3 times beat 3 other grand slam winners to win a slam. His field was much tougher and he didn’t have a 32 seed draw to protect him from early round challengers. Sampras also was winner in 2 of the toughest Wimbledons and US Opens ever played. Nadal won a single slam defeating 3 prior slam winners but never repeated that feat. Federer never accomplished this. Another feat that Sampras accomplished that Federer did not near the end of his career is that when Sampras lost to Marat Safin at the US Open finals in 2000, he came back and defeated him in the subsequent year’s championship. Once Federer has lost to Nadal and Djokovic on any surface at a Slam, he has never beaten them again at that Slam.

But just who did Federer beat at his slam championships. Close scrutiny shows he won against a collections of journeymen named Andy (Palookas), Nadal and Djokovic before their prime (Puppies) and the Ghost of Andre Agassi. Four of Federer’s slam victories, and 4 of his cumulative “points” came against Andy Roddick. Andy Roddick never should have won the 2003 US Open. He was losing to David Nalbandian 2 sets to love, in a 3rd set tiebreaker with the score 7-7 when a fan called an in ball “Out” and Nalbandian mishit the next ball and lost the next point, the next two sets and the match. Another 2 of Federer’s slams came against Andy Murray. So 6 of his 16 have come against …

Palookas Named Andy

All Federer’s Slam wins against Nadal and Djokovic came before their peaks. Federer won his first slam at 21 and 11 months old.

Federer’s other big win was against an over the hill, 35 year old Agassi. Agassi was a shell of the player that demolished Federer at the US Open in 2002 when he was 32 years old. Taking out Federer’s win over out of his prime Agassi in 2005 with before their prime Nadal and Djokovic (as our former pro would do), his overall slam score falls to a mundane 8 points with wins over Palookas like Andy Murray, Marcos Baghdatis and Robin Soderling.

In contrast Sampras beat a host of players at their peak such as Edberg, Becker, Lendl, Agassi, Courier and Chang. He was the best player on hard courts until his last tournament, the 2002 US Open, which he won. The year following Sampras’ loss to Marat Safin at the US Open finals, he came back and beat him at the next year’s semifinals. Similarly, Nadal also came back in 2010 to avenge his loss against Soderling at Roland Garros. Federer hasn’t won a Wimbledon, his best surface, since 2009 and that year Nadal was out with a knee injury. It has been 5 years since Federer won a Wimbledon with Nadal in the field. If Nadal isn’t injured or out at the end of 2008 through the beginning of 2010, maybe Federer’s slam count stays at 14 and Nadal’s is at 13.

You can say for the all time greatest, Federer had a very short peak, from 21 years and 11 months old to 25 and 11 months old (the last time he beat Nadal at a slam) unlike any other all time great. Or that his path to number 1 was paved with Palookas named Andy.

Wimpledon Redux 2011 – The End of the Short Game Part 2

Today’s version of Wimbledon, “Wimpledon” or “Wimpy” is a side to side sport with little movement up or down towards the net.  In basketball we have the 3 pointer, the slam dunk and the mid range jumper.  In football the short yardage run, the trap play, mid-range passing games and the long bomb.  In baseball the singles hitter, hit and run plays, suicide squeezes and the long ball.  In tennis, we have side to side movement and not much else.

Changing the Rules to Pump up Tennis has Failed!

As stale tennis goes, “Wimpy” is heads above anyone else.  Not certain what it wanted to be, in 2001 after a 5 set final between Goran Ivanisevic and Patrick Rafter, featuring 40 aces or about 1 every two games.  (You can re-watch that match here) The powers that be feared that the power service game would take over the last major fast surface tournament on the tour.   The tourney directors killed what made Wimbledon unique and turned it into just another tourney.  First they accepted the 32 seed draw approach which reduced upsets of the top seeds then they slowed down the surface in an effort to reduce aces and the power game.  As Greg Garber of ESPN explained, “Once, grass was the fastest surface in tennis. But after Goran Ivanisevic and Patrick Rafter turned the 2001 final into an ace-fest, Wimbledon slowed things down. The original mix was 70 percent rye grass and 30 percent creeping red fescue, but now it is 100 percent rye. Because rye sits up higher than fescue, the greater friction slows the ball down. Plus, players say, the balls are bigger today than they’ve ever been. The result is a higher bounce than before”  The consequences were immediate.  Wimpledon’s ratings plummeted by a million viewers and has not reached the heights of the 2001 finals since as documented by Nielsen.

This year you wear red and I’ll wear blue. 

 Next year I’ll wear red and you wear blue. 

Wimpy’s final has featured the first seed against the second seed in seven of the last eight years.   In several cases one year’s final is replayed the next.  Americans, faced with the same match they saw the year before with the same predictable result, turned off their televisions.  Ratings have sunk for Wimpy from an all time high of more than 8 million people watching the Bjorn Borg vs John McEnroe match in 1981 to less than 2 million people watching last year’s Rafael Nadal win.  Percentage wise, more than 4 percent of Americans watched pro tennis in 1980 versue less than 1% today.  One third the variety and more predictability equals less than one third the fans.  Tennis is in the dumpster, in the ESPN universe it is behind high school sports and soccer but narrowly maintains its advantage over mixed martial arts and poker.   ESPN has just acquired the rights for all US broadcasts of Wimpy for $40 million annually, or about  a 30% discount from the US Open.

They Might be Giants

Besides the predictability factor the game has suffered the unintended advent of giants which makes it far less accessible to the average fan.  As you remember, the court was changed to slow the ball down and stop giant tennis players hurling aces at each other.  However, slowing the court down assisted the giants as the ball popped up and they no longer had to bend down to hit balls.   In the 30 years before the change in surfaces, a dozen players over 6’4” reached the last 16 at Wimbledon (Philippoussis, Safin, Stich, Todd Martin,Rosset,  Rusedski and Krajicek), all were serve and volleyers.  Since the rules changed 10 years ago, a dozen people over 6’4” (Karlovic, Safin, Popp, Del Potro, Rusedski, Krajicek, Philippoussis, Querrey, Soderling, Ancic, Cilic, Berdych, etc) have more frequently reached the round of 16.  Outside of Karlovic, none of the new players are true serve and volleyers.

The “Isner-angle”

Slowing down the surface has had almost no effect on the number of aces as giant tennis players don’t need velocity to hit the ace.  Instead they hit angle serves as Jon Isner displayed when he hit 113 aces in 100 service games in last years record-setting Wimpy match for duration against Nicholas Mahut .   Mahut hit 103 aces.  There were a total of 216 aces in a total of 188 games or more than an ace a game.  So much for effectiveness in stopping the big serve.

We call the new service angle , the “Isner-angle” for a serve that could not be hit consistently in tennis in the past without the advent of the new tennis giants and new racquet technology.  The serve lands on the sideline but about 1 to 2 feet before the service line.  It is unreturnable since a player would have to run 5-6 steps to catch a ball going on average 120 mph.  If a player moves over to get the ”Isner-angle”, then Isner types can easily serve the ball down the middle.  Watch this video of Isner’s serve.  After his jump, he is well inside the baseline hitting the ball about 2 feet in front of it from a fully extended height between 10-11 feet.

Since there is no variety or chance of upset in the game, and since 7 of the last 8 finals have been between the first and second seed, a tennis viewer need ask two questions.  Who is playing?  Didn’t I see that last year?  In it’s utter predictability, American tennis viewership is near dead.

Tennis Viewership is On Life Support, Change the Rules

Like a 12 steps program, Wimpledon must admit its failure and fix the surface and big server problem to restore the game to it’s prior grandeur.  Look at other pro sports.  When Wilt Chamberlain was too big for basketball they changed the rules specifically for him, they widened the lane and initiated the 3 second rule.  In baseball when too many home runs were being hit, they raised the pitcher’s mound.

In this case it is easy to restore 3 surfaces of varying speed and eliminate the “Isner-angle”.  Though Andy Roddick has the fastest serve in tennis, he has proven beatable at the majors due to his lack of variety in the serve.  Likewise he gives away where his serve is going well in advance with a non-disguised lean in one direction or the other.  So the issue is the big guys and in particular, the “Isner-angle”.  The existing solution to the “Isner-angle” doesn’t work.  Isner and the other giants on the tour continue to hit the angle serve.

The rules change have not eliminated the ace for the small percent of men who hit angles, but it has slowed down the surface for 100% of the people who play at Wimpy as well as the US Open.  This has killed the short and mid tennis game, as baseliners take out anyone who dares to rush the net as approach shots bounce higher and slower than ever.  The big serve has not turned out to be the threat perceived by pro tennis management, but the “Isner-angle” has brought in an era of giant angle servers who win on every surface as the ball bounces up so they can take massive swings at it.  Also a legion of long range only tennis players have arisen, few different from the other in style of play but clogging the game so no new names can move in to popularize the sport.  As of this writing only one teenager is in the ATP top 100 rankings.

Our solution is to make “Isner-angle” serves illegal by drawing a box or line that eliminates the angle.   Who would be impacted?  Only a handful of giant players who are on the tour purely because of their ability to hit angle serves and have a foot and half serving advantage when including arm length over a 6 foot tall opponent.  Add another 1 to 2 feet advantage with a jump serve and giants have a 2-3 foot advantage on angles vs a 6 foot tall player.  Of those giants, only a small percent of their serves would be impacted while making the overall matches more competitive and adding to the diversity of the game.

But how do you call points where the lines are altered?  It is very easy to use shot spot to call these points and to have a wire into linesemen’s ears that tells them where the ball landed.  If the concern is over short balls, a second linesman can be setup directly across the umpire in a high chair to cover short balls on that side.

How does tennis manage this wrinkle in the game?  The same way the NBA or NFL does.  Every year they have a meeting and would decide what angle of  serves should be allowed.  It’s Wimpledon’s choice to revive tennis or not.