Reducing the likelihood of long tennis matches

Full text for this resource is not available from the Research Repository.

Barnett, Tristan, Brown, Alan and Pollard, Graham (2006) Reducing the likelihood of long tennis matches. Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 5 (4). pp. 567-574. ISSN 1303-2968

Abstract

Long matches can cause problems for tournaments. For example, the starting times of subsequent matches can be substantially delayed causing inconvenience to players, spectators, officials and television scheduling. They can even be seen as unfair in the tournament setting when the winner of a very long match, who may have negative aftereffects from such a match, plays the winner of an average or shorter length match in the next round. Long matches can also lead to injuries to the participating players. One factor that can lead to long matches is the use of the advantage set as the fifth set, as in the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon. Another factor is long rallies and a greater than average number of points per game. This tends to occur more frequently on the slower surfaces such as at the French Open. The mathematical method of generating functions is used to show that the likelihood of long matches can be substantially reduced by using the tiebreak game in the fifth set, or more effectively by using a new type of game, the 50-40 game, throughout the match.

Item type Article
URI https://vuir.vu.edu.au/id/eprint/8503
Official URL http://www.jssm.org/vol5/n4/14/v5n4-14abst.php
Subjects Historical > FOR Classification > 0103 Numerical and Computational Mathematics
Historical > FOR Classification > 0104 Statistics
Historical > Faculty/School/Research Centre/Department > School of Management and Information Systems
Keywords ResPubID19467. scoring systems, generating functions, mathematical modelling, parameters of distributions, points, tennis, 50-40 game, tiebreak game, fifth set
Citations in Scopus 6 - View on Scopus
Download/View statistics View download statistics for this item

Search Google Scholar

Repository staff login