Skip to main content

Inane Tennis Commentary

Sports commentators are well known for talking complete bollocks. They are much better than they used to be when the only qualification for the job was a plummy voice, but they still get carried away in the heat of the action like everyone else. However, I keep hearing tennis commentators say something that I just cannot let pass. It is not a slip of the tongue - it is a sentiment they repeat over and over: "One reason X is such a good player is that they make the opponent play one more shot". I don't understand this. In fact I cannot proffer any meaning for it other than "I like player X".

Here is a challenge. Suppose that 'making the opponent play one more shot' really does mean something, and I claim that when I play my friend at tennis, I am better at whatever this something is than (say) Lleyton Hewitt (who is often said to have this mysterious quality). Tell me what it is that you are going to measure about our matches that will decide the issue.

On his way to the Wimbledon final this year, Roger Federer knocked out the only men left in the game who are natural serve-and-volleyers (Mario Ancic and Tim Henman). The decline of this traditionally winning tactic is interesting. Back in the 90s, improved racquet technology led to a domination of the grass court game by tall fast servers like Pete Sampras and Goran Ivanisevic, and there arose low mumblings about how the game was being ruined. Many agreed with the suggestion that the game should be purposely slowed down. Ivanisevic won Wimbledon in 2001 at the age of 30, when he was ranked 125 in the world and was only in the competition as a wild card. Whether this was the spark for action by the All England Club or not, it seems that the courts have been purposely slowed down over the years since then, and some players say that the balls are now larger as well, though the authorities deny this. However it has been achieved, the Wimbledon courts have certainly been slowed down. Andy Roddick's fastest serve at Wimbledon this year was 143 mph: 10 mph slower than the record he set at Queens in 2004. The consequences of this may not be what was envisaged - the men's game has become a slogging competition like clay court tennis.

Incidentally, why are Croatians tall?

Popular posts from this blog

Ridiculous Snooker Competition Format

  This year the format for the Championship League Snooker competition is very inequitable. It works like this. There are twenty-five entrants, of which seven are placed in Group 1. They play a round-robin tournament and the top four then play a knockout to decide the winner of the group. The winner qualifies for the Winners Group, and the remaining other four of the top five progress to Group 2, joining three other players from the original twenty-five. The bottom two are eliminated from the competition. This whole process is repeated until Group 7, when only the winner qualifies for the Winners Group, the other six players getting eliminated. The Winners Group then contains the seven players who won a group. Again, they play a round-robin and the top four play a knockout for tournament winner. Players win money by winning frames, getting through to the play-offs, winning a group or being runner-up, and by making the highest break in a group. The rates for these are differen...
Read more

Rescuing People from Cults

It isn't hard to imagine a child being brought up by parents within a small community of bizarre cult beliefs. The child would initially accept the programming without question no matter how damaging, because that is what small infants are hard-wired to do. Later they might begin to question the ideas, but everyone they know would profess conviction and it is easy to see the difficulty of snubbing their entire community and becoming a social outcast. If we were able to rescue the victim from the grip of the cult, then even as an adult it would be difficult to reverse the damage. We would need to train the critical thinking skills that all cults must suppress to exist. Our efforts might well look like the popular notion of 'brainwashing'. This is precisely what the Chinese are being accused of with the Uighurs. Some are calling it "psychological torture", and even the BBC are calling it "systematic brainwashing". "Wait a minute," you say, "...
Read more

Reducing Regional Funding, and Calling It Levelling-Up

The most important part of addressing regional inequality in the UK is funding. The new UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) is due to launch in April 2022. But what the government seem keen to hide is that this is just a replacement for EU structural funding that will soon end. The EU's European Regional Development Fund and European Social Fund are allocated by looking at per capita GDP by region, and then member state governments have discretionary powers to reallocate some funds between regions. The UK used these powers to reassign some funds from England to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We also had an agreement for funds to be administered by our devolved governments. These two funds together support innovation and research, information technology, small- and medium-sized enterprises, employment-related projects and vocational skills training, including youth employment, as well as the promotion of a low-carbon economy. For the seven-year tranche of funding 2014-2020, t...
Read more