Ace to T. Ace open. Rest out. Open serve, return inside and winning volley. Ace. Ace. The Youtube video of the highlights of The 1994 Wimbledon final between Pete Sampras and Goran Ivanisevic has to be boring for those who have only known current tennis. The longest exchange of that match was six blows. He ended up winning the American 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-5) and 6-0. Seven years later, Ivanisevic returned to the All England Club final and this time he did win the title. He knocked down Patrick Rafter 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 2-6 and 9-7, but as they were two pure servers the match ended after three hours and two minutes. Something like this right now is impossible to see in a grand final of men’s tennis: we are not talking about the score, nor about it going to five sets, but about it lasting so short. a match that is decided in the decisive set and without a tie break. To the regret of serve and volley lovers, tennis has long ceased to belong to the bombers. Now the one who dominates is a homogeneous tennis player, a 4×4, an athlete. This makes the points and the games longer and longer and is also one of the causes of the great paradox that tennis is now experiencing: despite being more and better prepared than ever, tennis players are playing fewer and fewer matches.
What the data says
From the outside, it may give the opposite impression. The tennis calendar does not stop adding appointments and expanding the ones it already has and the majority of players complain about how much they play, but the truth is that the data says that the tennis players in the top ten of recent years They play almost ten fewer games than those who were in their position two decades ago.
HOW MUCH DO THE BEST TENNIS PLAYERS ON THE CIRCUIT PLAY
Moving average (three-year window) of matches played by tennis players in the ‘top 10’ at the end of the season in the ATP and WTA from 2002 to the present. The year of the pandemic has not been taken into account.
As can be seen in the graph, the trend in both the men’s and women’s circuits is similar: The average number of matches remained more or less stable until a decade ago when it began to decline. The lowest point was in 2021 -the year after the pandemic-, but in 2022 it barely moved. It is true that in 2023 there is a rebound, to which we must add the matches played by the best eight in the ATP Finals that start this Sunday in Turin. However, the general line is downward and there is a clear trend. What happened so that in 2002 the best players played an average of 77 games and in 2021 the lowest figure was recorded with 67?
“All the matches right now are very intense. From the first round of any tournament There is such a strong physical, mental and emotional demand that you have to know how to select very well so that you don’t get a burn. in the middle of the season,” analyzes Álex Corretja, champion in 1998 of the Masters, as the ATP Finals were then known. “In the end you have to maintain your fitness for many months and what happens is that The vast majority have very good streaks and then periods of decline. Perhaps the only exception is Djokovicbecause he is already old, he knows him and the circuit well and because he is very good,” adds the Spanish former tennis player in a telephone conversation.
The games are getting longer
That “intensity” that Corretja speaks of is observed in a study that The Athletic did a few months ago, according to whichGrand Slam matches now last 25% longer than in 1999. At the last Roland Garros, the average duration of the men’s matches reached two hours and 56 minutes, the all-time record tied with the 2022 US Open. And that to avoid eternal matches like the one they played Isner and Mahut at Wimbledon 2010 (the longest game in history at 11 hours and five minutes, which ended 70-68 in the fifth), all The Grand Slams included for a few years the tie break in the fifth set as a tiebreaker. That the games are longer is a direct cause of the graph we saw previously for a very simple reason: Now a tennis player spends a lot more energy when he goes out on the court and that causes him to need longer breaks later.. “I think it’s something common to all sports: players are getting faster and reaching more balls,” Andy Murray analyzed in Queen’s.
Money and injuries
Another cause behind this decline in matches is money. Yes, now a tennis player lives much better than two decades ago. Let’s take a very graphic example: Roger Federer pocketed a total of $6.3 million in 2004 in a year in which he won 11 titlesincluding the Australian Open, Wimbledon, US Open, the ATP Finals and three Masters 1000. That figure has already been surpassed this year by three players, Djokovic (11.5), Alcaraz (9.6) and Medvedev (8.1) before the Turin Finals, where the largest prize in tennis history is at stake, 4.8 million for an undefeated champion. This means that A tennis player right now does not need to play so many matches to fill his pockets. And that is not something typical of the top: In 2004, the Argentine Gastón Gaudio finished the year as number 10 in the ATP and earned 1.5 million dollars. The tenth currently, Taylor Fritz, will close the year approaching 4 million.
Injuries and physical problems are another factor to take into account. The fact that tennis is an increasingly physical sport is causing a lot of pain in the bodies of tennis players. Although they train more and better than ever, the continuous ball changes and the slowness of the courts to make the game more attractive are causing many injuries. Playing and training at the limit has to have consequences.
And the one who is not injured pays for it with a drop in form: tAll the tennis players who are in Turin, except for Djokovic, have had physical mishaps and low moments of form during the season. Some arrive at the ATP Finals with their tongue hanging out after all year competing every month and with marathon matches included. “It is normal for them to arrive with a lot of fatigue. The games they play are at full speed and at that level you can’t last long.. Every day on the circuit is a very big battle,” explains Corretja. “But when you get to a tournament like the Finals, confidence also counts a lot. And being among the eight best gives you an overdose of confidence that makes anything happen.“. Turin will bring the curtain down on the tennis season with another 15 matches, all in the best of three sets but which are expected to be very tight and very long. Pay attention to the clock. Nacho Encabo is a sports editor at Relevo, a specialist in tennis and the Olympic Games. Born in Madrid, he studied Journalism and Audiovisual Communication at the Rey Juan Carlos University and began as an intern in the sports section of El Mundo in 2011. Knowing German shortly after opened the doors of the dpa agency, where he worked as special envoy to the 2012 London Olympic Games and the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, the 2016 Euro Cup in France and the 2018 World Cup in Russia. In addition, adding Relay and the rest of his career, he has covered the four tennis Grand Slams , the Davis Cup, athletics world championships, Formula 1 Grand Prix and countless LaLiga and Champions League matches. He has also worked as a reporter for El Independiente and traveled to the Tokyo Olympic Games on the Spanish Olympic Committee team. … David Acosta is a Big Data engineer in Relevo’s data department. He studied Industrial Electronic and Automatic Engineering at the UPC of Terrassa and the Master of Sports Big Data at UCAM. He has previously worked for You First Sport, one of the most important representation agencies in the country, performing analysis and scouting tasks. Specialized in data extraction, automation and analysis, wherever he is, he always tries to find the hidden value of players through statistics. …
2023-11-11 13:05:46
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