Passed is the past tense of the verb, so unless you’re using it as a verb, passed is always wrong.
11 winners and 43 errors for Oudin, five winners and 20 errors for Wozniacki. That sounds pretty painful all right.
14 winners and 27 errors for Clijsters, 20 winners and 24 errors for Venus. Clijsters is fun to watch and almost impossible to root against, especially these days, but she wins with defense more than offense. You don’t usually get more winners than errors in a women’s match unless it’s an ass-kicking like the one Serena gave to Czink in the second round (20 winners, 9 errors). Anyway tonight should be fun and I’m looking forward to it.
Yeah, exactly. That’s my major complaint about women’s tennis. I meant that Clijsters rained down a hail of winners compared to the Oudin-Wozniacki match. At least Kim’s winners were more than half her errors.
On the men’s side, I personally judge a good match to be one with more winners than errors, and a great match to be one where you have over twice as many winners as errors. This is why I have trouble watching women’s tennis on any level beyond “ooo, look at the hot chick!”
Do we know why women seem incapable of hitting more winners than unforced errors? Watching them just hit back and forth waiting for one to screw up is the pinnacle of dullsville, IMO.
I agree it’s a problem.
I put some theories out there earlier in the thread. I’m making up numbers here, but say the women hit 75 percent as hard as the men and cover the court 90 percent as well - combined with the fact that some players are just plain overhitting, that’s going to produce a lower ratio of winners to errors. And in general the men seem to have offense as a bigger part of their game plans.
I may be way off base here, but aren’t the rallies between women generally longer than men’s rallies?
If that is the case, could the ratio of “unforced errors per attempted shot” might be about the same as the guys?
After a 12 or 14 shot rally, “short-term fatigue” (being winded) might be a factor in the high number of unforced errors.
Interesting idea, but I’d need to see numbers to back it up. (You would definitely have to exclude aces, since the men hit far, far more aces than the women do.) I’ve never thought of women’s matches having longer rallies.
Meanwhile Cilic just broke Del Potro’s serve with an amazing crosscourt forehand passing shot. Cilic might’ve been 10 feet behind the baseline when he hit that one.
I don’t have data, just my impressions.
Naturally if womens rallies are longer, then the ratio between “winners and attempted shot” would be much worse. The ratio of winners to unforced errors still would be the same.
I wouldn’t discount the effect of being winded and the number of unforced errors.
No, I know. It would make sense if it’s true, I’ve just never thought of the women as having longer rallies overall.
On court, Cilic surprised me by holding on to the first set, and he got an immediate break on Del Potro to start the second. But Del Potro evened things up, and just this moment he broke again to get a 5-3 lead.
Del Potro ran away with the match after evening up the match, and he took the last three sets 6-3, 6-2, 6-1. Cilic didn’t hold serve a single time in the last set. I’m sure he was down on himself, but Del Potro really came through. So he’s in the semifinals and will get either Nadal or Gonzalez. It was pretty strange watching this one at times. They’re both 6’6," so it was almost like you were seeing two basketball players play tennis. Except, of course, that they are both very, very good.
The first champions of this Open have been crowned: unseeded Carly Gullickson and Travis Parrott won the mixed doubles title over the #2 team, Cara Black and Leander Paes. I was wondering if Gullickson is the daughter of Pete Sampras’s late coach, but now I see they spelled their names differently. (No C for Tim Gullikson.) Carly G’s father is a former pitcher for the Expos, Reds, Yankees, Astros and Tigers, plus the Yomiuri Giants. Black and Paes are veterans with a ton of hardware in doubles and mixed doubles, but Parrott and Gullickson had never won a grand slam before, together or separately. In fact, Gullickson’s 22 and mostly plays challenger events. Parrott’s 29 and has three doubles titles in his career, but they’re all in the lowest stage ATP tournaments. Here’s one for the underdogs!
Rain delay! Booooo!
It’s certainly possible. If so, this would also be a rock solid justfication for women playing 3-set matches while men play 5-setters. To your point, though, even if true, it’s a bit of a circular argument. Women have more errors because their rallies are longer, but if they hit more winners, the rallies would be shorter. Then again, unforced errors end rallies too, so I don’t know. Marley’s hypothesis of much less power but only mildly less court coverage makes logical sense.
I would love to see a pro-tennis-reference.com type site that had all the raw stats at your fingertips like pro-football-reference.com does for the NFL. There are some questions I’d love to get an easy answer for if I only had the data:
- Average shots in a game
- Average shots in a set
- Ratio of possible games in a set (eg: 3% of sets have 6 games, 8% have 7 games, etc…)
There are a bunch more I’m curious about, but those are the three I’ve been thinking about recently. Six actually, since I’d like answers for men and women separately.
It was raining buckets in New York just a little while ago. I think it looks a little better now but it’s very cloudy and I don’t know the forecast. Today’s matches are supposed to start at 12:30, with Gonzalez and Nadal getting back on court after 2. The women’s semifinals and the men’s doubles final are scheduled for today, in theory all on Ashe, but some of the matches could be moved to Armstrong.
The Nadal-Gonzalez match was already pretty strange. Gonzalez was playing well, but choking on the big points, yet also holding serve and staying in the match successfully. Now they’ll have to start play again in the middle of a tiebreak. If Nadal wins that and Gonzalez fades, the delay is no big deal. But if this goes four or five and the winner has to play again tomorrow, he’d be at a real disadvantage.
Ridiculous $$$cheduling.
BTW, no chance they’ll be playing today: Times Square Webcam – despite the fact that the USTA is trying to implement all sorts of retarded last minute measures.
Too late. Should have played yesterday’s quarters at the same time – AA & Armstrong. But noooo…coorporate & clueless bigwigs only come out at night. So screw Rafa and Gonzo.
If they do play this evening, is it televised? On what network? ESPN2 looks to be booked up with NASCAR tonight. ESPN has got the B-Ball HOFame Enshrinement.
I hope they don’t put it on ESPN Classics, no HD on Classics.
Crap, I didn’t think about that. I’d be watching the US Open site video in that case. This really stinks. It’s like freaking Wimbledon out there, except Wimbledon has a roof on centre court and it didn’t rain there this year! 
So, usually they have great weather for the US Open, but since this year they don’t, what will they do? I notice on the website it says the Nadal/Gonzalez match was suspended and postponed, but the other matches are canceled.
So what’s the difference between “postponed” and “canceled”? They have to play the women’s semis, surely? They aren’t just going to decide it by having the players do rock paper scissors.
It’s too bad certain female players got knocked out before the implented RPS Match Decider, a few of them might have had a better shot than with their tennis.
Yes, this is my question as well. What channel will anything be on tonight if anything does get played?
Weather permitting, the plan is to have the rest of the Nadal-Gonzalez match and the women’s semifinals and men’s doubles final Saturday, with the men’s semis during the day Sunday and women’s final Sunday night. The women’s doubles and men’s singles final are scheduled for Monday afternoon.
Problem is, it’s supposed to rain all day Saturday, too.
Damn, why don’t they have at least one covered court, or a retractable roof or something?