Anatomy of a Tennis Match
Dissecting the 2019 US Open Men’s Final
Point
You: So, who won? Nadal or Medvedev?
Me: Medvedev won the 1st point.
You: No. I asked who won the match
But points are interesting. A point is the smallest unit of score (or “play”) in tennis. One player serves, and the other tries to return. Whenever someone misses, or hits the ball out, or is obstructed by the net, the other scores a point. Points are vital!
Game
You: I’m not necessarily (or should that be sufficiently) interested in points.
Me: Ok, ok. Nadal won 5 of the first 8 points, to Medvedev’s 3, and won the game.
You: Ok. So Nadal won the match?
No. Nadal won the game; The first game. Whenever a player wins at least 4 points, and has won at least 2 points more than the other player, they win the game. And after that a new game is played. Nadal won the 1st game.
Set
You: I’m not interested in playing games. Who won the match?
Me: Nadal won the set.
You: He won all the matches?
No, no. Nadal won 7 games to Medvedev’s 5. Whenever a player wins at least 6 games, and has won at least 2 games more than the other player, they win the set (Tie-breakers are an exception, but I won’t go into that). And after that a new set is played. Nadal won the 1st set.
Also, at the end of the 1st set, Nadal had won a total of 45 points to Medvedev’s 36.
Match
You: I’m not interested in set theory. For the last time, who won the match?
Me: Nadal won 3 sets to Medvedev’s 2. So he won the best-of -5-sets match, 3–2.
You: Thank you! That’s all I wanted to know.
Me: But you might want to know other things.
You: Such as?
Nadal won a total of 28 sets to Medvedev’s 25. Nadal also won a total of 177 games to Medvedev’s 164!
Me: And I might want to know that because?
If tennis had a simple scoring mechanism like Basketball, the final score would have been 177–164. Nadal would have won, but the game would have been completely different! Imagine sitting through 341 points??? Everyone would have left by the 3rd set, if not before.
You: So what’s your point?
Me: Ha, ha. “Point”. That was funny!
My actual “point”
Games (in the general sense, not the tennis “game”) can be classified along two dimensions. “Plays” and “Scoring”.
Tennis has simple plays (ending in a point), and complex scoring.
Football has complex plays (which usually last several, or tens of minutes), and simple scoring. Rugby Football (I find) is (even) more interesting, because it has equally (or even more) complex plays, and a less simple scoring system.
Basketball has both simple plays and simple scoring — which is why it is tedious and best suited for people with IQs of a rugby (or even football) score. You might as well start at 100-all, and just play the last 5 minutes. Tennis would descend to the same depths if not for its beautifully complex scoring system. The fact that the basket in basketball didn’t have a hole for the first several decades of the game, is proof of this low-IQ-ness of the basketball fraternity.
Cricket has apparently simple plays (a ball bowled by a bowler to a batsman), which is made complex by a wide range of possible outcomes: Nothing happening, several ways of a wicket falling, a theoretically infinite diversity of runs, and in many situations — rain! The combinations of runs and wickets makes the scoring of Test Cricket complex. For example, one team might have far less runs than the other team, but won’t lose if they don’t lose all their wickets. 50-Over, and T20 cricket, unfortunately, tries to emulate the “simplicity” of Basketball. The complexity of plays redeems it, but the simplicity of scoring undermines the game’s beauty, and also its “glorious uncertainties”.
