Welcome to a new series of podcasts where Brodie of Mind the Racket, and Juan José take a more broad look at tennis – tactics, strategy, and eventually statistics. Designed for tennis fans new and old, nerds and non-nerds!
This first episode has the guys looking at how the unique scoring system in tennis affects the way matches are approached. There is a brief introduction to how you can change the way you look at matches and how you probably already know more than you realize!
The plan is to make this a regular series where we will eventually look at specific match-ups, analyze what “aggressive” tennis really means, answer questions that you have and much, much more!
In case you’re wondering, you don’t need to subscribe to a separate Podcast feed on iTunes or any other service – and if you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to the only feed you’ll need on iTunes.
Loved the nerdcast. My phone said it would last over 2 hrs and I was like what the hell did you all talk about? Thankfully it was only 25 min.
My player is David Ferrer because he plays just like I played. Aggressive grinder. We both have issues with those players who overpower. He will not win a major with Djokavic or Nadal in the way. If those players lose and even Fed, he has a chance. I think Murrary tends to push when tight and that is why he is not in that conversation. Ferrer has a chance with him.
While I was in the juniors, coaches told us to play the score. It is important and you all kinda highlighted it. It is the moment when the score is important. Not just win all the points. Keep it up because that actually makes me think…a little.
Another way to look at tennis scoring is it the most political of all scoring systems — Strategically it’s somewhat like US presidential electoral politics if one looks at states as games — there’s other examples in fighting over legislative majorities. It doesn’t matter by how much you win or lose any particular game (or place), just win a majority of games (places).
If you’re up a service break, you have the option to check out on your opponents service games, perhaps trying to get the opponent to just run from side to side using up energy, while you save up energy for your service, much as some states are not contested according to political leanings while others are ‘must win’ toss ups.
Another nuance to tennis scoring is unlike general elections where all ‘districts’ are in play until the polls close, tennis games are sequential — sort of like Pesidential primaries that are spread over time.
Successful tennis players who win the tough ones frequently win because they understand how to play the ‘electoral’ game better than their opponent.