An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
Today I was astonished to discover that I haven’t written directly about a rule that appears in the USTA Friend at Court since November of last year. It is high time we resumed our (apparently no so) steady march through the Rules of Tennis. We are currently in the “Role of Court Officials” section and this week will turn our attention to the line umpire.
A data and analytics research group will soon release a paper that studies momentum swings in tennis. “Live Counter- Factual Analysis in Women’s Tennis Using Automatic Key- Moment Detection” uses machine learning to predict how certain events in a match will play out before they occur. The paper defines some new metrics for tennis that could potentially extend the state of the art of analytic data analysis in tennis.
The crisis in Ukraine continues to dominate the news. Coco Gauff speaks out on gender identity and Rafa Nadal has harsh words for how the ATP handled the Alexander Zverev situation.
Last weekend one of my league matches was relocated to an indoor facility after our match was unexpectedly disrupted by rain. As we converged on the pro-shop, one of the players snapped up a pair of shoes in her size from the very depleted inventory. She wasn’t wild on the color, but these are desperate times. Recently I have been wondering if the shoe shortage will result in significant migrations in brand preference once the supply chain issues are resolved.
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I subscribe to Tennis Channel Plus and ESPN+, the two primary paid streaming services for tennis coverage. As a tennis super fan that writes a daily tennis blog, it would only be surprising if that was not the case. Access to great matches that will never be granted a moment of airtime is a clear benefit to me. However, the matches I elect to watch are also a form of tennis activism. It sends a signal to the tennis broadcast companies on what the public might also want to see.
As a lifetime tennis player and fan I have seen a lot of unusual shots. In a league match last Sunday, I successfully played a rare shot myself. For the first time in my life, I hit a winner from the opponents side of the net. In fact it is the only time I have ever been in position to even attempt such a shot. If I didn’t have such poor footwork, it probably wouldn’t have happened.
A couple of weeks ago the Monday tennis news roundup post on this site referenced an article posted by tennis.com on the “best” tennis movies. I filed the titles away for those inevitable times when I don’t have the bandwidth to read a full book. I had to take a business trip this week on very short notice, so it was the perfect time to screen one of those films on my flight out. This movie… should not be viewed in a public setting where someone else can see your screen.
The USTA recently posted a fun quiz on how to correct certain types of errors that can occur during a tennis match. The quiz is a great social media engagement mechanism for educating tennis players on the rules of the game. It is also a potential vector for identification and outreach for prospective officials.
International Women’s Day celebrates women’s rights and inspires people to act in the ongoing fight for gender equality. It is observed on March 8 every year. The theme for 2022 is #BreaktheBias, which highlights the importance of challenging biases and misconceptions in the interest of creating a more inclusive and gender-equal world. Women are encouraged to share photos of themselves this year forming an X with their arms. I used my racquets.
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Headlines this week were dominated by Ukrainian storylines that dwarfed a couple of blockbuster business deals in women’s tennis.
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