Episode 100 of the Tennis Abstract Podcast, with Carl Bialik of the Thirty Love podcast, celebrates our milestone 100th episode with a lightning-round mega-mailbag through 100 questions, many of them submitted by our listeners.
The questions truly run the gamut of all things tennis, from our favorite players to watch, to the best umpires on tour, to problems with today’s game, to our predictions for results and trends decades into the future. I’ve posted the full list of questions here (scroll down or click “Continue Reading”), but you’ll need to listen in order to hear our answers.
Thanks for listening!
(Note: this week’s episode is about 79 minutes long; in some browsers the audio player may display a different length. Sorry about that!)
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Music: Everyone Has Gone Home by texasradiofish (c) copyright 2020. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. Ft: spinningmerkaba
Podcast housekeeping:
- The TAP book club soldiers on with Arthur Ashe’s memoir, Days of Grace. I’ve posted a few notes about Ashe and the book here, and we’ll talk about it in a podcast episode next month.
- In case you haven’t heard, I’m 36 episodes into a short (~4 minute) daily podcast called Expected Points. Here’s today’s episode.
Here are the 100 questions we answered (or at least tried to answer) in episode 100. Many of the questions came from Peter and Jeff M; others that mention a twitter user as a source stem from this thread.
1 [from Peter] what will be the next slam with full crowds?
2 [from Erik Jonsson on twitter, edited by Peter] What’s your most favorite stat, tennis related or otherwise? (metric, not specific fact)
3 Will a greater or smaller share of matches be played on clay in a decade?
4 Who will have the better career, Auger-Aliassime or Shapovalov?
5 [from Jeff M] What would your first piece of advice be for someone interested in sports analytics (preferably tennis) but who is not confident in their math and/or programming skills?
6 Is there a (good) reason why women’s tennis seems to get less analytical attention than men’s tennis?
7 Would a more mentally balanced John McEnroe have won more grand slam singles titles?
8 [from Jeff M] Would you expand the grass court season? If yes, for how many weeks, and what would you replace?
9 [from Jeff M] Which of these players will be first to win a Grand Slam? Bencic, Brady, Gauff, Pliskova, Sakkari, Svitolina, Tauson, Yastremska or None. (Sabalenka is a presumed given, as is Kudermetova).
10 In what year will the next major women’s singles title be won by a Frenchwoman?
11 Who’s the best coach working today?
12 [from Hawk of GP of twitter] What would’ve been your solution for pandemic rankings (both ATP and WTA) in a hypothetical scenario where the powers that be came to you for a solution?
13 What do Roger Federer’s 23 losses from match-point up tell us about him? (context, it’s more than Nadal + Djokovic + Murray, with room to spare)
14 [from Tristan Jung on twitter] Simple question: Golubic backhand or Suarez-Navarro backhand, which do you prefer?
15 Since the shot clock doesn’t work to speed up matches, is there any way to make that happen?
16 [from Jeff M] If you could change any tennis rule — whether a tournament rule (e.g., no wildcards) or a game rule (no lets), what would you change and why?
17 In 10 years, will there be more or fewer players in the singles top 100s who went to college?
18 Who is the next non-Nadal man to win Roland Garros?
19 Who will be the first man born in the 2000s to win a Slam?
20 Will Djokovic win #20? #21?
21 Who’s the best regular tour chair umpire?
22 [from Jeff M] What role will the chair umpire serve in tennis 5 years from now?
23 Which woman who has never played professional tennis would be most successful if she took it up today full-time?
24 Career peak rank for Coco Gauff?
25 Will Murray win another ATP title?
26 [from Jeff M] What’s the key to conducting a good tennis interview?
27 Favorite WTA player to watch?
28 [from Peter] in your opinion, what would be the best tweaks for the ATP ranking to make it better / fairer / statistically more sound?
29 [from Ian Hoffman on twitter] This is a weird one, but I’ve always wondered and since you asked: Do pro tennis players have one arm that is markedly more muscular than the other?
- A quora answer: A famous tennis coach , Vic Braden , joined with a scientist to do a study about where a tennis player’s power came from. They put sensors on pro’s various body parts and measured the muscular activity. They found that the arm has very little role in providing force to the strokes or serves. It is the legs and the trunk that provide the power. The arm is like the tip of the whip, it is moving fast, but without much muscular activity. It steers the ball, not powers it.
30 [from Peter] choose one: indian wells title or grand slam runner-up?
31 What will Venus Williams do post-retirement?
32 Why are most tournament websites (at least the non-slams) worthless, at least for the non-attending/ticket-buying fan?
33 Will Federer win another ATP title?
34 What will Roger Federer do post-retirement?
35 Matchup that never happened that you’d most like to see? [of retired players, to differentiate from another question, which is specific to matchups that haven’t happened yet]
36 What will the all-time Slam singles title record be for men in 2050?
37 [from Erik Jonsson on twitter] What’s your most favorite stat, tennis related or otherwise? (specific fact, not metric)
38 [from Jason Primm on twitter] I like your podcast because you are obviously fans first. As fans, do you two hold any beliefs about tennis that the numbers/statistics disprove?
39 [from Peter] what would have been different in the tennis world had federer converted these wimbledon championship points in 2019?
40 Will prize money increase faster than inflation over the next decade?
41 [from Amir B on twitter] Have you considered using deep learning for charting matches on the Match Charting Project?
42 In what year will the next man win his 10th Slam title?
43 [from Pietro Gussio on twitter] Are two 1st serves a good idea?
44 [from Jeff M] Which current player on each side (men’s and women’s) would write the most insightful autobiography? Do not answer Gilles Simon.
45 Will Nick Kyrgios ever crack the top ten?
46 Why didn’t Richard Gasquet become a top five player?
47 What head-to-head are you most looking forward to seeing for the first time? (or just an uncommon one you’d like to see again)
48 Current player you’d most like to hear as a commentator?
49 Which retired player would have the best chance of coming back and winning a title?
50 Are underarm serves going to become a more common tactic?
51 How much more or less would you pay (%) for a single streaming service relative to summing the price of existing services for all of WTA, ATP, Slams, Davis Cup, Fed Cup, Olympics?
52 Who will be the next man to win his first slam?
53 Will ATP & WTA merge in next decade?
54 Favorite ATP player to watch?
55 Should the tours embrace team tennis?
56 In what year will the next major men’s singles title be won by an American?
57 Even if we accept that smaller events “need” wild cards for promotional purposes, should big events (slams + 1000s, say) be limited to a smaller number of wild cards (or none, or with certain restrictions, like age or ranking)?
58 [from Megan Fernandez on twitter] How many Slams have each of the Big 3 won without having to play one of the other two?
- Fed 14, Rafa 6, Novak 5
59 Who has the best net game among women’s singles players?
60 Best commentator?
61 Who’s one singles player who will eventually have a strong career as a doubles specialist?
62 [from Peter] what’s your take on hawkeye on clay? is it good / bad / accurate enough?
63 [from Jeff M] Do you believe the length of the tennis season adversely impacts general fan interest?
64 What’s one thing that could improve TV broadcasts of tennis?
65 [from Peter] the moonball: good shot (in special circumstances), or should it be avoided? (answer from a pro’s perspective and from an amateur’s perspective)
66 Will Kim Clijsters win another WTA title?
67 How many Slams does Osaka finish with?
68 [from Peter] predict the [ATP] top 5 at the end of 2021 (the version using 2021 results only)
69 How many Top 100 men in 2040 will have one-handed backhands? Top 100 women?
70 Will a Slam ever move from the current four host cities? If so, which will be the first to move, to where, and when?
71 Will mixed doubles be part of all four Slams in 2040?
72 Best place in the world to watch tennis?
73 Will tennis remain part of the Olympics in 2044?
74 [from Kevin Ndamukong Cruz on Twitter] How many times have your singles forecasts on TA for tournaments been actually correct?
- 2019: ATP, both main draw and q’s, match prediction was correct ~66% of the time; CHs in low 60s. Which of course isn’t entirely the point.
75 Is Djokovic going to continue serving bigger, even away from the (purportedly fast) Australian Open courts?
76 What’s one country that will have a bigger tennis presence in 10 or 15 years than it does now?
77 What will be the ages of the oldest and youngest major winners in women’s singles over the next decade?
78 What will be the heights of the tallest and shortest major winners in men’s singles over the next decade?
79 What’s one thing tennis could do to reduce the overwhelming amount of conflicts of interest among executives, coaches, commentators, journalists, etc.?
80 Will Sloane Stephens or Genie Bouchard ever be good again?
81 [from Jeff M] True or False: Right now, the ATP needs the WTA more than the WTA needs the ATP.
82 [from @dami1Fr on twitter] Which type of players are favoured by windy conditions?
83 [from Jeff M] What is missing in tennis journalism right now?
84 At what age will Serena play her last singles match at a major?
85 If you could go back in time to any tennis match, which would you choose?
86 [from Will Boucek on twitter] Is there ever a scenario where it’s best to choose to receive after winning the toss? In singles? Doubles? Men’s? Women’s?
87 When will the ATP first have an openly gay player?
88 Apart from the fact that Covid makes it look very wrong, was the WTA right to go so big on China?
89 [from Jeff M] You are the marketing/PR director for the ATP. Fed, Djokovic and Nadal have retired. What’s your #1 strategy?
90 [from Jeff M] Which of these players will be the first to win their second Grand Slam? Andreescu, Barty, Kenin, Ostapenko, Stephens or Swiatek?
91 Which man who has never played professional tennis would be most successful if he took it up today full-time?
92 Who is the guest you’d most like to have on your show?
93 At what age will Djokovic play his last singles match at a major?
94 Will there be more or less serve and volley in men’s singles at Wimbledon in 2040? Women’s?
95 [from Jeff M] Last year, each of you said you expected Serena to win another major. Do you want to change your answer?
96 [from Peter] what’s your take on hawkeye live (and the fact that it will replace line judges (at the top level at least)? does it make the sport better / fairer / etc.
97 Is Serena Williams the GOAT of women’s tennis?
98 Will Reilly Opelka have a better career than John Isner?
99 [from Jeff M] Is Daniil Medvedev the best Russian player ever (or even now)?
100 Mythical mixed doubles pairing you’d most enjoy?