Tennis Watching FAQ:
Updated 09/26/07

1.) What is tennis?

Tennis is a sport that requires medium levels of consistency and medium levels of short burst performance.  This is opposed to sports that require high levels of consistency (such as golf), or high levels of short burst performance (diving).  The scoring system requires a player to be fairly consistent so as to accumulate enough points to reach a "game point", during which the player is given the opportunity to take the "game", perhaps through a short burst of high performance.  Since the point score resets to zero after every game, it is not necessary to win every point, or even to win more points than your opponent, in order to win a match (compare this to golf where every single shot counts toward your score.)  Thus, the game rewards a fair amount of consistency but not extremely so.  At the same time, the game rewards players who can "turn it up a notch" on the game points.  On the pro tour, the top players are generally ones who play the game points extremely well, but not necessary ones who show extremely high levels of consistency on the non-game points.

2.) Who is better, Tiger Woods or Roger Federer?

In probability terms, golf is a game with a high degree of variance.  This means that your play might average out in the long term to a certain level, but the ups and downs will be very extreme compared to other sports.  Tennis has a fair degree of variance as well, but not nearly as much as golf.  To succeed consistently in a sport with a huge amount of variance requires extreme levels of skill.  Since Tiger Woods has approximately the same number of wins as Federer, Tiger Woods is better.

3.) There are only two tennis tournaments, Wimbledon and U.S. Open, right?

No.  Wimbledon and U.S. Open are only two of the literally over a hundred tournaments played during the year in the ATP (men's) and WTA (women's) tours.

4.) Are the tennis matches I see on TV world class?

Almost 100% of the tennis you see on TV are world class events.  They are usually events on either the ATP or WTA tours, which are the top pro leagues in the world, open to players from anywhere in the world.  Very occasionally you will see American collegiate level events or second tier tour events (ITF, Challengers, senior tours), but those are usually only shown on the cable network The Tennis Channel.

5.) Are pro players required to play all the tournaments?

No.  But the top men on the ATP tour are required to play almost all of the events called Masters Series events.  The same goes for women on the WTA tour for certain designated events.

6.) Are you saying top players like Federer and Nadal play in other tournaments besides Wimbledone and U.S. Open?  How come I never see those on TV?

You haven't been watching the right channel.  With the combination of The Tennis Channel and other cable and network channles, you can see literally every single hour of every Masters Series event during the year.

7.) So usually, there's like one tennis tournament every few weeks right?

No, usually there are around 2 to 3 tournaments per week for each of the men's and women's tours.  That's 4 to 6 tournaments total men's and women's, per week.

8.) What's so special about the "grand slams"?

For men:
-The prize money is big, so all top players usually enter.
-Each match is best of 5 sets (all other tournaments are best of 3).
-The draw (number of players) is the biggest among all tournaments.

For women:
-The prize money is big, so all top players usually enter.
-The draw (number of players) is the biggest among all tournaments.

9.) Are grand slams the hardest titles to win?

Not really.  For men, the Hamburg Masters and the Masters Cup rival the grand slams in difficulty.  The Hamburg Masters is the last tournament in a stretch of 3 Masters tournaments in 4 weeks.  And unlike the grand slams where players usually play once every other day or 2 days, the players have to play up to 5 consecutive days in Masters Series events since the events are compressed to just one week.  Plus, the Masters Series events have a smaller draw than the grand slams, which combined with the mandatory entrance requirement of top players usually mean that even the first round match is against a tough opponent, so players can't afford to have a slow start like they can have at grand slams.  The Masters Cup has all the difficulties of normal Masters Series events, plus in addition, only the top 8 players are in the draw, so every match is tough, and because it is a round-robin format, it means you may have to defeat a top player twice in order to win the tournament (although at the same time you can sustain a loss and still have a chance to win the tournament).

For women, endurance wise, grand slams are the easiest of all tournaments because the matches are only best of 3 sets, plus players have days off between matches, unlike normal week-long tournaments.  The only thing tougher about grand slams for women compared to normal tournaments is the fact that all the top players tend to enter, so the winner will likely have to defeat more top opponents than they would have to at normal tournaments.

10.) So if grand slams are not so tough for women, how come they demand equal prize money?

Because the supporters think in relative rather than absolute terms.  In absolute terms, women's tennis is at a much lower level than men's tennis, no doubt.  But in relative terms, the women are playing to the limits of their ability just like the men are.

11.) But I'm playing at the limits of my ability at the park every weekend, how come I don't get "equal prize money" as the top players?

Because the top women players are overpaid.

12.) How are player rankings calculated?

Player rankings are a rolling average of their X best tournaments over the last two years.

13.) Isn't there another ranking that I hear about?

Yes, there is a single calender year ranking for both men and women.  The top 8 players in that ranking get to play in a year end round-robin tournament.

14.) Are tournament draws based on the rolling two year ranking or the calender year ranking?

The rolling two year ranking.