Early US-Open Ruminations

[GameSetAndMath]

This year, they are introducing two new rules at USO. They are allowing on court coaching and they are going to use a 25 second shot clock to catch worst offenders.

p.s. Nadalites, no need to worry. These new rules are restricted to qualifying and junior events and not applicable to main draw matches. They are doing it on an experimental basis. If it works, they will consider using it in main draw as well (but definitely not in this year).

 

[Moxie]

Yeah, Novak has had some bad losses there.

I don't think he's lost that many matches that he otherwise should have won. The one that springs to mind is his 2014 SF v. Nishikori. Of the finals he lost, the argument for the eventual winner is better in all of them.

 

[Moxie]

This year, they are introducing two new rules at USO. They are allowing on court coaching and they are going to use a 25 second shot clock to catch worst offenders.

p.s. Nadalites, no need to worry. These new rules are restricted to qualifying and junior events and not applicable to main draw matches. They are doing it on an experimental basis. If it works, they will consider using it in main draw as well (but definitely not in this year).

I'm against on-court coaching in all circumstances, including in the women's game. I do, however, think they should use the same 25 second shot rule that they use in the rest of the tournaments. (The Majors use 20-seconds. Tell me why that makes sense?) As to Nadalites, I don't see why we'd be disturbed by this any more than any other fan.

 

[DarthFed]

Good going alright considering he had a 15 year old body 10 years ago.

The man is now forever 25, lucky bastard.

 

[DarthFed]

I'm against on-court coaching in all circumstances, including in the women's game. I do, however, think they should use the same 25 second shot rule that they use in the rest of the tournaments. (The Majors use 20-seconds. Tell me why that makes sense?) As to Nadalites, I don't see why we'd be disturbed by this any more than any other fan.

He's talking about using an actual shot clock instead of the chair ump's discretion.

 

[Moxie]

He's talking about using an actual shot clock instead of the chair ump's discretion.

I got that. I don't shiver in my boots about that. I think it would be good if Majors and the rest were consistent on the 25-seconds. As to the shot clock, it's still likely to be discretional. I'll be interested to see how the umpires deal with it, after long rallies, or crowd involvement. And Rafa has picked up the pace, which has been down to the tour insisting on it. It can be done.

 

[DarthFed]

A true shot clock is not discretional for the most part. The long rallies and moments where there is extra crowd noise is why there will be a lot of challenges for properly using it. I rather see them be a lot more strict without use of a shot clock. Nadal and others have sped up a little but he is still routinely over the limit and rarely warned.

 

[Moxie]

A true shot clock is not discretional for the most part. The long rallies and moments where there is extra crowd noise is why there will be a lot of challenges for properly using it. I rather see them be a lot more strict without use of a shot clock. Nadal and others have sped up a little but he is still routinely over the limit and rarely warned.

"The long rallies and moments where there is extra crowd noise is why there will be a lot of challenges for properly using it." What does this mean? I seriously don't understand. It won't be subject to the challenge system, unless there's umpire discretion. So that means there will be moments when the umpire has to override the shot-clock, don't you think?

As to Nadal and others being "rarely warned:" either you aren't watching tennis lately, or you are being willfully blind. Nadal, Djokovic and a lot of others are getting regularly called for slow play. And Nadal has lost plenty of first serves because of it. Stop acting like no one is enforcing it. They are. And the players do react.

 

[DarthFed]

I mean that it will be easy to screw up with a shot clock and not allow extra time particularly when there is a lot of crowd noise.

Rafa is probably called once every two matches and how many times do you think he goes over the limit over the course of a couple matches? Just because they call it more than before doesn't mean they are calling it anywhere near often enough.

 

[Moxie]

[QUOTE="DarthFed, post: 303427, member: 15"]I mean that it will be easy to screw up with a shot clock and not allow extra time particularly when there is a lot of crowd noise.

Rafa is probably called once every two matches and how many times do you think he goes over the limit over the course of a couple matches? Just because they call it more than before doesn't mean they are calling it anywhere near often enough.[/QUOTE]
I still don't really understand you here. (Bolded above.) Will the shot clock help, or not? There will have to be umpire discretion sometimes. So it's still going to be a bit flabby.

A lot of players get called for time. It's a fairly new thing that it's being enforced. You can see how the umpires are learning to work it best. They've started calling it earlier, in general, rather than waiting for a critical moment in the match, which I think everyone thinks is better.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Here is the article about new rules at US Open .

Let me clarify few quick points though.

1. From next year, the allowed time between points will be standardized to 25 points in all events (independent of whether the experiment with shot clock succeeds or not).

2. Even with the shot clock, there is discretion involved. The umpire decides when to start the shot clock. If the previous point was an ace, the umpire is likely to start it immediately. If the previous point was a 60 shot rally, umpire will probably give some break for folks to catch up their breadth and then only start the shot clock. At any rate, the server will know when to hurry up and get it over with.

3. On court coaching is allowed at all times except when the ball is in play. I am strongly against this. Apparently, the players can talk with their teams at any time in between points when they the team and player are on the same side (and use sign languages when they are on different sides). Unfortunately, former WTA chief Stacy is currently the head of operations at USTA and so these things are happening.
However, the sign language business happens all the time and I cannot remember anybody being punished for that. But, if they are not going to punish, they might as well legalize it.

 

[DarthFed]

[QUOTE="DarthFed, post: 303427, member: 15"]I mean that it will be easy to screw up with a shot clock and not allow extra time particularly when there is a lot of crowd noise.

Rafa is probably called once every two matches and how many times do you think he goes over the limit over the course of a couple matches? Just because they call it more than before doesn't mean they are calling it anywhere near often enough.

I still don't really understand you here. (Bolded above.) Will the shot clock help, or not? There will have to be umpire discretion sometimes. So it's still going to be a bit flabby.

A lot of players get called for time. It's a fairly new thing that it's being enforced. You can see how the umpires are learning to work it best. They've started calling it earlier, in general, rather than waiting for a critical moment in the match, which I think everyone thinks is better.[/QUOTE]

I'm saying that with a shot clock the chair ump may often misuse it and start at a "normal" time after a long rally or after a huge point when the crowd is making a lot of noise for 10-15 seconds. Of course it would overall help speed up the game and force the worst offenders to play faster but because of the issue mentioned above I'm not in favor of a shot clock. I am in favor of the chair ump doing his job and consistently enforcing the rules.

And no offense but your point is basically: "they are doing a better job than 3 years ago so they are doing a good job overall". I agree they are doing better but I think we both can agree that is very silly logic. If Rafa is over the time limit 20 times during a match (conservative estimate) he is getting called probably less than an average of one time per match. That's why I said "rarely called"

 

[mrzz]

2. Even with the shot clock, there is discretion involved. The umpire decides when to start the shot clock. If the previous point was an ace, the umpire is likely to start it immediately. If the previous point was a 60 shot rally, umpire will probably give some break for folks to catch up their breadth and then only start the shot clock. At any rate, the server will know when to hurry up and get it over with.

Perfect. If this is done precisely like this, it should work just fine.

3. On court coaching is allowed at all times except when the ball is in play. I am strongly against this. Apparently, the players can talk with their teams at any time in between points when they the team and player are on the same side (and use sign languages when they are on different sides).

Agreed again. Only thing is that in the current situation we have a good deal of sign language, sometimes hidden in form of incentive, sometimes otherwise, so that the enforcement of the non coaching rule is difficult. So, the pragmatical side of this has some logic.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

After the first week of US-Open Series is over (and more importantly after the Big announcement by Novak), here are the latest odds for winning USO outright. Everyone with 1% or more of chances is listed below. There are a bake's dozen candidates.

1. Federer 3
2. Rafa 9/2
3. Andy 7
4. Stan 14
5. Cilic 20
6. Raonic 22
7. Zverev / Thiem 28
9. Samurai / JMDP 33
11. Grigor / NIck 40
12. Tsonga 80
13. Berdych 100

Interestingly, the rest of the field has better odds than Fedal to win USO (57% to 25+18 = 43%).

 

[Moxie]

Oh, great. The witches have looked into their caldrons. Always helpful.

 

[mrzz]

I would say that the combo Federer/Nadal/Wawrinka/Cilic should easily add up to 90% chance of winning, and those odds are not even close to that.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

I would say that the combo Federer/Nadal/Wawrinka/Cilic should easily add up to 90% chance of winning, and those odds are not even close to that.

Your combo works to about 55%

 

[Moxie]

Your combo works to about 55%

And I think his point is they have a far better than 55% chance than the lower order on offer. Roanic? No. Zverev/Thiem? For the future, but is either ready to run the gauntlet now? Not many think so. Nishikori/Del Potro? Both have pedigree in NY, but haven't been lighting up the year. Grigor/Kyrgios: I'm done betting on Dimitrov, and I like Nick, but I don't think he's in a good place yet. So I think Mrzz is likely going to be right. Anyone else is a pretty dark horse, except Murray, if his hip isn't an issue. And that's very TBD.

 

[mrzz]

^GSM is quite aware of that, Moxie. He probably was just kind enough to convert all the odds to actual probabilities and sum them up, just to give the actual value to compare with my 90% guess. Given that the current number is 55%, if you believe, as I do, that the chance of those guys winning it is much larger than that, splitting your money across them is a very good bet to make. I guess what explains the low odds is the fact that we are still quite far away from the tournament, so players can get injured, withdraw from personal reasons, etc...

 

[GameSetAndMath]

So, both Roger and Rafa are playing in both Montreal and Cincy. In these two tourneys, Roger has 0 points to defend, Rafa has 90 and Andy has 600. So, there is a good chance that by the end of Cincy both Roger and Rafa would have passed Andy. It would mean Roger and Rafa would be ranked 1 and 2 (in some order). This would mean no Fedal at USO before finals. This would mean no Fedal at USO, as one or both would not make it all the way to the finals. USO is cursed as usual.