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I always remember this article by Steve Tignor on the aesthetics of tennis scores. Mainly because it’s something I always felt, that reading the score of some matches suggested the drama that took place, but reading the score of other matches doesn’t.
I feel the same. There’s something about the dramatic shifts and twists in the score that makes you want to witness that match, to see how it happened. Whereas, of 2008 he says:
Today’s score - 1-6, 7-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-4 - is twisty and bendy but too lopsided in a couple of sets, and maybe doesn’t suggest the full drama of the match. It’s an interesting article, and way of looking at tennis. For instance, 6-4, 6-4, is a straight sets victory, dropping only 8 games. So is 7-5, 6-3, but that’s a more beautiful score. It tells of one player getting on top in the second after a struggle in the first. 6-3, 7-5 is similar, but not the same. Both, however, tell more of the drama and shifts of the match than 6-4 6-4.
Or I should say, they suggest more drama. The 6-4, 6-4 match might actually be a better match, but the others are more aesthetically beautiful as scores…
The final of the World Cup might be 1-nil or 3-2, but that doesn’t tell you nearly as much about that what happened as, say, the score of the 1980 Wimbledon final: 1-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-7 (16), 8-6. I love that score for its tongue-twisting rises and falls, and its final leap up, and then up some more.
I feel the same. There’s something about the dramatic shifts and twists in the score that makes you want to witness that match, to see how it happened. Whereas, of 2008 he says:
That one—6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-7 (8), 9-7 was simple and symmetrical, but it also had that dramatic final leap upward, from a classic fourth-set tiebreaker to an extra-inning fifth set, just like in ’80.
There’s a poetry to tennis scores, and, to me at least, a meaning.
Today’s score - 1-6, 7-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-4 - is twisty and bendy but too lopsided in a couple of sets, and maybe doesn’t suggest the full drama of the match. It’s an interesting article, and way of looking at tennis. For instance, 6-4, 6-4, is a straight sets victory, dropping only 8 games. So is 7-5, 6-3, but that’s a more beautiful score. It tells of one player getting on top in the second after a struggle in the first. 6-3, 7-5 is similar, but not the same. Both, however, tell more of the drama and shifts of the match than 6-4 6-4.
Or I should say, they suggest more drama. The 6-4, 6-4 match might actually be a better match, but the others are more aesthetically beautiful as scores…