There are no unforced errors in tennis...Convince me otherwise!

[Murat Baslamisli]

If you have played this game even a little bit and had some coaching, you have heard the words "Just give your opponent one more ball, FORCE the error, let HIM make the mistake !" So by definition , if you give your opponent one more ball to hit and he screws it up no matter how easy it is, YOU forced him to make the mistake. No ball to hit, no error to make ! Simple...How difficult or easy the shot is has no importance what so ever. It is a shot that your opponent forced you to hit , period.

How about the serve you say? Well, even that is debatable. Yes, that shot is the only shot you have total control over but do you really? When you see a returner change his position to alter your serve and you screw it up in the process, that IS a forced error, no? When you see a great returner across the net and go for a bit too much, isn't that a forced error? It sure is.

There are only errors in tennis. Call them easy mistakes, silly errors, chokes, whatever you like. But they are not unforced, as long as there is an opponent on the other side.

Tell me why I am wrong

 

[Nadalfan2013]

If you have played this game even a little bit and had some coaching, you have heard the words "Just give your opponent one more ball, FORCE the error, let HIM make the mistake !" So by definition , if you give your opponent one more ball to hit and he screws it up no matter how easy it is, YOU forced him to make the mistake. No ball to hit, no error to make ! Simple...How difficult or easy the shot is has no importance what so ever. It is a shot that your opponent forced you to hit , period.

How about the serve you say? Well, even that is debatable. Yes, that shot is the only shot you have total control over but do you really? When you see a returner change his position to alter your serve and you screw it up in the process, that IS a forced error, no? When you see a great returner across the net and go for a bit too much, isn't that a forced error? It sure is.

There are only errors in tennis. Call them easy mistakes, silly errors, chokes, whatever you like. But they are not unforced, as long as there is an opponent on the other side.

Tell me why I am wrong

Healthy Nadal has never made a forced or unforced error.

 

[isabelle]

Healthy Nadal has never made a forced or unforced error.

he was healthy in Madrid and Bercy 2007...and see what happened vs Nalby !!

 

[Chris Koziarz]

Healthy Nadal has never made a forced or unforced error.

That's simply an alternative reality, my friend. If I was you I would delete such post ASAP before more people see it and make similar opinions about me..

 

[Moxie]

I'm sorry if a troll derailed your post. It's an interesting question. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, as they say. I would say that there are unforced errors. Meaning that, no matter the choice from your opponent, you simply blew your response. However, I would agree that there are many errors charged as "unforced" that were actually forced. And that, yes, for sure DFs often come from direct pressure.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

If you have played this game even a little bit and had some coaching, you have heard the words "Just give your opponent one more ball, FORCE the error, let HIM make the mistake !" So by definition , if you give your opponent one more ball to hit and he screws it up no matter how easy it is, YOU forced him to make the mistake. No ball to hit, no error to make ! Simple...How difficult or easy the shot is has no importance what so ever. It is a shot that your opponent forced you to hit , period.

How about the serve you say? Well, even that is debatable. Yes, that shot is the only shot you have total control over but do you really? When you see a returner change his position to alter your serve and you screw it up in the process, that IS a forced error, no? When you see a great returner across the net and go for a bit too much, isn't that a forced error? It sure is.

There are only errors in tennis. Call them easy mistakes, silly errors, chokes, whatever you like. But they are not unforced, as long as there is an opponent on the other side.

Tell me why I am wrong

I'm going to say that there is no such thing as thruth or a lie. See Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon as an example. But, although I have trouble with being completely sure that someone lies or tells the truth (as Akira has asserted in his film), I will still denounce the more or less obvious lies someone pronounces, if there is a reasonable certainty about said lies. We have the word "lie" in English language to actually use it to express ourselves, and not be afraid of it.
Similarly, we have a word "unforced error" in tennis to express our commentary about the play and we use it to describe certain situation, even if we are not 100% about the objectivity of our comment. We can eventually qualify our comment with "but the opponent's one more shot or intimidation may have played a role" if we want to express the uncertainty. That's the right approach. However your approach of eliminating "unforced error" from tennis vocabulary is simply a language impoverishment. It's like if Kurosawa had said after his film: "let's remove the words 'truth' vs. 'lie' from the vocabulary because everything is a lie".

 

[Ricardo]

If you have played this game even a little bit and had some coaching, you have heard the words "Just give your opponent one more ball, FORCE the error, let HIM make the mistake !" So by definition , if you give your opponent one more ball to hit and he screws it up no matter how easy it is, YOU forced him to make the mistake. No ball to hit, no error to make ! Simple...How difficult or easy the shot is has no importance what so ever. It is a shot that your opponent forced you to hit , period.

How about the serve you say? Well, even that is debatable. Yes, that shot is the only shot you have total control over but do you really? When you see a returner change his position to alter your serve and you screw it up in the process, that IS a forced error, no? When you see a great returner across the net and go for a bit too much, isn't that a forced error? It sure is.

There are only errors in tennis. Call them easy mistakes, silly errors, chokes, whatever you like. But they are not unforced, as long as there is an opponent on the other side.

Tell me why I am wrong

This post is a good example of being over simplistic, black and white way of thinking...usually it becomes worthless.

 

[mrzz]

I got your point, @Murat Baslamisli . But, given brilliant @Chris Koziarz analogy, there is one situation in which I totally use the label "unforced" to "errors", and this is when the player has time enough to think about his shot. He can decide which level of risk he might take, what play he should do, and etc. The same argument that you used for the serve could apply here, yes, but it is a good leap of faith to call any such error a "forced" error. Induced, maybe. To answer one of your last phrases. The opponent forced you to make a shot, not that particular shot that you chose, and missed.

And, by the way, I recognize your rhetoric approach here.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

I'm going to say that there is no such thing as thruth or a lie. See Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon as an example. But, although I have trouble with being completely sure that someone lies or tells the truth (as Akira has asserted in his film), I will still denounce the more or less obvious lies someone pronounces, if there is a reasonable certainty about said lies. We have the word "lie" in English language to actually use it to express ourselves, and not be afraid of it.
Similarly, we have a word "unforced error" in tennis to express our commentary about the play and we use it to describe certain situation, even if we are not 100% about the objectivity of our comment. We can eventually qualify our comment with "but the opponent's one more shot or intimidation may have played a role" if we want to express the uncertainty. That's the right approach. However your approach of eliminating "unforced error" from tennis vocabulary is simply a language impoverishment. It's like if Kurosawa had said after his film: "let's remove the words 'truth' vs. 'lie' from the vocabulary because everything is a lie".

I am perfectly fine with keeping the word "error" in the language. It is the "unforced" part that is unnecessary. And language can definitely benefit from the elimination of redundancy, believe me. Don't you cringe when you here the phrase" Boarding process" at the airport? I do. It is "Boarding" and that is it . There are no "shower activities" in the area. There are showers, or no showers. These terms actually impoverish the language and elimination of them helps it. Torturing the language is not a good thing. Like, you do not need a "sleep system"...all you need is a good old "bed".

Language issues aside let me ask this: If there is no shot to be hit, can you make an error? The answer to that is no, you cannot. Isn't it then pretty clear that in order to MAKE an error, your opponent's participation is needed?
Call it a silly error, bad error, cheap error, stupid error, just do not call it "unforced" error, that's is all I am saying. You are not playing by yourself.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

I am perfectly fine with keeping the word "error" in the language. It is the "unforced" part that is unnecessary. And language can definitely benefit from the elimination of redundancy, believe me. Don't you cringe when you here the phrase" Boarding process" at the airport? I do. It is "Boarding" and that is it . There are no "shower activities" in the area. There are showers, or no showers. These terms actually impoverish the language and elimination of them helps it. Torturing the language is not a good thing. Like, you do not need a "sleep system"...all you need is a good old "bed".

Sorry mate, I disagree with your treatment of language. To respond to your examples, I see and do appreciate the difference between "Boarding process" and "Boarding", and between "shower activities" and "showers". They emphasize different aspects of the reality. Former describe the set or related multitude of actions and installations. Queue of people, gates, ticket verification, walkways, airbridge, or special buses + mobile jetway, and finally sealing the aircraft when everybody is in. But for passengers hurrying up to take part, the blinking reminders on the boards are saying just "BOARDING", because a passenger cares about a simple catchword-reminder only and not the complex system. So what precisely you want to say determines what words you chose. I don't need to add that "shower activities" can mean process of providing multiple shower services at the pool, including multiple rooms for sex segregation, undressing/redressing and drying, while "shower" is just a single cabin with dripping water and by saying that you don't even care how the water is coming and going and who uses it.
Secondly, different terms describe different emotions. In your examples, former terms are more formal while latter are less formal, and necessarily simpler. So how you want to say it also determines what words you want to use.
I think I've proven that your "elimination of allegedly unnecessary words" is simple a language impoverishment. You still think that "language can definitely benefit from the elimination of redundancy"? No, not my language nor any language in general.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

Sorry mate, I disagree with your treatment of language. To respond to your examples, I see and do appreciate the difference between "Boarding process" and "Boarding", and between "shower activities" and "showers". They emphasize different aspects of the reality. Former describe the set or related multitude of actions and installations. Queue of people, gates, ticket verification, walkways, airbridge, or special buses + mobile jetway, and finally sealing the aircraft when everybody is in. But for passengers hurrying up to take part, the blinking reminders on the boards are saying just "BOARDING", because a passenger cares about a simple catchword-reminder only and not the complex system. So what precisely you want to say determines what words you chose. I don't need to add that "shower activities" can mean process of providing multiple shower services at the pool, including multiple rooms for sex segregation, undressing/redressing and drying, while "shower" is just a single cabin with dripping water and by saying that you don't even care how the water is coming and going and who uses it.
Secondly, different terms describe different emotions. In your examples, former terms are more formal while latter are less formal, and necessarily simpler. So how you want to say it also determines what words you want to use.
I think I've proven that your "elimination of allegedly unnecessary words" is simple a language impoverishment. You still think that "language can definitely benefit from the elimination of redundancy"? No, not my language nor any language in general.

Chris , by "showers" I meant rain. When your weather person uses the phrase "shower activity" he means it is raining. He can just say "There will be showers in the area". But people feel more important when they add words like "activity" at the end. The language gains nothing. It becomes tortured.
When at the airport, if you heard " We will now start boarding" do you not understand what you are going to do? Do you look around like "Oh my god, WTF is boarding?"
I hate hijacking my own thread but it seems to me you are big fan of euphemisms. They do not enrich the language or make the people that use them any smarter. In fact, just the opposite. And it tortures the language. In the first world war, we used the term "shell shock". When you change that to "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" you are just torturing the language and you are feeling superior about yourself and feeling like you have changed the condition itself by changing what you call it. That is delusional.

Back to topic. I asked a couple of questions at the end of my last post? Any opinions on those?

 

[Chris Koziarz]

Chris , by "showers" I meant rain. When your weather person uses the phrase "shower activity" he means it is raining. He can just say "There will be showers in the area". But people feel more important when they add words like "activity" at the end. The language gains nothing. It becomes tortured.
When at the airport, if you heard " We will now start boarding" do you not understand what you are going to do? Do you look around like "Oh my god, WTF is boarding?"
I hate hijacking my own thread but it seems to me you are big fan of euphemisms. They do not enrich the language or make the people that use them any smarter. In fact, just the opposite. And it tortures the language. In the first world war, we used the term "shell shock". When you change that to "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" you are just torturing the language and you are feeling superior about yourself and feeling like you have changed the condition itself by changing what you call it. That is delusional.

Back to topic. I asked a couple of questions at the end of my last post? Any opinions on those?

My original explanation (e.g. that the "activities" embelishment makes the "shower" term more formal) still apply if by "shower" you mean a type of rain.
I used to share you sentiments herein, at times I did not understand (or wanted to ignore/deny) other people's emotions. Now I want to understand them and even appreciate when they use different words to better express their feelings, giving me the opportunity to look into their world of emotions. Example: when you say to me me "Chris, you misunderstood 'shower activities'" I understand you are my friend. But a policeman who gives me a ticket, will say to me: "Mr Koziarz, you committed an offense, sir". I used to rebel against the word "sir" herein, thinking it's "redundant" (like you would think), and that the policeman just self-contradicts himself by giving me a ticket and trying to show me respect at the same time. But now I try to understand his job and his feelings, and that he must stay formal in his job, and respectful, etc. So different people must use different words, and complex expressions are absolutely necessary in some cases, even if some people like yourself (or myself few years back) don't like them.
The difference between "shell shock".and "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" is so obvious, that I don't bother explaining in detail. There is no time or desire to continue "hijacking" your thread with the explanation of a whole branch of psychology. Enough to say that PTSD is a spectrum of disorders from various types of trauma. And equating every case to a "shell shock" is indeed impoverishing and even misleading to me who knows a bit about it.
This is my last post about this issue, regardless if you agree with me or not (i.e. I don;t want to keep "hijacking" here anymore).

 

[Chris Koziarz]

Language issues aside let me ask this: If there is no shot to be hit, can you make an error? The answer to that is no, you cannot. Isn't it then pretty clear that in order to MAKE an error, your opponent's participation is needed?
Call it a silly error, bad error, cheap error, stupid error, just do not call it "unforced" error, that's is all I am saying. You are not playing by yourself.

Oops, with said language issues, I almost forgotten about this very on topic question.

Your answer I emphasised is wrong. You consider a tennis match to be only an act of ball deflection by a pair (or double team) of players. But tennis match as defined by ATP/WTA is much broader event and includes everything the players do while on the court until the final handshake. A blow in the face example of an "error without play" is Serena's behaviour during USO final, where she lost one point and one game (not to mention some money and her reputation in the eyes of people like me) due to her error. Serena's error can be called with all epithets you used above, including "unforced", because the opponent did not "force" Serena into her tantrum.

Even with your narrow definition of the tennis match, I think you can still make tactical error or wrong positioning on the court (or moving against the rules) before the opponent hits the serve.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

Oops, with said language issues, I almost forgotten about this very on topic question.

Your answer I emphasised is wrong. You consider a tennis match to be only an act of ball deflection by a pair (or double team) of players. But tennis match as defined by ATP/WTA is much broader event and includes everything the players do while on the court until the final handshake. A blow in the face example of an "error without play" is Serena's behaviour during USO final, where she lost one point and one game (not to mention some money and her reputation in the eyes of people like me) due to her error. Serena's error can be called with all epithets you used above, including "unforced", because the opponent did not "force" Serena into her tantrum.

Even with your narrow definition of the tennis match, I think you can still make tactical error or wrong positioning on the court (or moving against the rules) before the opponent hits the serve.

Wow...did you just use Serena's thing as an example (one in a million tennis transactions) and called MY definition (pretty much 99.9999999% of the time, you need an opponent's participation in tennis) as narrow? I don't know man...If you are not seeing the irony there...

 

[Horsa]

I agree with you that there are no unforced errors for the reasons you stated & that it's a language thing. The use of the word unforced is inappropriate in the circumstances & used to make people feel better about their favourite player losing. I'd say that the terms careless mistake or minor blip would be more apt. However, I disagree with you in a few ways which I'll list below.

1. I only partially disagree with you on this 1. I agree that some people use posh language to make them seem good & important but that's not always the case. Some people use this same language so as not to upset others especially when they think things could get too heated or they're talking about taboo subjects so they're trying to be polite. (Some people are people-pleasers because it gives them an easy time. I'm not that smarmy though.) In some cases people are using the language they're used to or they're angry & using this language to stop themselves from exploding or swearing. Some people have been bullied in the past & know if they use posh language some other people will leave them alone. Mind you, I love elegant language, the elegance of rhyme & word-play.
2. I know sometimes people like to say things as quickly & bluntly as possible thereby saying things in as few words as possible but sometimes lengthening conversations is more polite. That's not the case when people are busy though. I disagree with your opinion that using unnecessary padding impoverishes language.
3. I also disagree with your opinion that using posh language or euphemisms impoverishes language.

I think that excessive use of rude words, swear-words or explicit language impoverishes language.

I'm very sorry I haven't attempted to convince you that there are no unforced errors in tennis like you asked so am derailing your thread & am even disrespecting you to the point of disagreeing with you on some things but felt the need to say what I said.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

Wow...did you just use Serena's thing as an example (one in a million tennis transactions) and called MY definition (pretty much 99.9999999% of the time, you need an opponent's participation in tennis) as narrow? I don't know man...If you are not seeing the irony there...

I can agree with you that your definition of tennis game is not "narrow" and change my term to a better, more accurate one - "narrower" than official definition I try to stick to. My hasty typing I omitted the letters "er". So sorry about that. With that concession of mine, we may reach mutual understanding of each other easier. And I hope you to show me some concession in return, so our understanding will be even easier.

You seem to imply that there is some "irony" in your post that I do not understand. Indeed I don't understand said "irony", it would be unhealthy to be ironic here, so I don't bother even trying to understand, you don't need to explain it to me, thanks. I also don't understand where your number "99.9999999% of time" comes from. I gave an example of Serena's error as an error where the opponent's participation is not needed, according to your definition of "unforced error". I could give many many more examples of tantrums: Maccy, Nick, Roddick. Do I need to mention racket smashing? Even Fed did it couple times when he was young (but he grew out of it). Many matches feature some forms of code violations. I don't know the percentage of time they happen but I think often enough that they warrant mentioning. And classifying as "unforced errors" herein this thread. IMO, we don't need to calculate said time percentage of those points. I don't understand why you're insisting on ignoring them.

Lastly, I don't understand why you're labelling your definition of tennis with all caps word "MY". What do you mean? Is it just a typo? If not (i.e. you're consciously proud of the name "MY tennis") then why you use the all caps euphemism (as opposed to a simple "my definition") in your written communication herein, contradicting your previous assertion that you disapprove the euphemisms and all language embellishments because you consider them redundant?

 

[mrzz]

So, @Chris Koziarz , what if @Murat Baslamisli corrects his thread title to "Apart from code violations, there are no UFE's in tennis"?

 

[Nadalfan2013]

A perfect example is Nadal throwing a moonball to Federer's backhand and Federer missing like some club player over and over for 10 years. That's an example of an unforced error.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

So, @Chris Koziarz , what if @Murat Baslamisli corrects his thread title to "Apart from code violations, there are no UFE's in tennis"?

Good suggestion. Such correction would make my task of proving Murat being wrong (according to his own wish in his intro post) a bit more challenging but I would take that challenge on board. All of my arguments about language would still apply. I'm trying as much as I can to satisfy him (i.e. make him wrong) even though he might not like me for doing so. Perhaps he notes the irony and be with us.

 

[britbox]

This conversation reminds me of a comic strip I used to read.