Category: Sport (Page 7 of 24)

The limits of sports stats: the example of Nadal and the WSJ

June 1, 2011 / rob

This year in tennis is been all Djokovic and that winning streak. The narrative of sports is always about who is “the Man”, so therefore, Rafael Nadal must be a spent force.

The Wall St Journal have, they think, proved it. In their piece Nadal Looks Surprisingly Human in Paris they look at the stats of Nadal’s first four matches this year, and compare to the years he has won before.

Nadal’s stats don’t reflect a full-blown disaster. But compared to his first four victories in the years he won here, Nadal is spending on average a half hour longer on court and breaking opponents’ serves far less often. All this despite not playing a single seeded opponent so far.

What’s wrong with this? First off, players who are seeded CAN’T meet another seed until the third round anyway, so that’s hardly stunning. Let’s look a bit more at the stats they cite.

	Serve Game WIN%	RETURN GAME WIN%	GAMES WIN%	SET WIN%	AVG. MATCH LENGTH
2011	85.5%	39.7%	62.8%	85.7%	2:52
2010	85.2%	50.9%	68.2%	100%	2:18
2008	87.8%	65.2%	76.8%	100%	2:05
2007	86.8%	50.9%	68.9%	100%	2:14
2006	81.8%	43.9%	62.9%	85.7%	3:04
2005	87.7%	44.6%	66.4%	92.3%	2:09

Sources: ATP World Tour, Stats Inc.

His average match length is high, but it was higher in 2006 when he won the title – hardly shocking. The only 2011 stat quoted which is worst in the list is the percentage of return games won – 4 per cent lower than the next lowest. Four per cent, which works out at about 2.5 games on the opponent’s serve that he hasn’t won in 4 rounds – less than a break of serve less per match.

So we have boiled Nadal’s struggle down to about a break less per match from 2006, perhaps two per match from his peak, plus a bit more time on court.

It’s hardly evidence of decline. But stats are like that. They don’t always show what seems evident to watchers and commentators. They don’t show the workrate, the struggle on points, the extra deuces, the attitude. Perhaps those things are there, perhaps we’re seeing what we want to see to fit the narrative. Let’s see what happens from here to the final.

The FA cup: magic and economics

May 15, 2011 / rob

There are three things always said about the FA Cup. It’s the world’s oldest cup competition; it has a magic to it; and it isn’t what it once was. But few people actually manage to quantify how or why the cup’s importance is in decline.

The Guardian’s secret footballer promised to do so, citing Freakonomics as an inspiration, but then trotted non-economic analysis such as how the timing of the final (amongst normal Premiership games) and other factors such as Manchester United pulling out for the World Team Cup in 2002 had undermined it. There’s also the argument that the prestige of playing at Wembley is devalued by holding Cup semis there.

All true, but not really the point. Then, tucked away towards the end of the piece, the Secret Footballer hit the nail on the head:

Stoke City or Manchester City will pick up £1.8m for winning the FA Cup, which is the difference between finishing 15th and 17th in the Premier League.

And then in the next paragraph: “£30m is on offer to reach the Champions League [for finishing in the top four]”.

It’s a trophy, but not one financially worth winning if you take your eye off Europe or the league.

In a world where football is ALL about money, that tells you everything you need to know.

Tennis: A rivalry in decline

May 9, 2011 / rob

Lost in all the battle of the streaks – Nadal on clay vs Djokovic in 2011 – was the fact that Nadal and Federer met again in a semi final on Saturday.

It’s a bit of a comedown for the greatest rivalry * in modern tennis. Nadal and Federer have played two semis in a row now, after previously playing in eight finals straight. Overall, of their 24 meetings, 18 have been in finals.

This is going to happen more now that Djokovic is number 2, and closing in on the top spot. At every big event there is a good chance they will be in the same half of the draw.

While nothing lasts forever in sport, I do still hope they play another big final this year. Strangely, it’s been over two years now that they met in a slam. The last meeting was the Aussie Open of 2009, which was a great match.

* greatest rivalry = based on the seven slam finals contested, two more than the next rivalries of Sampras-Aggasi and Lendl-Wilander; and on the time at number 1 and 2 together in the rankings (most of the last six years).

Where is the Marathon’s Usain Bolt?

April 17, 2011 / rob

Today is the London Marathon. Aside from the amazing efforts of people to raise money for charity, and the tremendous physical effort to complete the course, we are unlikely to see a world record today. Why? With all the improvements in diet, technology and sports science, why aren’t we running sub-2 hour marathons?

This is a question the BBC tried to answer recently, and they did quite a good job, looking at the kinds of issues and conditions marathon runners face.

The marathon record progression is starting to look like a classic long-tail chart. Here it is:

One thing they could have done was compare it to the men’s 100m, which was also looking like it had stalled, until Usain Bolt came along:

So could someone do to the marathon what Usain Bolt did to the 100m record?

Given that the marathon IS so long, you would think there was more room for cutting swathes of time off the record, and that the 100m would be the small, incremental progression – and yet it hasn’t happened like that.

Perhaps this is because the optimal physical build of the marathon runner has been worked out for a long time now, whereas Bolt flew in the face of 100m conventional wisdom with his physique. You aren’t going to get a complete turnaround in marathon runners, as the distance is too long.

So have we reached the end of marathon records? Will 2 hours ever be beaten? I think it will, but not in 20 years as the BBC article suggested, but either very soon or not for 50 years. Records rarely stick to the charts.

Djokovic and the multiple slam winners [UPDATED]

January 31, 2011 / rob

With Novak Djokovic winning in Australia, most of the coverage has focused on Andy Murray coming up short in his 3rd slam final (a damning stat – 3 finals, 0 sets won).

I thought I would concentrate on Djokovic instead. Djokovic has now won 2 of his 4 slam finals, which is not bad in the scheme of things. Amongst current players, only Federer (16-6), Nadal (9-2) and Del Potro (1-0) are in better shape. Hewitt is the same (2-2), there’s Ferrero on 1-1, while Roddick (1-4) had the misfortune of coming up against Federer in his prime 4 times.

For Murray, the only other multiple slam loser currently is Soderling with 0-2. The 1-time finalists I won’t list here.

However – one facet of Djokovic’s win is that it moves him from the one-time winner list to multiple winners, and does the Australian Open a favour at the same time.

The mark of a great player is winning more than one slam, ideally at more than one venue. Single slam winners are one-offs. They devalue the currency of the slam win, and don’t foster the key element to tennis’ popularity – rivalries. Continue reading

The Ashes in stats

January 7, 2011 / rob

I was going to do this for this blog, but then got asked to do it for the FT. Here it is (registered).

The best nuggets include:

Australia lost by an innings in three out of the five matches in the series. Before that, they had lost by an innings in just three Tests in 242 Test matches since 1990. They won by an innings in 36 matches in that period, winning 144 times overall.

Nine 100s scored by English batsmen; three by Australian batsmen. On the 2006-07 Ashes tour, England scored three to Australia’s nine.

Other stats are even more painful – England took 30 more wickets overall – 86 to 56. In stats, whichever way you look at it, it was a very one-sided series. Strange that after 3 matches, it was 1-1.

How skiing is missing a trick

December 15, 2010 / rob

Disclaimer: I’m skiing this week.

Skiing is an expensive sport. There’s the clothes, equipment hire, the ski pass, and the travel to and from the resort. And that’s before you see the prices on the restaurant menus.

Skiing is also quite a high-tech sport. The equipment and technology changes almost every year, with different types of ski, cleverer glasses and goggles. I’ve seen Russians wearing what looks like kevlar body armour, skis of all shapes, all sorts of clever kit.

But one area where the whole experience is failing to keep up is in data and mapping. There are two things that are just screaming out for a bit more thinking. If these exist, I’ve not seen them.

First – congestion maps. In every ski resort, there are big boards with a map of the area, showing lifts and runs that are open and closed. Would it be so hard to also show which runs or lifts have the most people on? Queuing at lifts is a pain. Why not show the congested parts of the resort, so that skiers as a group can regulate their movements? If you can do it for cars, you can do it for ski resorts.

Second – give skiers their own data. Every resort now issues ski passes that contains a chip to get through the gates and on to the lifts. For a small surcharge, why not give skiers the option to download which lifts they have been on in their holiday, and map them to show where they have skied?

This would be a fantastic addition to any holiday for competitive skiers. How many miles did you ski? How far did you get? You could share maps, create groups and league tables – the possibilities are vast. It’s such a missed opportunity.

The technology is in place, all it would take is just making the data available to the user. Each pass has an ID number, and each issuer has a record of who bought it – just make it available online. A ski pass costs anything from 30 to 70 euros per day – and a week pass is almost always in three figures. Just add on 15 euros for the data administration – or build it into the price. Everyone would love it.

The only argument I’ve heard against it is that anyone who cares can map their runs using GPS on their iPhone or similar. Except – who wants to incur mobile phone data roaming charges abroad? They can run into the thousands.

Give us our ski data! I know, I know. I’m sure there won’t be a big campaign for ski data transparency, but if there is, let’s say it started here.

The Bric games

December 3, 2010 / rob

With Russia winning in its bid to host the 2018 World Cup, all four Bric countries are now cemented on the sporting stage. From China hosting the Olympics in 2008, to Russia in 2018, there is a defined 10 years where these four countries are moving from being an global economic story to centre stage of global sport.

In between, we have will have had India’s commonwealth games in Delhi this year, and Brazil with the task of hosting the World Cup and Olympics just two years apart, in 2014 and 2016 respectively.

Fifa and the IOC have clearly grasped the developing world concept. Beijing beat three developed world cities to the Olympics back in 2001 (Toronto, Paris and Osaka – the other was Istanbul). Delhi was chosen over Hamilton, Canada. Brazil was the only bid for 2014, but Rio won the 2016 Olympics over Madrid, Tokyo and Chicago. Russia beat a trio of “old Europe” bids – the UK, Spain/Portugal and Holland/Belgium.

So developing is in. Established is out. Throw South Africa 2010 and Qatar 2022 into the mix, and you have a clear indication of the way these sporting events are being allocated. London 2012 might be the last of its kind for a long time.

Going back to the four Brics, what can we expect? So far, the interesting thing is not the similarity, but the differences. China’s ruthlessly efficient Olympics in Beijing was in utter contrast to the chaos in the build up to Delhi, where the accommodation and infrastructure were barely adequate.

Brazil’s build up will be fascinating. Can a country hosting these two giant events so close find any meaningful overlap in the building work? A few airports and rail links aside, not really. A world cup needs 8 or so big (40,000 plus) stadiums dotted around the country. An Olympics needs to be based in one city, and cover (in Rio’s case), 28 sports.

A world cup hosts 704 (22*32) players. Rio’s Olympics needs to house around 12,500 athletes. The needs are quite different. This has only happened twice before: the World Cup in the US in 1994 and Olympics in Atlanta in 1996; and the Olympics in Mexico in 1968 with the football arriving two years later. The fully-blown modern version will be a very different challenge to those events. For the ’94 World Cup, the US had most of the infrastructure in terms of stadiums and airports already in place. Atlanta was a damp squib of an Olympics. In terms of competitors alone, Rio’s Olympics will be more than twice the size of Mexico City’s, with nearly 100 more countries taking part.

And so to Russia. Whether or not it is a mafia state, the rebuilding and logistics will be quite staggering. Then again, the Qatar has promised to build cooled stadiums to counter the 40-degree heat. At least they have the extra four years to get it right.

In the red, twice over

October 8, 2010 / rob

The Premiership football bubble has yet to completely pop, despite Portsmouth going into administration. But the situation at Liverpool, and the (financial) results of Manchester United make alarming reading.

For the best summary of ManU, David Bond crunches the numbers (dare I say he’s perhaps a better financial journalist than sports writer?).

And the peerless David Conn’s reporting on Liverpool was the best around.

Why was Sam Allardyce fired?

January 17, 2008 / rob

Why was Sam Allardyce fired? Politics aside, his record merited a “wait-and-see”.

Allardyce’s record

Teams	Games	Wins	Draws	Defeats	Win %	points per game	points per season
Newcastle United	21	7	5	9	33%	1.24	47.04
Bolton Wanderers	226	80	66	80	35%	1.35	51.45

Let’s put this into perspective. Allardyce averaged 1.2 points per game with Newcastle – a season average of 47. Since the Premiership was reduced to 20 clubs, no team has been relegated with more than 42 points. The average points gained by the top of the relegation zone is 36.4. So Big Sam was not going down. His points per game was better with Bolton, but it was early days at Newcastle. they hired a mid-table manager. They got a mid-table manager. Firing him is a mystery.

Some good stats on the Telegraph‘s site on this. I’ve just added my own extra stats.