Off Topic Bill Nicholson Arms

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Pricing for the Group CL games @ Wembley: For a mini-season ticket all 3 games prices are £70, £80, £85, £110 and £150 with half price concessions. I cannot wait.
 
redwhiteandermblue said:
As a former (mildly) competitive player, I would respectfully disagree. The fun in tennis is that every player faces tests of nerve continually in most matches. And the slightest tremor is all it takes to lose. I watched Nadal choke away his first Wimbledon final against Federer with interest. He’d been winning points like clockwork by hitting deep forehand approaches to Federer’s relatively weak high backhand (which is funny, incidentally. If Federer had ever figured out how to whack a high backhand, he would have been unbeatable for a decade, the rest of his game was so good. And plenty of pedestrian players can whack high backhands.) Well, this time, it was the point that would have put Nadal up a break in the decisive set, and effectively beaten Federer and won Wimbledon for the first time. There was just the slightest deceleration of the racket head over the ball as he hit it, there was not quite as much topspin as usual, and it landed a few inches out.

More than half of all tournament sets are decided by a single break of service, which means the winner effectively was better on only two points out of 60: the point he broke on and the break point he held. The dominant champions are only two points out of sixty better than the nobodies, and only those two points better, often enough, in two sets out of three, or three out of five. The nervy moments fly so thick and fast that the results paradoxically tend to become fairly predictable: the players with slightly better nerves win time after time by being able to hold their nerve a bit better on the biggest of the big points. The game tests nerves so frequently that the luck of the infrequent event rarely tells and the better nerves almost always win. It couldn’t be a starker contrast to football, where a striker might have one chance to show his mettle, or fail to, in two or three weeks.

Match after match Djokovic lately has been that two points better in the deciding set. But let the slightest ray of doubt creep in, the result of an unsettling thought, a moment of bad luck, or an unexpectedly brilliant shot by an opponent who has forgotten that he shouldn’t win that crucial point, and the top player goes crashing out to the nobody. Knowing how tight sets really are, I’m never surprised when the favorite loses. It’s the way some of them win tournament after tournament that seems bizarre.

Of course, sometimes, in tennis or boxing or other 1 v. 1 sport, the cause may be a slight cold, a muscle pull, one or two extra beers, or a heavy meal the night before. Sometimes it’s a tactic. Nadal simply hit high kicking forehands to Federer’s backhand time after time. Sometimes it’s a matchup oddity. Djokovic may have had trouble with this particular big serve on this surface. But more often it’s the slightest flutter of nerves.
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Your point was certainly valid s few years back when the serve was dominant on all but clay. Nowadays the big serve is less potent (heavier balls, better returning etc and the ability of the better players to get about the court more quickly). Some matches at Wimbledon came down to the better player looking to break the big server in one game per set, but Murray, for example, looked capable of breaking serve against these opponents regularly. His semi v Berdych was won in three sets 18-9 in games. Two sets in the final went to tie breaks, but he was well in control and could have broken Raonic's serve a number of times.
 
littleDinosaurLuke said:
Your point was certainly valid s few years back when the serve was dominant on all but clay. Nowadays the big serve is less potent (heavier balls, better returning etc and the ability of the better players to get about the court more quickly). Some matches at Wimbledon came down to the better player looking to break the big server in one game per set, but Murray, for example, looked capable of breaking serve against these opponents regularly. His semi v Berdych was won in three sets 18-9 in games. Two sets in the final went to tie breaks, but he was well in control and could have broken Raonic's serve a number of times.
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Let me correct myself or explain. I meant that most sets have one service break difference or less (if they’re decided by a tiebreaker). That’s true regardless of whether neither player holds serve all set as long as the score is 6-3 or 6-4 or closer. When there’s only one break difference in a set, it still holds true that you can reverse the outcome of two break points and make the loser win (except in the rare case where there aren’t two break points that can be reversed). But where serving doesn't correlate much to winning, I agree that talking about break points isn't helpful. lt ought then to be ad points.

The point about being in control despite only winning a tiebreaker is a good one. For the life of me, I can't find any stats to determine how top players perform on break points (or ad points) versus total points. The question is, do they win these close sets due to better performance on break points, do they win more break points and give up less simply because they have more of the former and less of the latter, or is it some combination of the two?

Nevertheless, I’ve understated the importance of simply being the better player, it’s fair to say. The chances of a pro tour player winning a match while winning fewer points are only around one in twenty. So simply being the better player is the most important thing, unsurprisingly. But nerves are extremely important. See http://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/...s-and-the-close-matches-federer-isnt-winning/ for an examination of how a top player starts losing the biggest matches due to slightly more nervy performance on break points.
 
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Ridiculous scenes at the TdeF today. I'm sick of these lunatics running in front of the riders. It's getting worse, but I'm not sure what can be done without ruining the spectacle for many thousands of decent fans. However, something has to be done. There is zero tolerance of spectators encroaching on to the playing area in most sports because the players are put at risk and the outcome of the game/contest could be significantly affected.

Today, we saw riders being indirectly knocked off their bikes and the stage result interfered with. There are countless TV cameras and images. The idiots need to be identified and prosecuted. The roads the Tour passes along should be deemed private when the race is passing through and anyone who encroaches should be prosecuted. Physical contact with the riders, throwing urine, water etc are clearly assaults.
 
littleDinosaurLuke said:
Ridiculous scenes at the TdeF today. I'm sick of these lunatics running in front of the riders. It's getting worse, but I'm not sure what can be done without ruining the spectacle for many thousands of decent fans. However, something has to be done. There is zero tolerance of spectators encroaching on to the playing area in most sports because the players are put at risk and the outcome of the game/contest could be significantly affected.

Today, we saw riders being indirectly knocked off their bikes and the stage result interfered with. There are countless TV cameras and images. The idiots need to be identified and prosecuted. The roads the Tour passes along should be deemed private when the race is passing through and anyone who encroaches should be prosecuted. Physical contact with the riders, throwing urine, water etc are clearly assaults.
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Firstly, *TdF* . Or for the Usenet old hands : the Tour (TIOOYK) . That done ...

It goes with the territory on mountain stages. Narrow roads + spectators + motorbikes.
The interaction with the fans is unique, but if a spectator gets too close to a rider, they get some (within reason) .
 
The Spanners are asking UEFA to change their EL Nth qualifying round fixture because
for the current fixture dates, they cannot get the "retractable" seating in place so soon
after the imminent athletics event. :D
 
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