numbers and stories

The 'made for excitement' nature of American sports is fairly easy to spot. That is not the focus of this post, though. Instead, as I catch up with the American Football (AF), basketball and even baseball at times, a couple of distinctive features of the media coverage of these sports is apparent.

• "We can talk numbers all day long"

Watching the NBA playoffs last season, I couldn't help but be astounded by the sheer volume of stats presented by the commentators and the analyzers. More than the volume though, it was the nature of it that stood out. Stats right out of a trivia book dominated discussions. Further, the so called experts use quarter or end game stats to make their points, when it should be the other way around, wherein, the expert is able to present his insight, which should eventually be proved by stats. 25 field goal attempts might be a lot or not depending on how each play panned out. 25 by itself does not mean anything, does it?

AF is a sport where individual or even team stats don't necessarily add up to a team score. Unlike cricket, where every single run counts, here, every yard does not, simply because, consistently gaining yards and giving it up close to the end zone does not get you any points. In this aspect, it is very similar to football, where a team might dominate possession, have 25 shots on target and lose to a team that had 2 shots on goal. In spite of this reality, stats like yards gained and the success/failure ratio of throws are the ones that get beaten to death during the dissection of play. Qualitative analysis is conspicuous by its absence. Instead, all the judgments stem from numbers.

I guess that someone sitting high up felt that a similar numbers based approach to football would be the way to take it to the masses in America. Last year, while watching the Champions League on ESPN, I noticed that towards the end of the game, some numbers about the metres covered by a player during the game was printed out on the screen. It was quite amusing to hear the commentator try and put a spin on it, but thankfully, the idea hasn't caught on. It would be a strange experience to listen to experts talking about how Manchester United beat Liverpool since their players managed to cover a total of twenty thousand metres during the game while their counterparts managed only seventeen thousand!

• "Skills are fine, but without a story, it ain't newsworthy"
  

Djokovic is a 20 year old tennis player, who had won 2 Masters titles earlier this year, reached the semifinals of both Wimbledon and French Open and was on his way to the climatic stages of the US Open. The world number 3, no less! New York wasn't all that impressed though. Then came the breakthrough. Not the high quality five setter he played against one of the hottest players of the hardcourt summer, Radek Stepanek, but the impersonations he did of Sharapova and Nadal. Within a couple of days, Djokovic was quite overwhelmed by the ubiquitous questioning related to the impersonations, that he expressed genuine surprise at what he was made out to be.

Another case in point was the US Open final featuring Djokovic and Roger Federer, two of the top three that have distanced themselves from the chasing pack. In the current avatar of the sport, devoid of classical serve and volleyers, Federer is the best volleyer we have. I noticed that through the first couple of sets, Federer found himself having to make a boot-strap volley (as the name indicates, a volley that you have to make somewhere close to your shoes. Essentially, volley a dipping ball) twice and Djokovic had to do the same twice. Both of them failed to succeed in their attempts.

Sitting in the commentary box, was the incomparable John McEnroe, possibly the greatest volleyer in the history of tennis. He did not offer a viewpoint on any of these plays. Nothing about technique or insights about what made it hard to make such a volley. However, when Djokovic lost it mentally during the first set tiebreaker, McEnroe's co-commentators readily brought out his infamous temper tantrums through some friendly banter. And McEnroe, old sport that he is, played along and joked about it, while seeming to thoroughly enjoy it .

Considering McEnroe's popularity as a commentator, and how often this side story of his gets brought up, casual viewers of the sport (under which category, I include those that haven't a clue about the history of the sport, however much they might know about Federer) probably consider him to be an ex-player who behaved funny/crazy on court. That would be true, but is Ayrton Senna immortal only because he died on track?! There is a bigger story there. McEnroe has one too, for his virtuoso skills will never ever be seen again on a tennis court, unless they bring back wooden rackets, and of course, clone him. No one did it like Mac.

Futile and meaningless as it might be, if one had to contrast the playing style of Federer and McEnroe, it must be said that Federer hits the ball as hard as anyone in the game. He is as athletic as Nadal and can serve almost as well as the best. Its just that he makes it all look so casual and easy. McEnroe on the other hand made everything look ungainly. His service action was as weird as they come. He did not flex his arms to hit his forehand and backhand and he could not touch his toes. Lets not even talk about his hairstyle. Yet, what came came out of this combination of the bad, the worse and the worst, was the absolute beauty. The uncouth, brazen American, defined feather touch. His rivals, Connors and Bjorn Borg included, hit the ball harder, but none could match his touch and angles. He won 3 Wimbledons and 4 US Opens, you know.

Highlighting that, will inspire the next generation of tennis players. Highlighting his temper, will help improve television ratings for as long as the sport exists.

PS: I hate to be a moaner, and worse, moan about things that I do not understand 100%. However, this is meant to be one of those indulgences that a man's gotta have, like enjoying a big bowl of Chocolate Devotion at Cold Stone while on a diet, simply because India qualified for the semifinals of the Twenty20 World Cup. Maybe, I could work on reducing the frequency of these indiscretions...

a new clause to an age old law

"Thou shall reap when you go for it and it falls for you; out it falls, down you go" - Layman wording, but universal truth.

In every aspect of life, conservatism is one option. The benefits of this lifestyle lie above the zero line and waver around it, rarely dipping into the negative or soaring into the rarefied heights of the positive.

Adventurism, on the other hand, cannot be described by mean and standard deviation. A comprehensive understanding of random processes is required to statistically describe it. Of course, one can always learn through experience. The peaks and troughs come about randomly. They take their toll. People drop off the edge. A strong mind is needed to cope with the steady state of turbulence. But as the adage on top suggests, when the stars align, you get to be on top of Everest.

This is the way of the world. Adults bow to it. Youths fight it. Eventually, realize it and then pick a side.

With a 1-13 career head to head record, Roddick didn't have much of an option with respect to picking sides. He had to go for it. In his mind, he must have known that he was risking another 6-4 6-0 6-2 scoreline, but prolonged rallying coupled with some lucky breaks could have taken him as far as four sets and no more. He was up against Federer and Federer's opponents don't get gifts. Not whole matches anyway.

Federer knew the law as well as anyone. He must have known that the only way to repel an all out successful attack by Roddick would be to launch the heavy artillery himself. Which he did not do. Instead, he just changed the law. Rather, added an escape clause to the law. One which carries his name henceforth.

Roddick went for it and successfully too. He crushed his groundstrokes and yanked Federer all around the court. He served "from a tree" and didn't give Federer a whiff of a chance. If Roddick can play better, the world is yet to see it. Still, he did not win a single set. Three sets and he was out of his beloved Open. Writing that Roddick was a broken (in spirit) man would be an easy thing to do, but if he means half of what he said in his post match presser (about perspective), he is probably the one that we all need to look up to, more than we look up to Federer.

Federer was up for the match yesterday from the start. It was full throttled action from the time the first ball of the match was struck. Yet, he was not the one pressing the accelerator. He just bid his time. He must have hoped that Roddick would fall off the cliff in the tiebreaker. Roddick did not. So, he hit two crucial passes. Set one in hand. Ditto with the second set. Steve Tignor captures it well here.

Truth is, not even Federer can pull off both sets of such a battle every single time. Trouble for the rest of the world is, he has options for all possibilities, each one of world beating quality. If he had lost the first set, he would have upped his game just a little bit (and by 'up', I mean, gotten more aggressive) and won the second (just like he did against Feliciano Lopez). Under the very unlikely circumstance of him losing two high quality sets, the opponent will have to contend with a fired up aggressive Federer, while at the same time confront the "giant leap for mankind" that one would have to take to close out the match. For any of these conjectures, the odds are long.

Yesterday, Roddick could have won. I would go as far as to say that Roddick would have won. But for that to happen, someone needs to inform Federer that while the backhand slice and topspin are tennis shots, the backhand flick is not. It belongs to the domain of table tennis, tennis' poor cousin. The flick was deployed countless times to salvage a piledriver forehand crushed to Federer's backhand. That, to me, was why Federer won yesterday.