So why are there more upsets in the WTA?

Written by: Staff on 23rd January 2013

So why are there more upsets in the WTA?

epa03549884 Novak Djokovic of Serbia serves during his quarter final match against Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic at the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament in Melbourne, Australia, 22 January 2013. EPA/Scott Barbour Pool |

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga assured himself of making the headlines despite his defeat to Roger Federer at the Australian Open with, at best ill-advised, comments about why there have been more surprise results on the women’s side of the draw than the men’s.

His answer in full: “You know, the girls, they are more unstable emotionally than us. I’m sure everybody will say it’s true – even the girls. No? No, you don’t think?

“But, I mean, it’s just about hormones and all this stuff. We don’t have all these bad things, so we are physically in a good shape every time, and you are not. That’s it.”

Well… it’s fair to say he won’t be the recipient of the Germaine Greer award this year, more likely the recipient of quite a few frosty glances in the corridor from his female counterparts for quite a few months to come. Needless to say, twitter exploded. One wonders what twitter newbie @MariaSharapova would make of his comments.

The Djokovic v Ferrer match took place before the Sloane Stephens victory that prompted the questions, but the same question was posed to Andy Murray and Roger Federer, who managed to come up with more thought-out responses. Perhaps Tsonga was still hurting from as tough five sets defeat – possibly a little… unstable emotionally? Only Jo-Wilfried knows, perhaps even he doesn’t.

Murray and Federer both came up with similar answers – that the five set format of the men’s game allowed stronger players to prevail. The idea being that a lower ranked player might steal a set or two, but in slams that’s not enough and the top guys would shake themselves down and grind out a result. Federer, to quote, said “And I guess in the best of five, down the stretch, it just seems that we do find a way. I don’t know how to explain it. Jo Willie was close today, Almagro was unbelievably close against Ferrer. I mean, what a match that was. And then obviously Stan almost got Novak.”

‘Jo-Willie’ was never ahead in sets, but Almagro was pegged back from 2-0 up, and Wawrinka bought a cheap first off Djokovic 6-1. Federer also mentioned that the “top guys just move a tiny bit better than the rest of the guys” but was unsure if that was a factor. Certainly there are quicker players across the court than Roger Federer – and there always have been.

Murray had similar, almost identical thoughts “I think the five set matches are probably a good reason for that.” He went on to explain “For two, two and a half sets [Ferrer] was the better player, but you need to be the better player for three out of five. There are way more upsets in tournaments that are best of three sets in the men’s just because you get off to a bad start and guys can get a quick win over you, whereas over best of five it often takes five hours sometimes to beat the top players in the world.”

Both very solid answers – A five set match format is the how, but neither address the actual issue of why. Why can those top players, almost inevitably, come back from the deficits and overcome opponents?

In constrast to other sports, tennis is dominated by the few. As an analogy, a look at the football Premier League in England. Aside from Manchester City who pretty much bought the title last year with oil money, and Blackburn Rovers way back in 1994/5 who were more modestly bankrolled but bankrolled nevertheless; three teams have won the league title 18 times out of the last 20. But; the FA Cup, a knockout competition as opposed to the league’s round-robin format, in the last twenty years there have been seven different winners in the same 20 year period.

The analogy roughens out a little – it’s not sensible to look at what Andy Murray or Novak Djokovic was winning 20 years ago – but to a certain extent it could be argued that the ATP rankings are the league titles, and the slams are the FA Cups. In tennis, the same guys are winning both. It’s a lockout. Del Potro had a breakthrough, and only serious injury hampered him from showing the world what he was truly capable of, he’s really still coming back to his best – he’s a cup winning side, he’s Liverpool FC.

Instead of looking back 20 years as with football, a fairer gauge for an individual might be 5 years, that’s a reasonably conservative estimate for a ‘peak period’ (Unless you’re Roger Federer). In the last 5 years there have been five different men who have won either the Australian, the French, Wimbledon or the US Opens. In the same five year bracket there have been no less than eleven.

It looks as though the days of an unseeded and unheard of kid coming from nowhere to win Wimbledon are over for the ATP. Over on the WTA, witness the scenario of a world number 1 who hadn’t won a slam – that’s happened five times within the last ten years.

Can all of these differences be down to just the length of the matches? Surely not.

Perhaps it is due to a fundamental difference between men and women. Not mentally, emotionally or hormonally, but physically. Apart from extreme exceptions, men are able to outperform women on purely physical pursuits. In most track and field events, the world record for men is higher or longer, faster or heavier than the women’s. It’s simple physiology, not sexism.

Is it a coincidence that since Lendl started working with Murray his legs are like tree trunks and he fills his shirt like a Venice Beach peacock, and suddenly he’s won a slam? Federer hinted at it in his answer, mentioning the fact that for men it’s “become very much a game of movement” – athleticism is key.

Young men in their late teens trying to break into the top echelons of the sport are confronted in the locker room with an array of physiques not seen since Mount Olympus was the hottest gig in town. An eighteen year old simply cannot compete in physical terms with one of these guys.

Roger Federer is of course, and as always, the most notable of exceptions. He’s no muscle bound loon. But then, he arrived in an era of huge servers and he’s not a huge server, he’s carried it through the the modern age of baseline road-runners and he’s not a baseline road-runner. There seems to be one rule for The Maestro and one rule for everyone else. Balance is the key with Federer, he seems to have the perfect balance of attributes. He’s a symphony of technique and judgement.

Girls mature earlier – physically and mentally. Sloane Stephens and Laura Robson – perhaps the most promising of the young females coming through – are still in their teens but already have the muscle form and mass that they need. Sloane can’t get much quicker, Laura can’t get much stronger. Stood next to most of the women on the tour, they might have fresher and more youthful faces, but you’d struggle to pick out the 19 year old from the 26 year old purely from their physiques. If you did the same with the chaps, it would looks like boys and men.

So Mr Tsonga, there are more upsets on the WTA than the ATP because the young ladies are better than the boys coming through, not because of any emotional instability.

Topics: Andy Murray, Australian Open, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Sloane Stephens, Sports, Tennis, Tennis News, Wta