"Game, Set, Match": Double Delight Watching a Grand Slam Tennis Match
Edsel A. Pena, Dip Das, Yuexuan Wu

TL;DR
This paper models tennis scoring systems probabilistically, analyzing match outcomes and decision accuracy, providing insights into match duration, player advantage, and pedagogical applications in probability theory.
Contribution
It introduces a probabilistic model for tennis scoring, compares different systems, and explores implications for match outcomes and teaching probability concepts.
Findings
Probability of winning a match under different systems
Impact of scoring system on match duration
Advantage of the first server in equal ability matches
Abstract
Probabilistic properties of tennis scoring systems are examined and compared with best-of-K systems. A model, where each player has his/her own probability of winning his/her service point and which remains invariant for the duration of the match, and where outcomes of points played are independent of each other, is assumed. Probabilities of winning a game tie-breaker, a game, a set tie-breaker, a set, and the match are obtained. Since tennis scoring systems are unique, probability calculations require decomposing big and complicated problems into smaller and simpler constituent problems, solving these sub-problems, then combining to obtain the solution to the big problem. The problems that arise from tennis scoring systems offer excellent pedagogical venues for teaching probability, in particular, the use of the Theorem of Total Probability and the Iterated Rules for Mean, Variance,…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsSports Analytics and Performance · Sports Dynamics and Biomechanics · Sport Psychology and Performance
