The Ability Gulf

This morning, like many a tennis fan, I was sat in my office doing work but with half an eye on the live feed that the BBC provide for the Australian Open.  I watched and read Roger Federer ease into the third round with the anticipation of a good match between Laura Robson and Petra Kvitova, although I expected Robson to do well I thought she wouldn't have enough to beat the former Wimbledon champion.  Unexpectedly in the early hours of Friday morning the British number two beat the Czech eighth seed 2-6 6-3 11-9 in an error-strewn match with 92 errors and 30 double faults between them.  I have managed to see some highlights and to me Laura Robson should be very happy she met Kvitova when her serving was on holiday,

Kvitova served 18 aces which is impressive but not when you show that she also had 18 double faults.  Neither of those two stats are records for Grand Slams thou with Serena Williams hit 24 aces in one match at Wimbledon last year and pin up/tennis player, Anna Kournikova, hit 31 double faults in a match at Australian Open in 1999.  In searching for those statistics I came across two others which show the gulf in playing levels in the sport of Tennis.

1. In the last 9 years there have been only 7 different male winners of a grand slam, 4 of whom have only won one title.

2. In the first two rounds of the Australian Open Maria Sharapova hasn't lost a single game winning both matches 6-0, 6-0

And it made me wonder which gender has the biggest gap.The only fair comparison would be to look at those to stats but for the opposite gender and look at the differences and similarities

In the last nine years 32 of a possible 36 men's grand slam titles are split between three men, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, with Andy Murray, Juan Martin del Potro, Marat Safin and Gaston Gaudio all winning one each.  Over the same time period there have been 14 different female grand slam winners, 6 of whom have only won one title.  Only once in that time period did four different men win a grand slam, last year, compared to that happening four times in the women's game, 2004, 2007, 2008 and 2011.

This would suggest that the top of the men's game are better than the rest by some margin and that the women's side has had many good players in the same time period.  There may be mitigating circumstance though, the Williams sisters are responsible for 13 of the women's title and both have been plagued with injuries which have hampered their chance for more title's where as until recently Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have all had injury free careers while they where at their best.  Another factor may also be that women tend to retire earlier than man, this is mainly due to getting pregnant something a male player isn't impeded by.

There have already been three double bagels in the female side of the Aussie Open already with Sharapova and Serena Williams delving out the devastating defeats and there have been 16 sets won to love.  On the men's side there hasn't a match with a double bagel let alone a triple bagel and there have been 6 sets won to love.  There have only been 5 triple bagels in all of male matches in the open era and none since 1993. This shows that the that the middle levels players in women's tennis pale in comparison to the top level where as on the men's side they can at least hold their serve once and that is the difference for me.  The middle/lower female tennis players serves are just up to standard when they come up against a good player.

So for me the gap in the women's is worse than men's but that is just my opinion.


Trivia Questions 7

Q: Who played the first "Golden Set" in female grand slam history at Wimbledon last year?


Trivia Questions 6

Q: Who were the only team in the English Premier League not to score a single goal from a corner all last season?


A: Aston Villa