So last Tuesday I’m watching the Wimbledon finals, right? And my buddy texts me “Man why do some matches take forever while others just zip by?” Got me wondering if play styles actually change match time. Like do defensive players drag things out?
First I needed data. Tons of it.
Searched everywhere for tennis stats. Found this massive spreadsheet with like 500+ matches – players, durations, winners/unforced errors. Almost cried when Excel crashed loading it. Rebooted the laptop and tried smaller chunks. Took me three coffees just to clean up the data.
The messy part
Decided to tag players as “aggressive” or “defensive” myself:
- High winners + high unforced errors? Aggressive.
- Lots of returns in play + long rallies? Defensive.
- Made my eyes cross going through highlights.
- Guess what? I was dead wrong at first about half of them. Had to rewatch matches.
Ran the numbers… wrong
First try: Just compared average times. Aggressive style averaged 2 hours, defensive 2.5 hours. Easy peasy! …Until I realised court types messed it up. Grass matches end too fast.
Learned the hard way: Split stats by court surfaces next. Clay courts change everything! This time aggressive matches actually ran longer on clay – turns out defensive guys just let aggressive players blast themselves out.
My facepalm moment
About to throw my notebook when I noticed:
Tournament rounds matter! Finals have crazy pressure. When I filtered only finals, defensive players dragged out matches 30 minutes longer regardless of surface. The pressure makes ’em cling to every point like survival.
So what actually happened?
- Took 5 days instead of one
- My cat slept on the spreadsheet twice
- But found that tournament stage changes everything
- Aggressive styles finish faster… except on clay. Always that damn clay.
Truth? Real matches have too many variables. Player moods, weather, bad line calls. My numbers give hints, not rules. Next time just gonna enjoy tennis without measuring minutes.