The Flying Pig Fallacy, YC 2.27

!Rafa by Pete Bodo

Well, it's been an eventful week - I never had the chance to resume the coaching series, but I will next week. Meanwhile, I've been doing a little navel-gazing and want to just ramble around a bit this morning.

One of the pleasures of writing a weblog like this is the instant, unlimited feedback you get from readers (tough as that can make life when you screw up or get someone's nose out of joint). As most of you aren't journalists, I'm not sure you can fully appreciate the novelty of all this for someone like me. For most of my adult life, the only out-of-profession response I could count on was the occasional Letters to the Editor submission that made its way to my desk or theTennis letters department - usually, some weeks after whatever I wrote appeared. Unfortunately, the effort required to actually compose and send such a letter tended to limit the practice of this art form to really, really angry people. This is a whole new and far more vibrant, agreeable (usually) world. You can call me out now, quickly and immediately, but I also like that this street is policed both ways.

For example, yesterday, while reading the Comments on the Stages of Great post, I felt moved to call out a few readers on two different fronts having to do with Roger Federer's game, and efforts to analyze/rationalize some of his results. The first of these is what I would call the Statistical Fallacy, and it occurs when we forget that tennis is first and foremost a game of specific match-ups, and therefore each match comes with an entire palette of subtle technical/mental/emotional issues that help shape the outcome. That is, a player's conversion rate on break points, first-serve percentage, or winner-to-error ratio is shaped by the match-up to a degree that renders comparative statistics a highly dubious enterprise.

Here's a comparison. I imagine (and maybe one of you diligent souls will be moved to do the research on this) that even the best hitters in baseball have less than a hall-of-fame batting average against certain pitchers they face frequently enough for the statistics to be significant (I am not anti-statistic). The lifetime .300 hitter may bat just .125 against a certain pitcher, and while you can put that down to a technical failure to execute (the plane of his swing is too flat for the way this guy pitches; this particular pitcher's fastball is especially deadly against left-handers), but it's more accurate, and fair, to say: "Pitcher-X has batter-X's number" than it is to say "Batter-X is .300 hitter, so his failure to hit better than .125 against Pitcher-X is an anomaly."

Often, there's often a reason that execution goes awry. it's really all about the chemistry of the principals and their games, and the result of the mix is often unpredictable. The most realistic, accurate comment is: Holy Cow, Batter-X should thank God Pitcher -X isn't the only thrower in the game!

The other presumption can be called the Flying Pig Fallacy. I was accused of a worshiping at the "altar of Nadal" yesterday (where was Tigress when Nadal fans were skewering me for writing about Federer, rather than Nadal, the day after the Australian Open?) for suggesting that it's not really fair to claim that if Federer's service percentage had been somewhere in the X-per cent area, he would have won the match. This, of course, is the fountain of rationalization from which every KAD drinks copiously and greedily, and it's the same instinct that leads to someone to say: So-and-so should win because he has the best game.

What that really means is: So-and-so has the style that most appeals to me. And winning and losing at tennis isn't about style, or technique. You don't get docked for having a "boring" game, nor are you awarded style points for a pretty backhand. There's a difference between being the most powerful, the most skillful, the most artistic, the most versatile and. . . the best. And that difference is indisputable, at least on a match-by-match basis, because in tennis they keep score. It's about who wins two or three sets first, and that's really about who gets to the other guy's serve more effectively.

This, incidentally, is a two-part issue: how well you protect your own serve, and how well you attack the other guy's. To my mind, Nadal's ability to protect his serve is the least thoroughly explored "technical" issue in the rivalry, and it was an enormous component in the Australian Open final (as well as the underpinning of his repeated triumphs at Roland Garros). Federer's first-serve percentage as a stand-alone statistic, means absolutely nothing because holding is just half the battle - and here's a secret: it's the easier half.

One of the less obvious pleasures of being an Internet journalist is that reader reaction can take you on interesting journeys that have less to do with literary content than journeys into the more abstract realms of semantics, or logic. That is, if you care at all about what people say. And I do care - in direct proportion to the nature and tone of any given criticism or observation. Thus, given the controversy stirred by my use of a certain phrase in my Your Call post on the Swedish Davis Cup tie (I'm not going to repeat the offending words here), I found myself thinking quite a bit about word choice and usage the other afternoon.

So let me ask you this. Is it objectionable to write, Nobody does fashion as well as the French! Better yet, how about, Nobody does clay-court tennis like the Spanish. I think we'd all agree that these are not unacceptable or offensive generalizations; they're fact-based opinions that may or may not be true. I doubt that anyone would consider either of those phrases an example of "stereotyping" which suggests that we reserve the use of that word for observations that, for whatever reason, offend us. And the perceived offense easily overshadows and discredits the substance of the observation. Nobody has a problem with identifying the French with fashion, but what if I wrote, Nobody does chauvinism as well as the French. Wanna bet it triggers a host of protests?  So I'm not sure that "stereotyping" is really the issue here; the issue is real or imagined criticism - which may or may not be valid.

Further, what does Nobody does clay-court tennis as well as the Spanish really mean? It certainly doesn't mean that Italy, or France, has no good clay players; nor does it mean that every Spanish pro is a great clay-court player. And it doesn't mean that the Spanish are just clay-court players (I can think of at least one Spanish kid whose game on grass and hard is pretty darned good, too). It just means that Spain has produced more fine clay court players than any other nation, which to some degree is a matter of simple fact. I  think all generalizations of this kind ought to be run through the same logic mill. Maybe a "stereotype" is really just a generalization that we don't like or agree with, or which can't be backed up with a reasonable body of facts. In that case, there is reason to be offended.

**

I was lucky the other day, though, when an angel of mercy jumped in with the "B" word (Brad Pitt), suggesting that the movie star ought to play the lead role in a projected auto-biography of Roger Federer (or was it TMF himself who suggested that?).  Hollywood to the rescue! Soon everyone was talking about his and her favorite actor instead of global politics and things settled down.

And what would the appropriate Roger Federer movie be called? Maybe He's Just Not that Into Davis Cup? Rancho de Luxilon? How about Breakpoints Are Forever, with a theme song by Shirley Bassey, and a logo shaped like a Wilson tennis racket spelling out 014. Boo-yeah, old school!

Hey, it's not so far-fetched, is it? There is something James Bond-esque about TMF, and it isn't the first name he shares with one of actors who has portrayed Ian Fleming's celebrated British spy. James Bond could be described as Roger Federer-plus, the plus being a better developed left arm, a lot more experience with semi-automatic handguns, a deeper knowledge of mixology, and a penchant for caddish behavior. But I have a funny feeling that Mirka would put the ki-bosh on that last item, pronto.

And here's something else, Roger is a very tradition-minded guy; who better to take the tennis-espionage tradition to the next level? Let's remember that Bill Cosby, while no longer so ubiquitous, got his start in television portraying co-star Robert Culp's tennis coach in the enormously popular series, I Spy.

Culp and Cosby were a pair of secret agents working under cover as "tennis bums" in the classic sense - they were footloose playboy/athletes, following the sun (and wealthy heiresses) while saving the world from all manner of villains. Culp was the player. Cosby the coach. Federer could do one of those roles nicely, although it would have to be the Cosby gig. Lord knows, Lee Strasberg himself probably couldn't teach TMF how to impersonate someone who's into being coached!.

Good enough, it leaves the Robert Culp role as the player to - who else? - Marat Safin.

Chatter on! And have a good weekend, everyone.

PS - I've hi-jacked Jackie-Oh's Deuce Club for today, although I may have to post it fairly late tonight, from the farm.

- Pete