Are The Draws Fixed?

by Helen W

This year's Australian Open has again raised this question. To some posters, it appeared that Roger Federer got a cakewalk to the quarters, whereas Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal got a much tougher half. In addition, for reasons that Tennis Australia has not elucidated, contrary to tradition, the bottom half of the men's draw played first. This means that the player who reached the final from the bottom half of the draw would get an extra day of rest in comparison with the player who reached the final from the top half of the draw. The beneficiary of this unexplained break with tradition was the winner of the bottom half of the draw, in this case Roger Federer.

At first glance, it appears ridiculous to claim that there is any bias in the draws. People who even suggest it are likened to those who see black helicopters flitting about and fancy that every microwave oven exerts thought control over its household.

But to dismiss everyone who questions the impartiality of the draws as some kind of nutcase, without even considering some of the questions raised over the years, is tantamount to an ad hominem argument. Naysayers need to at least attempt to answer some of the outstanding questions, and to explain why the people that could answer them, don't.

Here are a few of the draws that make me wonder:

1. US Open 2007 Women's & Men's Draws

Many tennis followers questioned this draw. WTA "Golden Girl" Maria Sharapova was in the bottom half of the draw, and her stiffest competition was Svetlana Kuznetsova and Nadia Petrova.

From The NY Times Patrick McEnroe, the tennis analyst and Davis Cup captain, said he picked six players capable of winning the women’s tournament. “And out of those six,” he said, “five are on the top half of the draw.” These included Justine Henin, Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic.

On the Men's side, here was Roger's draw, (see Straight From The Horse's Mouth: US Open Draws ):

1. Federer, Roger (1)
   


2. Qualifier


3. Qualifier


4. Qualifier


5. Qualifier


6. Qualifier


7. WC: Isner, John


8. ____

I did an order-of magnitude calculation of the probability of this draw, and arrived at the following figure: You can actually calculate the probability that positions 2 through 6 are filled with qualifiers pretty easily. There are 128 positions to be filled, and 16 qualifiers, so the probability =16/128 * 15/128 * 14/128 * 13/128 * 12/128 = 0.0000153

i.e. 0.0015%

Improbable things do happen, just as probability theory says they must. But if they keep happening, and the same people always seem to wind up the winners, I think it is at least legitimate to question the process.

2. Wimbledon 2007 Men's Scheduling

Most tennis buffs will remember this Wimbledon as the Wimby with the worst rain ever. Again, you can read about it on this blog. I'm not going to repeat everything that was said, but it certainly felt that most of Roger's competition was "thrown under a bus" in order for the AELTC to maintain its schedule. And one other item received not a word of explanation: When Rafa was playing catch-up because of all the rain delays he suffered, he was relegated to Court 2 (no Hawkeye) instead of Court 1, even though the match on Court 1 was a lower seed. The beneficiary of this process was, again, Roger Federer.

Roger was also the beneficiary of the "emergency" scheduling due to hurricane conditions at last year's US Open.

If you do a few Google searches on these issues, you will find a lot of thoughtful people asking the same questions.

When this kind of stuff happens, and people ask, Why? and they don't get any answers -- what's your explanation?