Friday, June 29

Shutting the roof can give you fuzzy balls

You know that £80 million roof they fitted? The one they shut last night to let the match between Rosol and Nadal run on late into the evening? Well, I don't want to rain on anyone's parade (or Centre Court), but there may be some issues about its use. (But then again, maybe not).
Steve Haake: ball expert
Steve Haake, professor of sports engineering and the head of the Centre for Sports Engineering Research at Sheffield Hallam University, has written an article that looks at the impact of playing under the closed Centre Court roof. It's a great read and, for idiots like myself, even has pictures to show what he's talking about. And the section headings are nice and simple: The British weather, A 130 mph serve, Size really does matter and The best guess.

Yup, got it. All very straight forward.

But one word of warning: Don't be fooled by his easy & conversational manner of writing. Before I knew it, I was reading this:


 "...since the atomic weight of water vapour is 18 g compared to 29 g for air and there is now less water vapour around, click here for a detailed explanation...".

Under no circumstances should you click on the 'click here'. I did, and my tiny, non-scientific head exploded. That aside, the article explains why playing under the closed roof may (or may not) slow down (or speed up) the balls. But he comes to the (scientific) conclusion that the most likely reason that Things May Be Different under the closed roof is, quite simply, fluff.

He says: "...the effect is to increase the wetting of the felt and enhance the fluffing up of the ball. A simple solution could be to change the balls when the roof closes..."   That makes sense. I understand that.


He ends with this simple suggestion:

"Watch the players next time the roof closes at Wimbledon – if the players start inspecting the felt and throwing balls away, then they are likely to be choosing the least fuzzy ones."

It felt like he wrote that bit especially for me to understand.
Brilliant.


Read the full article.

A disturbance in the force?


It's like watching your favourite TV show and one of the main characters is killed off without warning.  It leaves you feeling bewildered, questioning what just happened.  Was it all just a surreal dream? Well no, and in fairness to Rafael he didn't play that badly - Lukas Rosol just played out of his skin in what is being called 'one of the biggest shocks in the tournament's history.'


Less than a month ago Rafael Nadal won his 11th grand slam title and I don't think anyone would have bet on him not making it past day four of this year's Wimbledon.  The match statistics make for interesting reading, it really wasn't that one-sided and is sure to keep the pundits busy analysing what happened.  From Andy Murray's point of view it does clear the way somewhat, since Nadal has been his semi-final stumbling block in the past.  It's shaping up to be an interesting second week.


Looking ahead to day five, Djokovic and Federer play their third round matches on Centre Court, punctuated by Heather Watson taking on Agnieszka Radwanska.  Hopefully the young British player will have something to smile about.

Broadcasting Wimbledon

As included in this blog entry a few days ago, we followed a cable from the data entry specialist high above Court 18 all the way down to the IBM team in 'the bunker', in the depths of the Broadcast Centre.

Of course, that was just one cable linking just one data entry computer to just one server. There are numerous data entry teams, covering all the matches that are being played across all the courts. Every serve, return, double fault, ace, foot fault - everything, in fact - is captured and instantly sent to the IBM servers to process and turn into meaningful data.

Then there are all the cables that link the IBM machines to those that use the data - predominently the BBC and the Wimbledon.com website.

But by far the most numerous cables belong to the television companies that descend on SW19 during the Championships. And this year, there seem to be as many camera crews dashing around the grounds as there are tennis players.

The first of the following two videos looks at the some of the global teams and they explain why Wimbledon, more than any other Grand Slam, holds such an enduring appeal the world over - from Denmark to Japan.

This second video looks at one of the American broadcasters and shows the work they do during the two weeks of the Championships.
You need a lot of cables.

Tennis: A Most Foolish Notion

So Rafa Nadal was beaten last night by the obviously very talanted Lukas Rosol.

However, if you were to look at the Twitter feeds, you would have thought that perhaps we were being invaded by aliens or The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had stormed onto Centre Court.  #SHOCK #disaster #whyohwhy #howonearth #hysterical.
My favourite that I saw was simply: "Rafa! Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo....(repeating until all 140 characters permitted by Twitter were used up).

So, this morning's slightly frivolous post is dedicated to all Nadal fans around the world....

The image below is of a print made by Martin Droeshout between 1620 and 1630, entitled To this grave doctor millions do resort

It's a satirical broadside on the folly that is to be found in all ranks of society. It depicts the interior of an apothecary's shop, with the doctor using wisdom to purge a countryman seated on a stool, who defecates foolish notions represented by asses and geese. Next to them, a wealthy city merchant awaits to be given his dose of treatment, while a fashionably dressed woman holds a squirrel on a lead...as you did, obviously, if you were a fashionably dressed woman around town.

Meanwhile, a young courtier's head is inserted into a furnace so that his idle pastimes go up in a cloud of smoke carrying playing-cards, a backgammon board, musical instruments, extravagant clothes - and tennis rackets.

It would appear that tennis wasn't to be taken too seriously...
Foolish notions
You can read more about the history of tennis - and Wimbledon - on the history page of this blog. We also have a 'Did you know..?' page up and running. Links to both can be found in the sidebar to the right. Please leave us a comment if you have any that we've missed and we'll add it to the list!