set one repeat. will novak serve this one out

everyone knows that 'unforced error' is literally the most misleading and therefore, most useless statistic that there is in sport

it implies you've made an error due to no or limited pressure or force from your opponent but it's a highly subjective area where tournaments use their own criteria to decide, some take court positioning, timing, if they're in motion into consideration etc, some don't, if any of those factors are at play, then it's forced, but some don't count that, then there's things like making an unforced error due to some mug in the crowd making a noise or moving during a point, but that aside

in Sheltons, case he goes for winners a lot, grass is designed for aggressive tennis, and against Sinner he was trying to up the ante and go for more winners because he knows he's not going to win most of the rallies as Sinner's too good and too consistent with his shot decision making, it was a tactical thing, it's not because he was sloppy, or technically poor. The alternative was to play at his usual intensity and hope for the best, he opted for low percentage and it didn't pay off.

Federer had something like 60 unforced errors in one French Open final against Nadal, that's because Nadal relentlessly hit a lorry load of topspin forehand shots and at angles to Federer's backhand at an increased height than he was used to dealing with - and those missed returns errors are counted as 'unforced', yeah right.

Shelton's movement and strokes were generally good, he just lost to a better played who forced him into making mistakes because of the level that Sinner is. No machine takes things like that into account.

taking the shelton match now, if 38 times he had a shot where you can clearly see he's able to hit a normal shot and he's dumped it in the net or hit it long or wide, i dont care how much topspin sidespin or backspin hes up against. its an unforced error. hes a professional player and as such should be able to deal with anything that comes to him that he can hit. watching shots fly past you because youre out of position or missing when youre on the stretch is a different matter

surely the definition of playing badly or well is whether your shots go where you want them to. you could even argue dfs arent strictly ues because of perceived pressure from your opponent to make a good second serve

if federer was able to comfortably get his racket on all those nadal forehands then missing has to be called a ue. otherwise i have no idea what is supposed to qualify as a ue. if you can get to a shot in time, if your stance is correct and if youre able to hit the ball cleanly and you miss that has to be a ue. the fact federer couldnt deal with nadals topsin doesnt mean he was hitting forced errors for me theyre ues

Fabrice Santoro would have made that.

Old men can't do the splits.

Federer doesn't think they were, I don't think they were, others don't, that's what I'm saying, it's subjective.

Another couple of examples of UE dumbness

You give up points when you're 40 love down, especially big servebots like Isner and Karlovic were, they gave up plenty of points like that by just hammering it anywhere with no real precision, almost every return game, just to get to their serve, they were all unforced errors though when they clearly werent bothered.

Underarm serves, as rare as they are, because they're unexpected, players then caught unawares, rush to the net to get to it but don't make it over the net, some will say that's a forced errors, others will say it's unforced. And on  it goes.

federer just might be biased mes dont you reckon. anyway i hear what your saying but at the same time what exactly is a ue then. seems to me from what youre saying ues dont exist and theyre all forced or players deliberately losing points

If you have a ball coming at you with topspin on a clay court with up to 5,000 RPM as Nadal could generate onto his opponents backhand, the ball sit up at shoulder height, not even the perceived greatest player of all time could consistently return those shots because they are too difficult to deal with, the technique and speed Nadal deployed on those shots clearly means that the returns were forced errors not unforced errors. Unforced errors exist, I'm not saying Shelton's unforced error column were false, I'm saying that it does not take into account the intangibles, such as tactics, he was not trying to keep his unforce error count low, he was trying to go for winners with a low error of margin, meaning not hitting loopy balls or keeping the balls from the lines, he was playing aggressive tennis and generally played well - the point I'm making is people who don't understand tennis just grabs the stats, point to it and say look, he played badly.

It's like in football, teams can deploy the counter attacking tactic, deliberately giving up possession, not wanting to make incessant passes and therefore be down on the % possession count and number of passes made, if they lose 1-0 some people who didn't watch the match will say they played badly, even if they created the better chances throughout.

As Mark Twain once said "there are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics"

Kind Regards.

also shelton missed far too much and youre saying because he went for his shots that means he played well even though he missed. cant agree with that at all

well thats clear. which is probably the overall point. seems to me that if ues are a subjective concept then the same must apply to fes. to me and using your federer example that it would have been impossible for fed to hit a ue due to nadals vicious spin. and that kind of my point. what would have counted as a ue for fed in that match. a rhetorical question btw as you mention the subjective nature of ues and so a definitive answer to the question is impossible

cant have been many shots that filled that criteria

theres clearly no definitive answer to any of this but its an interesting topic

I think the main point about UEs is that an opponent failed to apply pressure when they simply could still have done.

Sinner got away with this one IMO. But not sure he will against a different opponent.

Djokovic missed training session today, doesn't look good, Sinner a shoe-in.

who is your bigger green, and will you amend before final...?

because they want to pair the 'top' singles players whether thats by ranking or mass appeal. so thats siniakova out. tbh i like what theyre trying to do. doubles tennis is a joke and theres no better illustration of that then a pairing of hijikata and pel who only met prior to the tournament and who got in the draw as alternates i believe making the wimbledon final. that is embarrassing and the fact they beat the top ranked doubles pair in arevalo and pavic just shows you that doubles traditionally is where poor singles players go to die.

Hsieh and Ostapenko get the job done !

apply for the job!