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Game, set and match: evaluating the efficiency of male professional tennis players

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  • Anthony Glass
  • Karligash Kenjegalieva
  • Jason Taylor

Abstract

We exploit the natural distinction between the attacking and defensive aspects of tennis to get a better understanding of the origins of relative inefficiency. Attacking is simply when a player is serving and defending is when a player is returning serve. We use data envelopment analysis to compute the attacking, defensive and overall efficiencies of the top 100 male professional players for the 2009 season. An analysis of the efficiency scores using non-parametric kernel smoothing suggests that there are four groups of players in the sample—those that are relatively efficient in attack and defence; those that are relatively inefficient in attack and defence; and those that are relatively efficient in attack or defence. Truncated regression equations for the technical and super attacking, defensive and overall efficiencies as a function of off-court variables (e.g. height, age, etc.) suggest that being a left-handed player has a significant positive effect on the overall efficiencies. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Anthony Glass & Karligash Kenjegalieva & Jason Taylor, 2015. "Game, set and match: evaluating the efficiency of male professional tennis players," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 119-131, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jproda:v:43:y:2015:i:2:p:119-131
    DOI: 10.1007/s11123-014-0401-3
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    Cited by:

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    2. Oleg Badunenko & Harald Tauchmann, 2019. "Simar and Wilson two-stage efficiency analysis for Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 19(4), pages 950-988, December.
    3. Isidoro Guzmán-Raja & Manuela Guzmán-Raja, 2021. "Measuring the Efficiency of Football Clubs Using Data Envelopment Analysis: Empirical Evidence From Spanish Professional Football," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440219, February.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tennis; Data envelopment analysis; Super efficiency; Truncated regression; C69; L83;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C69 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Other
    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

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