Genie Bouchard, Expectations & What Players Need To Understand About Stats

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This post is not really about Genie Bouchard, or even tennis in general, but let’s start with her.

On Thursday, Bouchard, the top-ranked Canadian player on the WTA Tour, lost 6-4, 6-4 to No. 8 seed Timea Bacsinszky at Roland Garros. The loss could be interpreted as another setback for Bouchard, who ranked as high as No. 5 in the world in October 2014. Since then, she has slumped, going 12-18 in 2015 after winning 39 and 43 matches in the previous two years. What’s gone wrong?

Possibly, the answer is nothing at all.

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Practical Concerns: What the US Open can tell us about where hockey is headed

2014 US Open (Tennis) - Tournament - Roberto Bautista Agut (14914449990)

I’m a big believer in looking to other sports for inspiration and ideas, whether it’s in terms of cross-training or in terms of analytics. Many smart hockey people I know are big baseball and soccer fans. I’ve never sat through an entire MLB game, and the part that fascinates me the most about soccer is the penalty shootout, so I’m not really part of that group. I think hockey has a lot to learn from Formula One in terms of how to adopt new technology, but I really wished more folks in hockey would pay closer attention to what is going on in tennis.

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