DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Davis Cup: Is 1-2 really better than 0-2?

**SkatrySkith** · 09-15-2012, 07:58 PM

jaundixonformpv,
"Have our chances really improved?" No, not really. While winning two out of two matches is easier than winning three out of three, in this instance it won't matter.
The main way of winning when down 1-2 is having won one of the singles matches. Since the top player from each team plays the second best player on the other team, the score after the first day is often 1-1. So that Team A's Player 1 beats Team B's Player 2, and Team B's Player 1 beats Team A's Player 2.
Then if Team A's doubles team wins, Team B can hope that the actual ordering of players strengths is Team B Player 1 > Team A Player 1 > Team B Player 2 > Team A player 2. In this case, Team B can be expected to win both Sunday singles matches. In this case, however, the ordering is Spain Player 1 > Spain Player 2 > USA Player 1> USA Player 2.
If the Bryan brothers had lost, we (USA) would have lost aready, and our chances of winning would be zero. Since the Bryan brothers did win our chances of winning have increase enough to actually match the odds of the poverbial snowball.

09-15-2012, 07:58 PM	#2
SkatrySkith Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 596 Senior Member	jaundixonformpv, "Have our chances really improved?" No, not really. While winning two out of two matches is easier than winning three out of three, in this instance it won't matter. The main way of winning when down 1-2 is having won one of the singles matches. Since the top player from each team plays the second best player on the other team, the score after the first day is often 1-1. So that Team A's Player 1 beats Team B's Player 2, and Team B's Player 1 beats Team A's Player 2. Then if Team A's doubles team wins, Team B can hope that the actual ordering of players strengths is Team B Player 1 > Team A Player 1 > Team B Player 2 > Team A player 2. In this case, Team B can be expected to win both Sunday singles matches. In this case, however, the ordering is Spain Player 1 > Spain Player 2 > USA Player 1> USA Player 2. If the Bryan brothers had lost, we (USA) would have lost aready, and our chances of winning would be zero. Since the Bryan brothers did win our chances of winning have increase enough to actually match the odds of the poverbial snowball.
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