Isner and Mahut Were An Improbable Pairing at Wimbledon, But Aren't They All?

"The presence of seeds complicates the calculation, but only slightly: given that there are 32 seeds, each of whom faces a non-seed in the first round, and that Isner and Mahut are both unseeded, the probability is 64/96 x 1/95, which works out as 1 in 142.5. (The first fraction represents the probability that Isner is drawn in a position where he faces another non-seed; the second is the probability that Mahut is)."

The math is correct. Wimbledon has 32 seeded players who are set, and cannot play each other in the first round; the remaining 96 fill out the bracket, with 32 playing as opponents to seeded players in the first round, and the other 64 playing each other. Thus, the chances of Isner playing any particular seeded player, such as Rafael Nadal, were 1 in 96 (1/3 * 1/32) and the chances of Isner playing any particular unseeded player in the first round were 1 in 142.5, as the professor states.

Less than a 1% chance sounds improbable, right? It depends on how you look at it (and I’m borrowing this from Doug Drinen). Every match played today at Wimbledon was improbable by that measure. Roger Federer drawing Mikhail Kukushkin had little better than a 1% chance of happening, but it did. The probability of Jo (Wilfried Tsonga) and Go (Soeda) meeting in the first round was small, but it happened. Every particular matchup of non-seeded players in this year’s Wimbledon field was equally improbable.

We notice, of course, because of what happened last year. It isn’t improbable at all that you would happen to see a rematch of a Wimbledon first round pairing, even if you didn’t know which pair would repeat. It’s hard to come up with a specific number without digging into the number of returning players in the field, etc., but the chances of getting at least one rematch in a given year are approaching 40%. That’s at one tournament. Multiply it by four majors, and several years, and”what are the odds of that?” takes on a different form. If I said, “what are the odds that sometime over the next 40 years we will see a crazy memorable match at a tennis major, and then get a rematch the next year?” I would say decent, even if I couldn’t pick when or where it happened.

Crazy stuff happens in sports all the time. The improbable becomes likely with enough games, matches, and opportunities. And one of the most improbable matches of all-time happened last year. This year, it was just a draw that provided a matchup just as likely as any other that is taking place at Wimbledon today.

[photo via Getty]