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Soft Draws and Conspiracy Theories: Can Grand Slam Draws Be Rigged? Part 2

Vee JayAnalyst ISeptember 24, 2010

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 14:  Rafael Nadal of Spain, the 2010 U.S. Open Champion, during an appearance at Niketown on September 14, 2010 in New York City.  (Photo by Chris Trotman/Getty Images for ATP)
Chris Trotman/Getty Images

Let's recapitulate. The draw consists of two parts: the seeded part with 32 players and the unseeded part with 96 players. The seeded part is drawn in public. But the unseeded part is generated by a computer.

The unseeded part of the draw, according to the report by Kathleen McElroy, is done in the presence of representatives of tennis associations and representatives of the men and women’s tour. But even if this part were to be done in public, the draw would be opaque as it would be difficult for the observers to verify the program used or verify the equivalence of the names of the current players with whatever the program uses to randomize their positions. I could list all the diabolical ways in which the process could be compromised but I will not, lest I give ideas to the ignorant. But suffice it to say that , as per Murphy's Law, if anything can go wrong, it will.     

So why is this section not part of the public live draw i.e. why are the 96 players not drawn randomly one by one? Obviously it would take too long to do this. Not only is this time consuming, it would be boring as well, since no one would want to know where some little known player is placed. The title contenders are generally from the seeded section so we should, by Pareto's law, focus most of our attention on the seeded part of the draw. The current process quite rightly does not give the unseeded section the same time and attention that it gives to the seeded draw.However, this does not mean that the attention currently paid to the unseeded section is adequate or that there are sufficient checks in place to prevent malfeasance.

The pool of unseeded players could include exciting new players rising rapidly up the rankings, veterans in slow or rapid decline, players on a hot streak, past top players making a comeback (eg Ivanisevic, Serena,Kim,Justine ), players known to be carrying injuries and players against whom certain top seeds are  vulnerable. So while many of the unseeded players maybe classified as 'unknown ' or 'unimportant' , there are  'knowns' who could be classified as 'threats' and 'pushovers’. By strategically distributing the 'threats' and 'pushovers' in the quarters, a bad guy could attempt to influence the outcome. When Ivanisevic entered Wimbledon as a Wild Card, would any top player have said that it made no difference into which quarter Ivanisevic fell? At the Australian Open this year, unseeded Justine Henin reached the finals. At Wimbledon, we had two unseeded players in the semifinals in the women's section of the draw. And we know that Kim Clijsters and Serena Williams have won Grand Slams when unseeded

Since the positions of the seeds 1 and 2 are known beforehand, a bad guy preparing the unseeded template could load the unseeded draw for or against one or both of them. If, for instance, he wanted to favor the no 1 seed, he could load the 'threats' into the other 3 quarters and put known soft opponents into the top seed's draw. This would improve the top seed's chances of reaching the quarter finals and maybe even later rounds.

Let me remind you how the draw works. The seeded players meet only unseeded players in the first two rounds i.e. possible opponents for the seeded players in 2 rounds out of the total 7 in a Grand Slam tournament are completely determined by this hidden section of the draw.

In earlier years, many controversies used to be generated by the process of seedings. But, the mystery and intrigue from this process was removed by linking it to the computer rankings. The powers-that-be are clearly interested in avoiding all controversy and establishing transparent processes in all parts of the draw. So I think it is worthwhile to examine how the hidden part of the draw could be made less amenable to bias while ensuring that time or other resources spent are not disproportionate to the relative importance (or unimportance) of this section.

One method oft suggested to remove all suspicions of foul play is to adopt a fixed template (one of the randomly generated templates) for all the 4 Slams.

The rankings would identify the placements of the 104 Direct Acceptances and the remaining places would be randomly distributed among the Qualifiers and the Wild Cards.But as the rankings change very slowly, we could have virtually the same match-ups throughout the year. Further, this would lack the high drama and suspense of the live draws of today.

We also give up the possibility of choosing from a mind-boggling number of possible draws. For the curious, let us examine how many ways a draw could be created. If the seeds are to be distributed as per the current rules and the remaining 96 players are to be distributed randomly, the number of possibilities is 2*(4!)**3 (8!)**2 *96! This is a mind boggling number with 164 digits. Suffice it to say, it is much larger than a googol ( which is 1 followed by one hundred zeroes) !  So we have plenty of draws to choose from!   

So how do we preserve the option of choosing from the mind-boggling pool, maintain the high drama of a live public draw for seeds and also eliminate or reduce chance of bias in the unseeded draw. 

The simplest solution would be for seeds 1 and 2 not to have fixed positions in the draw but to be drawn randomly from the group seeded between 1 and 4. However, this could result in seeds 1 and 2 being in the same half. If this is not acceptable, an alternative suggestion is given below.

The draw could be conducted exactly as it is at present but with a small tweak. The draw for the unseeded players would  be created as usual i.e., a computer would generate the output in the presence of the various tennis representatives behind closed doors. The random drawing would create a template showing the positions of the unseeded players in the four quarters. Till this point, there is no departure from the current process. 

Now comes the small tweak. Let these unseeded quarters be called A,B,C and D and let chips be prepared bearing these letters.The detailed printouts of the unseeded quarters A,B,C,D would be made available to the attendees of the public draw ceremony.

The chips bearing the letters A, B, C and D would be randomly drawn one by one at the live public ceremony. If D is drawn first, then the Quarter called D would be allotted to the first seed. If B is drawn second, the Quarter called B would be allotted to the 2nd seed and so on. The beauty of this method is that whoever prepares the unseeded template would have no way of knowing which quarter would go to whom. So even if he is a bad guy, he would be forced to make a fair draw. This is akin to the perfect method of sharing a cake between two boys (one boy cuts the cake into two halves, the other boy decides which half is his).

The live draw for the seeds would then proceed as at present.

Whether this suggestion or a better one is adopted, what really matters is that all parts of the draw are seen to be fair and transparent. After all, Caesar's wife must be above suspicion.