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Do agents maximise? Risk taking on first and second serves in tennis

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  • Ely, Jeffrey
  • Gauriot, Romain
  • Page, Lionel

Abstract

We investigate whether expert players with high incentives are able to optimally determine their degree of risk taking in contest. We use a large dataset on tennis matches and look at players’ risk taking on first and second serves. We isolate a specific situation, let serves, where second serves and first serves occur in a way which is as good as random. This creates the setting of a quasi-experiment which we can use to study players’ serving strategies on first and second serves in comparable serving situations. We find that players, both men and women, are able to adopt serving strategies which meet the requirements of optimality arising from simple assumptions about risk-return trade-offs in serves.

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  • Ely, Jeffrey & Gauriot, Romain & Page, Lionel, 2017. "Do agents maximise? Risk taking on first and second serves in tennis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 135-142.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:63:y:2017:i:c:p:135-142
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2017.02.006
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Mark Walker & John Wooders, 2001. "Minimax Play at Wimbledon," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1521-1538, December.
    2. S. L. George, 1973. "Optimal Strategy in Tennis: A Simple Probabilistic Model," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 22(1), pages 97-104, March.
    3. Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, 2003. "Professionals Play Minimax," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 395-415.
    4. Ran Abramitzky & Liran Einav & Shimon Kolkowitz & Roy Mill, 2012. "On The Optimality Of Line Call Challenges In Professional Tennis," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(3), pages 939-964, August.
    5. Klaassen, Franc J.G.M. & Magnus, Jan R., 2009. "The efficiency of top agents: An analysis through service strategy in tennis," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 148(1), pages 72-85, January.
    6. Romain Gauriot & Lionel Page, 2019. "Does Success Breed Success? a Quasi-Experiment on Strategic Momentum in Dynamic Contests," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(624), pages 3107-3136.
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    Cited by:

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    4. Zuzanna Kowalik & Piotr Lewandowski, 2021. "The gender gap in aversion to COVID-19 exposure: Evidence from professional tennis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-10, March.
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    8. Masaya Nishihata & Suguru Otani, 2024. "Pressure, Reference Points, and Risk-Taking Behavior: Evidence from Bench Press Competitions," Papers 2409.13333, arXiv.org.

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