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Tournament incentives and match outcomes in women's professional tennis

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  • Keith F. Gilsdorf
  • Vasant Sukhatme

Abstract

Our research examines the effect of prize money differentials in women's professional tennis tournaments on the probability that the favoured player wins the match. This study adds to the existing literature on tournament theory through its focus on Rosen's (1986) elimination-style, match play tournament model. We estimate a standard probit model using a unique data set containing detailed information on prize money, player-specific characteristics, and match play outcomes for all tournaments played during the 2004 tour sponsored by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). Our results support predictions by Rosen's tournament model. Larger prize money differentials have a positive, statistically significant effect on the favoured player's probability of winning the match. In addition, the number of stages remaining has a significant, negative effect on winning, consistent with tournament theory predictions associated with the number of contestants in a tournament.

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  • Keith F. Gilsdorf & Vasant Sukhatme, 2008. "Tournament incentives and match outcomes in women's professional tennis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(18), pages 2405-2412.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:40:y:2008:i:18:p:2405-2412
    DOI: 10.1080/00036840600949512
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Tomi Ovaska & Albert J. Sumell, 2014. "Who Has The Advantage? An Economic Exploration of Winning in Men's Professional Tennis," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 59(1), pages 34-51, May.
    2. Klein Teeselink, Bouke & Potter van Loon, Rogier J.D. & van den Assem, Martijn J. & van Dolder, Dennie, 2020. "Incentives, performance and choking in darts," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 38-52.
    3. Keith F. Gilsdorf & Vasant A. Sukhatme, 2013. "Gender differences in responses to incentives in sports: some new results from golf," Chapters, in: Eva Marikova Leeds & Michael A. Leeds (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Women in Sports, chapter 5, pages 92-114, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Sebastian Bervoets & Bruno Decreuse & Mathieu Faure, 2014. "A Renewed Analysis of Cheating in Contests: Theory and Evidence from Recovery Doping," AMSE Working Papers 1441, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France, revised Jun 2015.
    5. Eva Marikova Leeds & Michael A. Leeds, 2013. "Do men and women respond differently to economic contests? The case of men’s and ladies’ figure skating," Chapters, in: Eva Marikova Leeds & Michael A. Leeds (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Women in Sports, chapter 15, pages 319-344, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Brian Hill, 2014. "The Heat Is On," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(4), pages 315-337, August.
    7. XiaoGang Che & Brad R. Humphreys, 2013. "Earnings and performance in women’s skiing," Chapters, in: Eva Marikova Leeds & Michael A. Leeds (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Women in Sports, chapter 6, pages 115-131, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Helmut Dietl & Cornel Nesseler, 2017. "Momentum in tennis: Controlling the match," Working Papers 365, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).
    9. Wozniak, David, 2012. "Gender differences in a market with relative performance feedback: Professional tennis players," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 158-171.

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