[ColoradoTree]

Chen takes the third set 7-5, so it'll be rematch in the final, with Gordon hoping she finds the right approach once again. I'd think Gordon is a slight favorite in the final here, as she was slightly more touted coming out of high school, had a somewhat better freshman year, and, you know, she just beat her yesterday. But it's hard to win rematches in any sport.

Conditional on winning the first game, I would say that there is a slightly higher probability of winning the second match than if you hadn't shown an ability to beat your opponent once already.  The challenge is that when people say "it's hard to win rematches in any sport" what they mean is that it is tougher to win two or more games against the same opponent than it is to win a single game.

BC

Fair enough. But I don't think it's simply a question of it being hard to win two games against the opponent, as the loser of the first game also has a better sense of what didn't work the first time, so they come into the match with some adjustments already made, whereas the winner might not be as inclined to adjust right away, since what they did last time worked! I know this happens constantly in the NFL, with two games each against three divisional opponents, but the example that comes most readily to mind is the UCLA rematch in the Pac-12 championship game, where things felt much more tenuous the second time around, because UCLA had a week to work on the stuff they did that went poorly, and we needed some Kevin Hogan 4th quarter magic to put that one away.

[ColoradoTree]

Chen takes the third set 7-5, so it'll be rematch in the final, with Gordon hoping she finds the right approach once again. I'd think Gordon is a slight favorite in the final here, as she was slightly more touted coming out of high school, had a somewhat better freshman year, and, you know, she just beat her yesterday. But it's hard to win rematches in any sport.

Conditional on winning the first game, I would say that there is a slightly higher probability of winning the second match than if you hadn't shown an ability to beat your opponent once already.  The challenge is that when people say "it's hard to win rematches in any sport" what they mean is that it is tougher to win two or more games against the same opponent than it is to win a single game.

BC

Fair enough. But I don't think it's simply a question of it being hard to win two games against the opponent, as the loser of the first game also has a better sense of what didn't work the first time, so they come into the match with some adjustments already made, whereas the winner might not be as inclined to adjust right away, since what they did last time worked! I know this happens constantly in the NFL, with two games each against three divisional opponents, but the example that comes most readily to mind is the UCLA rematch in the Pac-12 championship game, where things felt much more tenuous the second time around, because UCLA had a week to work on the stuff they did that went poorly, and we needed some Kevin Hogan 4th quarter magic to put that one away.