Predicting Wimbledon 2005 tennis results by mere player name recognition

By Benjamin Scheibehenne, Arndt Bröder. 2007

116 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The outcomes of matches in the 2005 Wimbledon Gentlemen's tennis competition were predicted by mere player name recognition. In a field study, amateur tennis players (n=79) and laypeople (n=105) indicated players' names they recognized, and predicted match outcomes. Predictions based on recognition rankings aggregated over all participants correctly predicted 70% of all matches. These recognition predictions were equal to or better than predictions based on official ATP rankings and the seedings of Wimbledon experts, while online betting odds led to more accurate forecasts. When applicable, individual amateurs and laypeople made accurate predictions by relying on individual name recognition. However, for cases in which individuals did not recognize either of the two players, their average prediction accuracy across all matches was low. The study shows that simple heuristics that rely on a few valid cues can lead to highly accurate forecasts. © 2007 International Institute of Forecasters. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Economics and Econometrics, Management Science and Operations Research

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/50bec3b5ac4fb3a96bf28088ce6cdfe6f883cfa8

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Citations in the corpus

Risk, Uncertainty, and Heuristics (2014, unknown): “Similarly, mere player name recognition could predict the winners of the 127 Wimbledon Gentleman's matches as well as or better than the Wimbledon experts' seeding and the ATP rankings could (Scheibehenne & Bröder, 2007; Serwe & Frings, 2006).”
Fast and frugal heuristics: Tools of social rationality. (2009, unknown): “Scheibehenne and Bröder (2007), for instance, analyzed the extent to which the outcomes of matches in the 2005 Wimbledon Gentlemen's Singles tennis competition could be predicted by mere player name recognition.”
Rationality for Mortals: How People Cope with Uncertainty (2008, background): “…96% Winner of 2003 Wimbledon tennis matches Serwe & Frings 2006 .73 (amateurs) .67 (laypeople) 93% 88% Winner of 2005 Wimbledon tennis matches Scheibehenne & Bröder 2007 .71 (amateurs) .69 (laypeople) 89% 79% Winner of 2004 European Soccer Championship matches Pachur & Biele 2007 .71…”
Why recognition is rational: Optimality results on single-variable decision rules (2010, methodology): “We analyze the structure of data used in some prior recognition tasks and find that it matches the sufficient conditions for optimality in our results.”
Fast and frugal forecasting (2009, methodology): “International Journal of Forecasting (2009), doi:10.1016/j.ijforecast.2009.05.010 of researchers used essentially the same method to predict the results of the Gentlemen’s Singles Championship in 2005 (Scheibehenne & Bröder, 2007).”
The recognition heuristic: A decade of research (2011, background): “Scheibehenne and Bröder (2007) set out to test whether the ﬁndings would replicate for Wimbledon 2005—and found basically the same result.”
Homo Heuristicus: Why Biased Minds Make Better Inferences (2009, result): “In fact, this correct inference is not an exception: This simple heuristic predicted the matches of Wimbledon 2003 and 2005 with equal or higher accuracy than the ATP rankings and the seeding of the Wimbledon experts did (Scheibehenne & Bröder, 2007; Serwe & Frings, 2006).”
Simple heuristics in sports (2012, methodology): “Participants in an experiment using the recognition heuristic predicted the recognized player would win the next match with an accuracy of 70% (Scheibehenne & Broder, 2007 ).”