Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis/Archive 19

Question
Still hoping for some informed comment here. Deb (talk) 08:28, 12 July 2018 (UTC) Anybody? Deb (talk) 15:38, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm taking the lack of response to mean that no one on this project has any objection to longer and more detailed summaries of tournaments.Deb (talk) 15:15, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry to take so long to respond (vacation). You are correct that most of our draw pages have the barest minimum of prose, but I'm not aware of anything that would present a problem to the Tennis project if you chose to expand it. I looked over your particular situation at 2018 Wimbledon Championships – Men's Singles. One beef was about the Andy Murray info being added. I personally think that is pertinent information for our readers and I don't see it in prose on the 2018 Wimbledon article either.


 * Taking a look at this other edit about Lopez and Cilic. The Lopez defeat info seems a natural extension of his record... no issues from me. The Cilic info might be a bit long and trivial. When I read that it makes me think that the prose is incomplete. Did other players complain in other rounds of the tournament? Why stop at the second round? Why aren't Kyrgios, Pouille, Schwartzman, Goffin, and Sock written about with the same detail since they were surprise upsets? If you look at the article as it stands today the Cilic addition would be longer than the finalist info, so someone could complain of undue weight to the lead summary. The Cilic info was more important at the time it was added then it was later after the Anderson-Isner match took center stage. Remember, this is personal observation rather than any rule. Perhaps if there was a paragraph only for early round exits (the first three rounds?) it would be a good thing for all these draws. You'd briefly mention all these players in prose with Cilic saying something on the order of "No. 3 seed Marin Čilić was upset in the second round after a contentious rain delay.[4]"


 * Bottom line from me... adding more info in prose is a good thing, but not too trivial and proper weight should be given, and I see nothing in the Guidelines that precludes this. I'm not sure I helped you but as no one else jumped in I thought I'd give my two cents. Good luck. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:26, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:LEAD applies here. An article's lead is supposed to be a concise summary of the most important parts of the article's body. A lead is not a substitute for body prose. A draw article is supposed to be just that. The complete draw of the relevant tennis event. Andy Murray did not take part and had only played three matches in twelve months time. He had no impact whatsoever on the tournament. I can't see how his absence is any way pertinent to the article.Tvx1 18:56, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * A draw article is not supposed to be only the draw. I see nowhere where that is etched in stone. Murray dominated the news on whether he was going to play, was drawn in and then withdrew. I think that is pertinent to our readers. If you are trying to say that is better suited to the 2018 Wimbledon Championships, that's fine. But it and none of our yearly articles say anything about it either. If you look at the 2015 Wimbledon Championships – Men's Singles it talks of elbow-injury Ferrer who didn't even draw in. You have to consider also that some of our tennis articles have been chastised for not having enough prose. It is not supposed to be only charts in our articles. And you'll note the title of the article is "2018 Wimbledon Championships – Men's Singles" not "2018 Wimbledon Championships – Men's Singles draw." If it's only supposed to be the draw then we'd have to remove ALL prose from all these men's singles articles. Once you allow any prose then pandora's box opens for other tournament highlights and upsets. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:17, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. This is the kind of intelligent analysis I was hoping for. Previously there hadn't been any input from people actually involved with this project, just petty edit warring from a group of users who didn't want the article to contain anything beyond raw statistics but couldn't give any logical reason for their view. Deb (talk) 20:18, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * It's one of those things that isn't covered in any of our rules here. We have rigid guidelines for certain charts and infoboxes, and a few other items, but most things are left to the editors. Tvx1 has a point about the lead being only a brief summary of the main body (including prose and charts), but then editors could really just add a section below the lead with a subtitle of "Highlights" with more added detail. We just don't have guidelines that cover it, so it's up to the editors to iron out their differences of what's valuable and what's not. We may not want wild exaggerated differences between similar articles, but we also don't want a cookie-cutter mold either. I suppose Tennis Project could lay out rules for draw pages that said "only the winner, loser, and score is allowed in prose", but that I think would be a tough sell. Thanks for the query, otherwise I'd never have known there were issues, and good luck. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:38, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I saw something on the Wikiproject page suggesting that there was a "task force" being formed to decide the desirable content and layout for these articles but I don't know if that ever happened. I wouldn't object to that, but I did feel that the removal of notable information that wasn't appearing in any other article was unjustified to say the least. I would agree that a "Highlights" section is appropriate, and will have a look at the options when I've recovered from my holidays! Deb (talk) 16:24, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Too hard to find most-wanted information
I commend those who maintain the articles about the tennis majors. I find that I go to Wikipedia as a first port of call to remind myself of the results of these competitions. However, the majority of people who arrive at, let's say, this, actually want this or  this, and it is too hard to find it. I understand that the people who maintain these articles are accustomed to a certain format and layout, and are concerned about following this format in respect of every detail. However, I am telling you how it seems to someone who is not concerned about this, but just wants to find the most important information as easily as possible. 86.191.44.49 (talk) 02:08, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
 * You do have a point. While that info is found further down the page I would guess that 99.99 percent of everyone who comes to the article comes to see two items:


 * 🇷🇸 Novak Djokovic def. Kevin Anderson, 6–2, 6–2, 7–6(7–3)
 * 🇷🇸 Novak Djokovic def. Kevin Anderson, 6–2, 6–2, 7–6(7–3)


 * 🇩🇪 Angelique Kerber def. 🇺🇸 Serena Williams, 6–3, 6–3
 * 🇩🇪 Angelique Kerber def. 🇺🇸 Serena Williams, 6–3, 6–3


 * And that's it. Yes there is a small minutia that also wants the doubles items, then the wheelchair, then the oldtimers, then the kids, the prize money, etc... but relatively few. We must be thorough and list them all in the article but perhaps those two items links could be listed a bit better. We do have them at the top in the infobox however. The "Men's Singles" and "Women's Singles" links are right near the top. Just those two important items are listed about 1/3 down the page, then they are listed again with all the other disciplines about 2/3 down the page... so it's not like it's buried. The points and prize money could certainly be moved way down article.


 * Just looking at a couple ways to do it to help readers such as yourself, it could be done this way or with far less changes, perhaps even this way. I was amazed at the lead section not saying who the two singles winners were. It said Roger Federer and Garbiñe Muguruza did not win, but failed to tell us who did win. Not everyone looks at the infobox. The lead is a summary of the most important aspects of the article and those two champions have to be at the top of the list. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:42, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I did tweak the leads of this year's Majors to make it easier to find what most readers are interested in. Not etched in stone but I figured I'd try it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:21, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I've amended the 2018 article to include the relevant links in prose, without the need for the bullet points, see what you think. --Jameboy (talk) 22:50, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It's ok to me. It isn't quite as easy to find as the bullet points, and it doesn't say "draw", but it should be good enough. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:37, 8 August 2018 (UTC)


 * How about adding that usual "disambiguation statement" at the top? Something like " For the singles results at this tournament, see the men's singles draw and the women's singles draw. " The draw pages themselves already have the reverse idea, with the statement " Main article: 2017 US Open (tennis) " at the top.
 * That could work too. So all good ideas. Whatever is best/easiest for our readers. I'm guessing something like what I just did to 2018 Wimbledon Championships? Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:48, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Use of the term "Grand Slam"
I've seen one member of this project argue that the term "Grand Slam" by default refers to the "calendar-year Grand Slam" rather than a "Grand Slam tournament." As in, it would be misleading to say for instance that: "Sloane Stephens won her first Grand Slam title at the 2017 US Open."

To me, that stance goes against the WP:COMMONNAME policy, which advocates for the use of commonly recognizable names. While the term "Grand Slam" may have been invented to describe the "calendar-year Grand Slam," today it is much more commonly used to describe a "Grand Slam tournament."

Thoughts? Sportsfan77777 (talk) 19:04, 10 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Actually that's not quite what I said. I said we do not use the term calendar-year Grand Slam because by definition winning a Grand Slam (all 4 majors) is a calendar year event. The term Grand Slam is also used to describe the individual tournaments, hence the problem for our readers when using it in an article. We try to be as concise as possible. How we show our scoring at Wikipedia is not really used by the tennis authorities but it is much easier to understand by more casual fans. Since Grand Slam has two very distinct and different meanings in tennis, both of which are used pretty commonly (heck the US Open is doing a big to-do about the anniversary of Rod Laver winning his second Grand Slam) we owe it to our readers to make sure there is no doubt about what is meant. It's why we have used "Grand Slam tournament" or "major" for the individual events... or sometimes Grand Slam event or Grand Slam singles title. We don't just leave it as "a player won their second Grand Slam" if all they won was a French Open and a US Open. We worked hard at getting Milos Raonic to featured article status and one thing we did was make sure it said Grand Slam tournament or event for extra clarity for our readers. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:33, 10 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I agree with using "major" as an abbreviation in some instances, but I think the first mention and any important mention (e.g. winning a title) should use the term "Grand Slam" given that is the much more commonly used term. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 23:00, 10 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I also disagree with leaving without "calendar-year" in describing a calendar-year Grand Slam because it adds emphasis (see WP:WEIGHT) to the feat as a more unique achievement compared to the career Grand Slam. Beyond that, it's also confusing as the phrase "Player X won a Grand Slam" is also more commonly used to refer to a single Grand Slam tournament rather than the complete slam itself. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 23:00, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Using "Grand Slam tournament" as the first mention is fine to me. It is more common today since its misuse started in the 80s, but NOT much more common. I don't think it needs to be used for every title though. Federer has won 20 major titles but a Grand Slam has eluded him. That is also a reason we must be careful in tennis about throwing around the word "Major." A major title is only for winning one of the four biggest championships (Wimbledon or Aussie, French, or US Opens)... nothing else is winning a major. I hear "Major" used all the time in interviews on tv. As for putting in "Calendar year" I completely disagree. Laver won a Grand Slam... Graf won a Grand Slam. That is the original and common definition of the term so we don't need to add more. The lesser accomplishments are winning a "non-calendar year Grand Slam", or winning a "career Grand Slam." Those we need to add the adjectives to describe that it's not a true Grand Slam. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:19, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Completing The Grand Slam as we know means winning all 4 Calendar Year Grand Slam tournaments Sloane Stephens won the 4th Grand Slam tournament/title of a calendar year on your way complete The Grand Slam if you won the previous 3. So applying the term is correct if anybody else is arguing differently ask them to provide the verifiable book source that you can see via the URL link that says otherwise.--Navops47 (talk) 19:20, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * An article such as Madison Keys seems to have been done correctly and concisely. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:54, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Titles of articles
I happened across 1889 U.S. National Championships – Women's Singles this afternoon. There was absolutely nothing in the title, nor even in the article, to identify what sport it refers to. That cannot be the proper way of presenting an encyclopaedic article. Wolbo suggests that this is far from uncommon. Is this something the tennis project are content with? Kevin McE (talk) 17:12, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * So, like the 1914 World Series should also be renamed? Even in the prose "baseball" is only mentioned in a book title. Or how about 1949 Masters Tournament? The word "golf" is only mentioned because it's in the name of the club. So this happens all the time in sports articles and is no big deal. Now if you ask me if the term "tennis" or "tennis tournament" should be mentioned in the lead then I would say yes, that makes sense. Remember that you are looking at a sub-page that is essentially a box score. The actual article is 1889 U.S. National Championships (tennis). That article should have the term "tennis" in the lead. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:41, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * You seem to be trying to appeal to WP:OTHERSTUFF. I'm suggesting that such articles should comply with WP:TITLE and WP:LEDE.  If you think that they should not, then it is incumbent on you to explain why those policies are deficient. Kevin McE (talk) 22:10, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * From the third sentence of the lede of WP:TITLE: "The title may simply be the name (or a name) of the subject of the article, or it may be a description of the topic." That's that practice generally used for sports events. The name of the subject (i.e the event). See also WP:COMMONNAME. When disambiguation is needed, it is provided (e.g. 2018 US Open (tennis) and 2018 U.S. Open (golf)). Other than that we generally use the commonname of the event. 2016 Citi Open, 2015 Open Championship, 2014 Zuiderduin Masters, 2013 Wuxi Classic, 2012 Belgian Grand Prix, 2011 Indianapolis 500, 2010 FIFA World Cup, 2009 Six Nations Championship, Super Bowl XLI, 2006 Clásica de San Sebastián and so on and on and on. I really don't see what your problem is.Tvx1 22:54, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Other stuff exists plentifully and no complaints till now. I see no problem with the title but the lead (note wikipedia does not have a "lede"), could certainly mention the term "tennis". As I said, I would personally add the term. In fact, you could have been bold and added it to the lead section. But I see that editor Wolbo has now already done that very thing to the article in question. He's a pretty reasonable guy so I'm sure all you had to do was ask him to add it if it was something you didn't want to do. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:52, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * (Let's not play silly games about whether we refer to it as lead or lede: the latter is a term that I have seen regularly in Wikipedia in the many years I have been here. Then I won't dwell on the fact that en.wiki has no such thing as a subpage in article namespace.)
 * Every example you give mentions the sport in the first sentence or two. I stumbled across an example that didn't mention it at all, and suspect that it is widespread in this project. So I thought it would be more polite to come to the project and raise it, rather than improve one article in isolation.  But if the initial responses here are typical of the attitude of the tennis project, I'll just leave you with the observation and repeat the challenge: Is this something the tennis project are content with? Kevin McE (talk) 23:15, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The article you stumbled upon is a sub-article. The parent article does mention the sport. This no different to 2018 FIFA World Cup knockout stage.Tvx1 01:31, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I would say we are completely content with the article titles, since they are like all sorts of other articles on Wikipedia. No problem that I can see. I already addressed the issue of the lead section that I feel it would help the article if "tennis" is mentioned somewhere, even if only in the infobox. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:29, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Articles related to the Davis Cup
Hi. In the Davis Cup performance articles of many nations (e.g., India Davis Cup team), they have the table in the result section consisting of competition history but none of them have references for any of those matches. Is there any reason on why that pattern was developed among Davis Cup articles? Davis Cup official website has the pages for all those matches in their archives which we can use as the references. Can I put those for the India page or do I need to leave it to maintain the same pattern among all the other pages? Thanks. Sagavaj (talk) 23:04, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
 * If you want to add references to an article, go for it. Iffy★Chat -- 07:19, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Usually, for those types of articles, you don't source it score by score. You give the source location for the entire chart that anyone can look up if they choose. And are you sure about all those archived records... taking India of 1966 as an example? Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:42, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The references for 1966 Indian Davis Cup matches : You can place these references for every Davis Cup match. And these are the type of references I am planning to place in the article unless anyone have any objections. Thanks. Sagavaj (talk) 12:12, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I still think that simply putting a bullet under the table saying the source is the official Davis Cup website is enough. One of the reasons I would hesitate putting more is if that were done to every Davis Cup chart there's be 10,000 refs added, and Davis Cup periodically changes where they place archives. That's a lot of fixing and I think unnecessary extra sourcing. If something can't be found at the Davis Cup website but is only found in a newspaper article, that is when we would add a separate ref tag. There is also the question of where the source tags would go in the charts. If you insist on tagging each entry I would suggest an extra column as, but I feel this is the incorrect way to do things. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:21, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I just wanted to know if that's OK or not. Normally, all the other sports have references for all the matches but none for any of the Davis Cup related pages. So, I thought this might work. I kept it here because I need second opinion before changing the page. If there's no consensus, then I can leave this issue. Anyway, thanks for letting me know on your opinion. Sagavaj (talk) 20:00, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Instead of keeping new column, we can also place in the score column as e.g., 5-0. Ofcourse, it will still be an issue if davis cup website changes it's archive links and do not redirect them properly. Is there any proper website we can follow ad have all these archives like maybe ESPN? Sagavaj (talk) 20:07, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Just archive those links on the Web Archive. That will safeguard against link rot.Tvx1 20:34, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's proper in wikipedia to link the score that way to an outside source. You would need to do a proper sourcing with a ref number. You could try it in the result column after the win or loss. Since it's at the far right end of the table it might not look so bad. Also I tried to web archive one of the links and it didn't seem to work for me. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:08, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Do you think is there any other proper reference we can get from some other website? If not, I can keep it as it is now. Sagavaj (talk) 21:18, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Archiving works fine for me.Tvx1 23:29, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Regarding the general discussion of link rot: this is something we have had in huge bulk with tennis sources before, with the PDF draws on both the ATP and WTA website having been moved over the last 5 years. Early last year we had to fix 942 ATP World Tour articles, 2,034 ATP Challenger Tour articles, and 272 WTA Tour articles, all of which had dead citations. Not 8 months later the WTA decided that their website should be completely unusable and temporarily broke citations another 2,586 articles. And these are citations for entire tournaments, not individual matches. For workload reasons I strongly feel that we should broadly avoid doing individual match citations (with the exception of very old events where information can only be verified for individual matches), and instead stick to - preferably archived - citations for entire events/tournaments, available somewhere on the page, but not next to every match. I've seen a few sports stick a citation next to every single match for a single event/season, all linking to the same source, and the endless cascade of [1] down the entire page is neither useful nor aesthetically pleasing. In this specific case I'm not too sure on what to do: having the citation after, e.g., "2008" in the Year column could work, but seems a bit inelegant. Some articles use a "Ref" column at the end of the table (e.g., 2018 Collingwood Football Club season), but they all link to distinct pages that include a news article reporting on the details of the specific match, something that probably isn't going to be easily found for the 1974 Eastern Zone semi-finals. Sellyme Talk 16:50, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Someone created an ITF Futures tournament article
I noticed today that the Governors Cup Lagos Tennis was created with the prior Futures event winners listed in tables. This is supposed to be elevated to Challenger status in about 18 months. I tried to re-write it by eliminating the Futures events but that didn't seem to go over well. I nominated it for deletion per our guidelines in case anyone wants to comment or feels differently at Articles for deletion/Governors Cup Lagos Tennis. Cheers. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:24, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Guideline performance chart order change
We have a new editor that has asked that our consensus guideline performance charts have a new order as far as Grand Slam tournaments/Year-end championships/National representation/Masters 1000s. I believe he wants a change to Grand Slam tournaments/Masters 1000s/Year-end championships/National representation. He has brought it up on my talk page and at our tennis project guideline page. That's where the comments should go but I thought maybe some might not see the post there. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:44, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

World Grass Court Championships missing from tennis player biography template
The World Grass Court Championships was one of the three official World Championship major events established by International Lawn Tennis Federation for the years 1913-14, 1919-1923. It is missing from the players biography template and should be added it is also a misnomer to refer to them as other tournaments when they were in fact the first official majors inaugurated by the world governing body of tennis and as such should be acknowledged correctly on Wikipedia instead of a made up name for them the term ‘world champion’ did actually mean something specific and its use was sanctioned by tennis organizers. https://www.itftennis.com/about/organisation/history.aspx, https://books.google.lk/books/Fred Perry: British Tennis Legend By Kevin Jefferys.--Navops47 (talk) 14:03, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The Grass Court Championships aren't missing... It's Wimbledon. It doesn't need to be listed twice. Also there is a reason the United States refused to participate... the US Championship was not listed by the ILTF. It's why in the 1923 meeting the USA insisted that "World Championship" be stricken from any event and that the language of the ITLF be "forever in English." There is only so much room in an infobox so "other tournaments" was chosen as a heading. I think "Other tournaments" is fine but look at Bill Tilden. He has a subheading of Professional majors. Perhaps the WHCC & WCCC should also have a subheading of "Amateur majors"? Fyunck(click) (talk) 16:22, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Gauging interest in writing Good Articles
I was wondering if there was interest from this project in having more tennis Good Articles. Right now, we only have 17 GAs, and 5 of those are hardly related to tennis.

Counting all 17 and with ~31000 total articles, we still only have a ratio of 1:1800 articles that are GAs. That is far behind Wikipedia as a whole, which has a ratio of about 1:200. We also lag behind pretty much every other major sport with a WikiProject:

Would anyone else be interested in working towards a goal of 32 GAs, so that we could at least improve our GA ratio to under 1:1000? Sportsfan77777 (talk) 05:12, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It requires writing skills that often elude me. I can check coding, sourcing, and whatnot, and if someone wants to make a particular article "good" I can certainly help. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:48, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Davis Cup table
Hi all,

I recently stumbled across the Davis Cup article, and there is a section simply title "Statistic", with a huge table in it that breaks the page size. Is this type of table neccesary? It seems to be quite statistic-cruft to me.  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:45, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I went over and looked and I gotta say, that table is ridiculous and imho should be gone. I can't even tell what a lot of it means so most readers will be lost instantly. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I have gone and removed it from the article as it does seem ridiculous to have it in the first place. Animation is developing 03:32, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Corrent writing of the name of event/tournament & Top 10 section
Hi Everybody,

I see that a lot of people have different opinion how name of tournament should be write. In Tennis Project Guidelines it said that in the tables of finals that player reached should stay tournament name and country, but what about section "Top 10 Wins"? Somewhere stand tournament name, city, country, but also somewhere else stand city and country etc. Can someone explain me more about rules of section "Top 10 Wins" because I can't find anywhere about correct rules. Thanks for your answer. JamesAndersoon (talk) 20:57, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Proposed split of Shenzhen Open
There is a discussion taking place at Talk:Shenzhen Open about whether the page should be split in to 2 separate articles or not, your feeback on this proposal is welcome there. Iffy★Chat -- 14:30, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Featured quality source review RFC
Editors in this WikiProject may be interested in the featured quality source review RFC that has been ongoing. It would change the featured article candidate process (FAC) so that source reviews would need to occur prior to any other reviews for FAC. Your comments are appreciated. --IznoRepeat (talk) 21:50, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Strike Rate?
On the articles relating to tennis players under their stats it refers to "strike rate". What is this? Maybe someone should create an article on it? SSSB (talk) 23:52, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
 * It appears to be tournmaments won / tournaments competed in. Iffy★Chat -- 09:14, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
 * It has been in many Tennis Project tables since the beginning of time. But I have to say, until I saw it here a decade ago, I had never seen nor heard the term. Since then I occasionally see it used in the press. Such as at the ATP and some newspapers. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:50, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Draft:1979 US Open – Mixed Doubles
Hi, could someone here get around to completing Draft:1979 US Open – Mixed Doubles? It was draftified shortly after creation as it was incomplete. I've added a few results to round 1 from the ITF source (but I didn't check the flags, some of them might be wrong). Thank you for your help. Iffy★Chat -- 10:46, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I've done half of it with the help of User:Tvx1 but I don't have time to do the other half right now. Iffy★Chat -- 15:50, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I've filled in the bottom half as well. It might need some double-checking whether all the links link to the correct people and whether all the flags are the correct contemporary ones.Tvx1 16:21, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Iffy★Chat -- 18:16, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * There are quite a few tennis related articles sitting in draft space (search link here), it would be great if editors here could go through them, find the ones that are notable and not duplicated in mainspace, improve them where necessary (Some of the ones I took a quick look at were draftified due to being "undersourced") and submit them to WP:AFC. Iffy★Chat -- 18:16, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

The Big Four in tennis history
There is a conversation going on over at Talk:Big Four (tennis) about either removing Andy Murray or putting him and the rest of the category of Big Four into a side-note and renaming the article the Big Three. This is claimed to be necessary because of the achievement gap drop down to Murray. While the gap is true, I tend to look at the term as historical like The Four Musketeers (tennis) and that we should retain it. Perhaps others here feel differently but this is a pretty high profile article and it really needs the project's input, expertise, and wisdom on moving it or not. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:05, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Oscar Jose Gutierrez
This stub article about a tennis player is up for AfD, however it might be able to improve to pass GNG, I just thought I put this to the project here. Govvy (talk) 23:57, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * From what I can see in checking the ATP, this player never won a tournament in the minor leagues or minor-minor leagues, and he never played on the men's main tour. He's one of a million nothing players. Per Tennis Project the article should be speedily deleted. Could he have general notability for some other reason or in a local Canoas paper, sure, but for tennis he does not. Fyunck(click) (talk) 01:03, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Okay, no probs, I just saw a lot of google results for him, statistics and such, thought there might of been enough. No matter know. Govvy (talk) 12:34, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Wrong score?
At, the Massu-Clavet match is scored 715-613, 6-3, 77-50. Is there something I'm missing, or is this wrong? Specifically, how can the third set be a 7-5 (not 7-6) if there was a 7-0 tiebreak? I'll note that ATP, Tennis Abstract, ProTennisLive, and Sackmann's database (which may have been sourced from the previous link, or from wherever it was sourced) all have it this way, too. OTOH, SI, telegraph.co.uk, Tennis Explorer show "7-6(7-0)" (or just "7-6" because they don't show the points for any tiebreaks) for the third set, which seems like it is probably correct. Right? —[ Alan M 1 (talk) ]— 17:49, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You're right, if the set ended 7-5, it would be over and no tiebreak played. Either the set ended 7-5 or it ended 7-6 (7-0). I'd agree with you that the tiebreak is probably what actually happened. I've fixed the page. Iffy★Chat -- 18:06, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Navigation template US National Championships been removed from pre 1968 player articles
Hello haven't posted for a long time I was just looking at Richard Sears page and noticed Template:US Open men's singles champions sitting at the bottom of the page and replaced it with Template:U.S. National Championships men's singles champions I just checked Henry Slocum following it too had the US Open template on it. Just randomly clicking on the pre 1968 template a lot of players (without going through all of them) have had the correct template removed and the incorrect US Open one added not sure who is doing it and am rather busy of naval history stuff at the moment maybe someone could check all and replace.--Navops47 (talk) 11:17, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The template of Richard Sears was replaced by on March 15, 2016. Maybe he did the rest also? You'll have to ask him why that was done. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:50, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Had a look into it and it is fairly straightforward. In March 2016 I updated US Open men's singles champions to show the entire history of the winners of the tournament (see version March 2016) and afterwards switched the template on several pre-open era player articles. It is after all one tournament, not two (pre-open and open). In September that year another user reverted the template update and changed it back to show only open era winners. This meant that the pre-open era player articles which had been updated now showed the wrong template and that is what found. To fix this I propose to update the navigational boxes of all the Grand Slam tournaments to show all winners of the tournament and not split them into two separate templates (pre-open and open).--Wolbo (talk) 12:53, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Sounds reasonable. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:34, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree. Don't make things unnecessarily difficult for the sake of it.Tvx1 21:47, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks I like that March version you did and your proposal makes sense.--Navops47 (talk) 02:05, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The person who didn't like it hasn't edited in 2 years. I suggest that, since we seem to be in agreement, that we revert to Wolbo's template and change the other 3 majors to match. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:32, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree. They're considered the same tournaments, open or not. There's zero reason for separate navboxes. The navbox subgroups setting apart pre-Open Era and Open Era champs serves the purpose. Removing them was factually incorrect. oknazevad (talk) 04:48, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
 * PS, I went ahead with the revert, as the consensus here is unanimous. oknazevad (talk) 04:50, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, I think we should we tweak this again. While we should not have separate templates for pre-open era/open era, I do believe we should not include those winners who won those tournaments before they were considered grand slam/major tournaments. Not all of those listed actually won the US Open, for instance. The first years it was nothing but a national championship.Tvx1 20:27, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Per almost all sources, the US Championships/The Australian Championships/Wimbledon get treated as majors since inception, and the French since 1925. That's what we've always followed and I see no reason to change that. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:42, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree, almost all reliable sources treat the history of the Grand Slam tournaments from the moment of their inauguration instead of starting with 1923, when they were declared official tournaments by the ILTF. That is why we list the winners of these events since their inauguration (with the exception of the French Championships because their rules made them closed until 1925).--Wolbo (talk) 10:42, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

WP 1.0 Bot Beta
Hello! Your WikiProject has been selected to participate in the WP 1.0 Bot rewrite beta. This means that, starting in the next few days or weeks, your assessment tables will be updated using code in the new bot, codenamed Lucky. You can read more about this change on the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team page. Thanks! audiodude (talk) 05:44, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Tournament vs Championship in our guideline charts?
Most of our newer players, and for years we have been using the same parameters for our charts. Result, Year, Tournament, Surface, Opponents, Score. Yes some charts have Tier and Partners, but the former columns are always present. In the not so distant past we didn't have all our guidelines in place so obviously older players charts have many differences. I usually conform them as I have time to do it. Our guideline career charts are pretty standard and followed very well by our editors as seen right here. No problem there. But some players have a more specific "Grand Slam tournament finals" charts. Look at Serena Williams, Roger Federer, and recent titlist Naomi Osaka. Those charts aren't in our specific guidelines but I have always followed our standard charts and extrapolated as need be.

What editor Wolbo has brought to my attention was that we also have some older charts, such as Helen Wills that use "Championship" instead of "Tournament". That chart also uses the long deprecated "Outcome" instead of "Result" but that is not an issue. Editor Wolbo prefers the older term "Championship" for the more specific charts such as Grand Slam tournaments, Year-end championships, masters, etc. He feels is distinguishes between the two. I prefer to keep it the same and use "Tournament" in all our tables, and I tend to see this with our newer players. I guess it's a minor issue but it recently came up at the Kim Clijsters article and I don't want to step on other editor's toes on this. Does anyone else have thoughts on this. Maybe others have some suggestions or perhaps another term they would prefer? We could always put it in our guidelines as a single sentence, or just go by consensus. I didn't even know it might be an issue until Wolbo brought it to my attention today. Cheers. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:12, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * To me it is also not a big issue. Perhaps it is just a personal editing habit but I have always used the term 'Championship' for the tables showing Grand Slam tournament finals and 'Tournament' for the career finals overview. Probably partly to distinguish between the two levels, partly because the majors all had the word 'Championships' as part of their pre-open era names (only Wimbledon still has it) and partly because the ITF refers to the Grand Slam tournaments as "... the four official International Championships of Australia, France, Great Britain and the United States". --Wolbo (talk) 22:01, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Monthly WTA fan awards
Talk:2019 WTA Tour discusses whether and how the yearly WTA Tour articles should show player/breakthrough/shot of the month winners where wtatennis.com selects candidates and fans vote. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:03, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

TFD notification
Only WP:CFB was notified. I think all relevant sports should participate in this discussion at Templates for discussion/Log/2019 April 4.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 01:10, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Mana Ayukawa for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Mana Ayukawa is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Mana Ayukawa until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

Mana Ayukawa is a Japanese tennis playe Eastmain (talk • contribs) 12:05, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Ralph James Wickel us open 1952-55?
I think this article doesn't meet Notability... except possibly for this bit:
 * Ralph competing in the USLTA men's singles United States National Championships; known currently as the United States Open Tennis Championships. Ralph competed in Round 1 of the tournament in 1952, 1954 and 1955.[5]

Can Tennis experts confirm whether that is sufficient to meet WP:NTENNIS?--GRuban (talk) 11:22, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is a clear pass of WP:NTENNIS, there's no question that the U.S. National Championships was a Grand Slam event. Iffy★Chat -- 11:30, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Two month virtual editathon on Women in Sports
WikiProject Women in Red is devoting the next two months (July and August) to a virtual editathon on Women in Sports. Please take this opportunity to write more articles about women in tennis who lag far behind men on Wikipedia.--Ipigott (talk) 07:06, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Widespread failure to follow basic encyclopaedic norms
In large numbers of tennis articles, I see there is a failure to follow a basic tenet of writing encyclopaedia articles: the first sentence should introduce the topic of the article. In the majority of instances that I have checked of an article about subcompetitions at a Grand Slam, this is not done. Here are some example first sentences:
 * Novak Djokovic was the two-time defending champion, and top seed, but was defeated in the third round by the No. 28 seed Sam Querrey.
 * Arnaud Clément and Michaël Llodra were the defending champions, but were forced to withdraw due to a left arm injury for Llodra.
 * Andres Gomez was the defending champion but did not compete that year.
 * Serena Williams was the defending champion, but was defeated in the semifinals by the eventual champion Kim Clijsters.
 * Vitas Gerulaitis was the defending champion, but did not compete this year.

These first sentences are inadequate. They do not include anything resembling the article's title and thus do not properly introduce the topic. They could often be fixed with the simple addition of eg "in the Men's Singles competition at the 1991 French Open", though some need more work. The winner of the event is more important than a defending champion who did not compete, for example.

Does this wikiproject have plans to carry out this work? 146.198.193.61 (talk) 06:40, 19 June 2019 (UTC) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons you might want to).
 * I was waiting for you to do it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:12, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Is that supposed to be funny? 146.198.193.61 (talk) 12:31, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * You are right, this has long been a shortcoming of tennis tournament event articles. Unfortunately it is so widespread that it has become the norm and editors copy these type of 'leads' into new articles. It only takes a small effort to improve the introductions, see e.g. 1999 Direct Line International Championships – Doubles or 1986 Virginia Slims of Arizona – Singles.--Wolbo (talk) 19:14, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * While true, the problem does not lay with the Tennis Project. There are probably a million things that need correcting in articles and an inadequate lead is way down the list. To be honest, the example 1999 Direct Line International Championships – Doubles is awful. The most important thing about the event is who won, not who didn't play with whom. The winner/winners should be right up front and all too often they are not. A bad lead is often as bad as no lead. The thing is, anyone can correct it, including editor 146.198.193.61. I may be guilty of not correcting everyone of these things I come across, but so is every editor. If there was to be a start on these things it should be the newest articles of the four majors, since those get copied into other articles. Then the year-ends and next big nine events. That would help set the table for next years' editions. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:12, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you Wolbo for your constructive comment, and Fyunck(click) for your second comment. I still do not know what the point of your first comment was.
 * It does only take a small effort to fix an opening sentence, and I have done a lot, but as this failing affects the majority of this type of article, then if we simply wait for them to be fixed, then it will never get done, and a majority of tennis tournament articles will not have an adequate opening sentence. That's a very low bar of quality to fall below. So what I think is necessary here is a systematic effort to fix this. And what mechanism exists for organising systematic efforts like this? That would be a wikiproject. So why Fyunck(click) should say "the problem does not lay with the Tennis Project", I do not know.
 * I find it odd to say "an inadequate lead is way down the list" of things that need fixing. The lead will be the only bit that a lot of readers actually read. It could not be more important. And what I've pointed out here is not merely an inadequate lead. It's opening sentences which do not even identify the topic of the article.
 * How many articles fail in this basic way? For the majors in the open era, assuming 8 sub-tournaments, that's about 1600 articles. But I see that basically all tournaments are affected. Let's say 30 events per year with articles, 2 sub-tournaments each, in the open era, and that's another 3000 articles.
 * So to re-emphasise:
 * Not having an adequate opening sentence is a major failing for any article.
 * There are at least 4500 tennis articles which don't have an adequate opening sentence.
 * Without a systematic effort, those ~4500 articles are not going to get fixed.
 * Are you, the participants in this wikiproject, interested in initiating a systematic effort to fix this? 146.198.193.61 (talk) 08:59, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I disagree and say it is way down the list. When you are talking about a biography, then our leads are pretty darned good. When you are talking about a "sub-competition" or a stat page, then they are not so good. However those are usually found after going to main pages and then going to detailed pages. When that is the case then I don't think that is all that is usually read. They go down to look at detailed stats most of the time. Don't get me wrong, there should be proper leads in all those articles. My guess is that 3000 is way low. With the womens events and the Challenger level tour there are thousands upon thousands more. Plus there are also wheelchair events and pre-Open Era events. With the small number of really active members, Tennis Project is unlikely to issue some mandate to drop everything to fix it. I certainly don't have time to make it a priority with the hours per day I already spend on tennis stuff, including all the vandalism. With you bringing this up, I will look a little more often and fix some as I find them. Maybe Wolbo feels differently about the likelihood of the project making it a priority No. 1 mandate? It could be added to the task force section of the project or perhaps assessment? Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:37, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
 * As a tennis fan and reader of Wikipedia, this error is by far the most glaring that I see in tennis articles. It is such an awful error that it doesn't just devalue the articles it occurs in but makes all the other tennis articles suspect as well. Why would a reader trust that a tennis biography is written with care and attention when thousands and thousands of other tennis articles are not? This is how I've felt over several years of noticing this error. So I really think that if you want your work on other articles to be appreciated by readers of Wikipedia, writing proper first sentences for these articles should be the highest priority.
 * Still not sure of the point of your first comment. Was it supposed to be funny? Was it supposed to be an insult? 146.198.193.61 (talk) 10:29, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
 * It was clearly a version of . Which renders thus:
 * Information.svg Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes.  Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top.
 * --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:37, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
 * It was not clearly that; it was clearly intended as some kind of insult. So that's the response you get, when you point out a catastrophic flaw affecting a very large number of articles - "go away, we're not interested". Thus, the vast majority of those articles will remain fundamentally inadequate in perpetuity. 146.90.39.145 (talk) 09:12, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually it was intended exactly as the administrator said, and it was supposed to be funny and to the point. Could I have been more thorough and perhaps written a better response. Surely I should have. Here's how it should have been conveyed to editor 146.198.193.61. This project is rather small and deals with players with no articles, vandalism, current tournament updates, stat updates, etc... on a daily basis. 10s of thousands of articles. It's pretty overwhelming and we need all the help we can get. You can do it just as well as we can, maybe better because it's obviously something you care about. As far as does the project have plans to do mass fixing of this inadequacy, no. We'll fix them as we get to them as best we can. Do I think it's a "catastrophic flaw?" Catastrophic....No chance. Most of our articles have some flaws and this one just gets added to the list. That's how I look at it. So if editor 146.198.193.61 wants something done on that front on a massive scale, please put on some gloves, dive in and join the party... We'd love to see the inadequacies fixed. Editors tend to work on things that they are most comfortable and concerned with, so the original poster could help out by taking it on as their own project. I'm not sure if you are the same person as the original poster, but either way it would apply to you as well. I hope that explains it better. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:44, 2 July 2019 (UTC)


 * It wasn't funny, and it didn't make any discernable point. I asked you three times what you meant by it, and you didn't bother to reply. It is obvious it was intended as an insult. You could have answered "Does this wikiproject have plans to carry out this work?" by simply saying "no, we do not". But you chose to insult me. That tells me plenty about why so many articles are in a deficient state. I do hope it gave you a great laugh to post that insult though. 146.90.125.65 (talk) 21:57, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
 * My post gave me a mild chuckle, and it was replied to by others, so I saw no point and simply stuck to the main topic instead of dwelling on one thing. But this last post of yours gave me a great laugh. Get over yourself and either help or don't help. It's up to you. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:33, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
 * What didn't give me a laugh is the following: are you actually here to help or just complain? I ask because today all you did was add a template on heaps of articles that said the lead was inadequate. You could have fixed some with a little research but instead all you did was add templates. That doesn't really help all that much. In the time it took you to add that to dozens of articles you might have been able to fix some of them. And when you add one of those templates you should also mention as to why on the talk page of the article so that another editor understands what the problem might be. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:41, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I was waiting for you to do it. 146.90.125.65 (talk) 23:48, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Knock off the simply adding hundreds of lead problems with no talk page explanation as to what you'd like done. That's ridiculous and disruptive and you will be reported if it keeps up. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:51, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Inadequate leads
Thousands and thousands of your articles have lead sections which do not even give the title of the article. Somehow, you've failed to realise the basic function of the first sentence. Having found no interest whatsoever in an effort to fix this abysmal situation, I am tagging as many as I feel like as needing cleanup. 146.90.125.65 (talk) 23:52, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
 * You need to mention what needs to be done on the article talk pages so others not as brilliant as yourself will understand what needs to be done. If you aren't going to fix it yourself, be specific so that someone who doesn't frequent Tennis Project talk pages will take on the challenge . Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:58, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
 * More childish taunting. It seems to be all you have to offer. You still seem to be struggling with the idea that an article's first sentence must define the topic. It seems painfully difficult to convey this to you. Don't you know what encyclopaedia articles are supposed to look like? 146.90.125.65 (talk) 09:09, 3 July 2019 (UTC)


 * What on earth is going on here? Can anyone please discuss this and come to some form of WP:CONSENSUS instead of edit warring over dozens of articles? ST47 (talk) 23:56, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Read any tennis tournament event article. Almost always, the first sentence does not say what the article is about. That is insane - a complete and utter failure to follow the most basic standards of encyclopaedia writing. I gave examples above. I asked if there was any plan to deal with this. I received only a childish taunt in return. What consensus are you seeking? A consensus that an article should start by defining its topic? 146.90.125.65 (talk) 09:07, 3 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I don't know if we are always talking to the same person or not, but what they could do (since they don't seem to want to do any fixing themselves) is make a detailed list of the "worst 100" offender articles. Perhaps ones with no lead at all or leads that don't even say who won an event. They could post that list on their sandbox and link it here. That way the worst 100 could be looked at and fixed. After those are fixed they could list another 100 of the next worst offenders. etc. This might really help to get some Tennis Project members to look at specific articles. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:13, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't know what's behind this, but I do know that the lead paragraphs are in many cases inadequate and in some cases efforts to improve and/or expand them have met with opposition. Deb (talk) 11:56, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Opposition? Could you give some examples of actual opposition to improving the leads? I'm not sure I've seen that. What I have seen recently is the tagging of every article this person finds. That tag says to check the talk page for specifics and yet nothing has been written on the talk page for editors to fix. So that tag winds up being ignored or removed. Bunches more were done by clones of this IP today. Some of those edits also include delinkings to the main article of the tournament such as here, which had to be fixed. That is not right. And no edit summaries in any of them. If his main concern is a couple words that say "This is the 2017 singles draw to blah blah blah", then his tag and an edit summary would take more time than actually doing it. Instead the article looks worse. Fyunck(click) (talk) 16:52, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I was thinking back to this discussion last year, when I got told that "The draw page introduction should only include results, new records/statistics and information on the defending champion". Several editors repeatedly removed content, and this year's corresponding article is suffering from the attentions of the same group of people. Deb (talk) 21:02, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not familiar with those two editors, but they were wrong. The latest article is a bit unfair since the event is not completed. I'll fix it Sunday. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:03, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Further to this discussion, I've made what I think are some improvements to the 2018 Wimbledon Championships – Men's Singles article. I'll be interested to hear what bona fide project members think of these changes, and also how long it will be before someone reverts me claiming that this is a "draw page" and shouldn't have a lead paragraph or a description of what happened during the competition. Deb (talk) 14:53, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

You see, User:Fyunck(click), this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. An anon suddenly appearing and removing the article title from the introduction. Deb (talk) 18:13, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
 * But this isn't the tennis project condoning this type of mischief. This is an anon coming out of the woodwork during big events that we need to stay on top of. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:16, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I realise that. But there is a whole horde of them at work on the tennis articles. Mostly they aren't even members of the project. Deb (talk) 18:31, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I'll do my best to quell the tide. I hope those reading this also understand that wikipedia is not a cookie cutter. Each of the yearly wimbledon articles do not have to have the exact same wording. They should mention the article title at the beginning of the lead, or a shortened version of the title. Bold if the wording is exact, unbold if it's shortened. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:14, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, so much for this anon wanting to help solve the problem! Deb (talk) 13:50, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
 * That ridiculous edit is most definitely not a good path to solving the problem. Re-read what Fyunck just told you: "unbold if it's shortened". For the record, "Deb" is as anonymous as every IP editor. Perhaps if you learn to treat other editors the way Fyunck does, even IP editors, you'll get changes that are important to you accomplished. 173.91.60.85 (talk) 14:04, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

"Draw" section
Following on from the above discussion, it's obvious there's a problem here. I actually agree - up to a point - with 146.90.125.65 that many of the lead sections are inadequate because some contributors are entirely focused on individual games and results, and I've been separately discussing with Fyunck(click) how to reduce the amount of edit warring - much of it involving random IPs - and improve the articles. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia and its purpose is not to report on current events before they have finished. All information is supposed to be referenced, so we shouldn't actually be including the results before they have been published by a reliable source. "I saw it on TV" is not a guarantee of the update being correct. I therefore propose that we put the kind of protection on articles about current tournaments that I have put on 2019 Wimbledon Championships – Women's Singles, i.e. any changes made by new and unregistered users - at least during the tournament - have to be reviewed. That would slow down the determination of casual users to be first to update the score. Deb (talk) 07:25, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Problem with early French Open Draws
I've been working on adding Grand Slam timelines to players' articles, and have encountered a problem with several French Open draws. For example, the 1972 Men's French Open shows a draw with 7 rounds, consistent with the draw on the ATP website. However, the ITF website (go to "Drawsheet" then "Main Draw") has 8 rounds including a first round that is not included in the draws on Wikipedia or the ATP website. That extra round only has 7 matches in this case, but is separate from the qualifying event (the ITF page has a separate draw for the qualifying). The 1968 French Open has similar, except someone has included this extra round in a "Preliminary Round" section at the bottom of the article. If the ITF website is indeed accurate, these missing rounds need to be added to Wikipedia for the years where this is the case. Does everyone agree? That would require a fair bit of work, as the template used in the draws would need to be changed from this to this to accommodate this extra round, and the Grand Slam timeline for every player who lost in a pre-finals round would need to be changed (e.g. "2R" -> "3R"). Thanks, Calbow (talk) 11:45, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I do agree. Deb (talk) 12:21, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * 1972 was weird. Per the French Open official website it was only a 64 player main field. Not 128 and not 256. So really only 6 rounds of main draw tennis: 1st round, 2nd round, 3rd round, qf, sf, f. They wanted to protect the elite players, especially Laver and Rosewall, who had complained of 7 rounds on the slow clay was too much. They had 125 players play over 4 days of preliminary rounds to whittle it down to 16 players to join the 48 elites in the main draw. What's funny is Laver and Rosewall were barred anyway because of their contracts. The womens field was officially only a 32 player main draw. I guess the ITF adds an extra couple rounds and the atp adds an extra round, so how it's portrayed varies. But the French Open says 64 players. '68 was probably similar weirdness. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:07, 18 July 2019 (UTC)


 * An archived copy of the mens 1972 6-round draw from the French Open website is right here. 1968 shows a 7 round draw. The women show a 5 round draw in 1972, and a 7 round draw in 1968. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:33, 18 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes it's very strange, thanks for providing some context. Let's consider each tournament:
 * 1972 Men's: French Open's site has 6 rounds (64), ITF has 8 rounds (256 with byes). Wikipedia's draw has 7 rounds (128 with byes). So currently Wikipedia is consistent with neither.
 * 1972 Women's: French Open's site has 5 rounds (32), ITF has 7 rounds (128 with byes), Wikipedia's draw has 7 rounds also. So Wikipedia is consistent with ITF.
 * 1968 Men's: French Open's site has 6 rounds (64), ITF has 8 rounds (256 with byes). Wikipedia's draw has 7 rounds (128 with byes). So again, Wikipedia is consistent with neither.
 * 1968 Women's: French Open's site has 6 rounds (64), ITF has 7 rounds (128 with byes). Wikipedia's draw has 7 rounds (128 with byes). So Wikipedia is consistent with ITF as well here.
 * Now if we choose to go with the French Open's site, we have to remove 1 round from 1972 Men's, 1968 Men's, 1968 Women's, and 2 rounds from 1972 Women's. If we choose to go with ITF, we have to add 1 round to 1972 Men's and 1968 Men's, i.e. half the work. Also, going with the French Open's site brings up another problem: what would we put in the timelines of players who lost in the culled rounds? "1R" would be inconsistent with Wikipedia's draw, and "LQ", "Q3" or similar would be wrong as the qualifying was separate. I therefore think that we must add the extra rounds consistent with the ITF's site.  Calbow (talk) 23:04, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Let's see if others weigh in. I would tend to go with the French Open, since the sources such as the ITF, WTA, and ATP, have funky track records on that era. I would not put something like Q1 in the table since it's really not the same as future Q1s. I'd make something new like P1 or P2 for a preliminary round loss and make a notation at the bottom of the player record denoting that special year. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:30, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree that the additional rounds should be included (no-brainer). However, is there any reason we can't have more than one template? Deb (talk) 07:53, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
 * What I meant by changing the template is using a different one for those specific tournaments to accommodate the extra rounds- the one used currently can only hold 4 rounds... adding an extra round would require one that holds 5, like this one. Manually, shifting from one to the other would involve a fair bit of work and tinkering, but that is no longer an issue as in the meantime I've written a program to generate Wikitext draws for tournaments directly from the ITF website, so should we decide to go ahead it can be done very easily. Calbow (talk) 09:17, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

FYI, minor guideline chart update
I just updated the WTA performance chart to contain current Premier 5 events rather than old ones. I added a note about the Dubai/Qatar rotation in the tier. That's all I did but I wanted to make note of it here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:34, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

More fundamental problems
You should not place links in the bold face reiteration of the article title in the opening sentence of an article. And yet, this is done for hundreds and hundreds of tournaments. And when I fixed some, a user reverted my fixes, saying things like "we need the link". Evidently, they are not familiar with the manual of style. Tennis articles are never going to stop being severely deficient if editors are not prepared to familiarise themselves with the basic guidelines. 146.90.125.104 (talk) 09:14, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
 * That's not actually true. Links can be put in that position if there is a good reason to do so. You'll find that it's not done only for tennis tournaments. Deb (talk) 09:17, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Links should not be placed in the boldface reiteration of the title in the opening sentence of a lead. I do find that the mistake is more widespread than just tennis tournaments, but a mistake it certainly is. 146.90.125.104 (talk) 10:16, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know it says "should not" and describes it as a "mistake", but that is a guideline, not a rule. The MoS proceeds to suggest ways by which this can be avoided, i.e. by paraphrasing the title, but there could still be circumstances where it is more helpful to have a link in the title. I think " Mexican Open " is a good example of this. Deb (talk) 12:23, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Those links are the links to the main article and it is important to have a link to the main article in prose. If for some reason you don't like it where it is then find a way to incorporate it elsewhere by writing something new. It can be handled in prose... it can be done by using the "further" or "main" templates at the page top... etc. Don't just remove it and leave readers with nothing. Goodness. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:18, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Then change it in all Wimbledon articles for previous years because none of them use that format. All the others are done the same way. 173.91.60.85 (talk) 18:31, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
 * You can do that as well as anyone else. Please help us fix these items as it would be much appreciated. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:34, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, during the last three years, a little band of editors has been systematically changing the leads to their own preferred format, which doesn't comply with the guidelines on lead paragraphs. If someone corrects them, they change them back. And this guy is one of them. Deb (talk) 18:39, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Lady, you're paranoid. If I'm "one of them," why would I suggest to Fyunck to change it in all the previous articles? Uh? Take your anger, threats and accusations somewhere else. And Fyunck, there's no way in hell I'll make those changes in the prior year articles. I'll get attacked by people like Angry Deb if I even try it. You seem experienced. You do it. But it makes no sense to have all those articles layed out one way and then this one article a different way. Who knows, maybe Deb will take a break from her attacks and do it. 173.91.60.85 (talk) 18:50, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Wow, "angry" is one word for what you are. Read Etiquette. In case you've forgotten the past few days, let me remind you that I did start doing it and you stopped me. Deb (talk) 08:37, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Then I guess we'll get to it when we get to it. There are thousands of articles that need help so correcting all those old ones will take time. Thanks anyway. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:10, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. I would help if I knew that other editors wouldn't swoop in quickly and change it back in every article for which I did it. But you know that's exactly what will happen unless there's a prior agreement by a significant group of editors to make that change. It would be a huge waste of time. Only someone with your experience and knowledge on the subject would have any chance of succeeding with such a mass overhaul. 173.91.60.85 (talk) 14:14, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I think there is something you are missing. A significant group of editors did write the Wikipedia Manual of Style, and certain things are required. Bold of some items, leads that absolutely describe the article title, etc. That's a done deal at Wikipedia, and going against it will eventually end badly for that editor. But the exact wording in accomplishing that is fluid and up to the editors writing the article. Every Wimbledon article does not have to have the exact same wording in the lead, but it must convey the same information. Each article must stand on its own, we don't have sub-pages. I've had readers tell me they didn't know what sport they were reading about... well then we didn't do a good enough job in writing that article. It should be written as if they can't see the title at the top of the screen and that they came to the article directly, perhaps from a Google search. I always think of our readers first which is why we need to work together as a team to make an article the best as we can. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:23, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
 * What ^^^ said.--Wolbo (talk) 19:46, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Nope, I didn't miss anything. I already understood everything you just said. You basically repeated things you or others have already explained. My point is that an IP like me trying to make such widespread changes would have been futile because editors who you say reverted those things before don't care, and they'd claim a misinterpretation of the relevant policies and guidelines. And they would have absolutely no trepidation about reverting an IP editor on those changes and forcing an endless talk page discussion. That's why I said an editor, like you, who's very experienced and has a lot of knowledge about the subject should do it. 173.91.60.85 (talk) 15:24, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

I just went through ALL the Ladies yearly Wimbledon articles (XXXX Wimbledon Championships – Women's Singles) and made sure it said tennis, the year/name of the championship, and ladies singles, and put it in some manner in the lead sentence. I liked the way someone worded it in the early years so that's what I stuck with. Surprisingly, many did not need correcting. Some only needed last years winner info moved down a sentence or two. It got worse as I moved to the present. I guess if we at least get the womens and mens four majors done it will help since so many editors use them as a template to start other tournaments. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:23, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I have now done the same for the French Open Women's Singles. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:31, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * US Open women's articles are now completed. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:59, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Australian Open women's articles are now completed. Men's majors to be done throughout the next week. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:58, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Men's Australian singles now complete. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:54, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Men's Wimbledon now done. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:05, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Men's French is now done. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:47, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Men's US Open singles is now also complete. So that completes the all the mens and womens singles. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:06, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

AfD about Junior Grand Slam qualifying draws
I was hoping the article alerts would pick this up, but as it hasn't; I'm informing anyone watching here that there is an WP:AFD discussion ongoing about whether or not Junior Grand Slam qualifying draws are notable enough for their own articles. Your views are welcome at Articles for deletion/2019 US Open – Boys' Singles Qualifying. Iffy★Chat -- 19:48, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Grand Slam Cup status?
I noticed an anon IP adding the defunct Grand Slam Cup to players totals for ATP year-end-championships. An example is Pete Sampras career stats article. Multiple other articles have been affected too. I can't recall if this was ever discussed as appropriate or whether sources agree with these new totals. Minimal mentions in the archives such as in archive 11. Should the Grand Slam Cup be in the same color yellow and added to player totals as if they are year-end championships? Thoughts? Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:01, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Seems logical to me that the Grand Slam Cup falls into the same category of year-end championships as the ATP Tour final and the WCT Finals. All of them are season / year ending championships which feature a select group of players who performed best throughout the season at the respective events. What other category would it be part of if not the year-end championships? On the player statistics page all three tournaments could be be listed under the header of Year-End Championships but each tournament could have its own table to show the reader that they are distinct events.--Wolbo (talk) 22:52, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Just because something occurs at year-end is not the same as the "Year end championships." I just went through a bunch of old newspaper articles from the time period and I could find no sources that called it a year end championship. Maybe someone else will have better luck, because right now that can't be sourced. I did find this article from the NEW York Times blasting its importance. It had no importance, but it sure did have a lot of money. Should it be listed on a player's career statistics page, yep. Should it be given the same level as the year and championships?... per sources, no. As for a category, it really has none. It's in a category all it's own. Per the sources, the players used it as their warm-up event for the upcoming season. Then they moved it in '97 to right after the US Open in September. There were still a couple Masters level events to be played so it was not season-end. The ATP retroactively gave it status, and that's fine, but I don't think that means we move it up to Year-end championship status. Year-end championship as a category in tennis means a lot more than just the printed words. It has a certain stigma just like the four majors. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:24, 1 October 2019 (UTC)


 * If everyone likes them lumped together under the same color scheme (and therefore the same value tier), then that's what we'll do. But as an encyclopedia I'm not sure that's being truthful to our readers. I guess we could relabel the category as a generic "Year-end tournaments" and lump any such events (Grand Slam Cup, WTA Elite Trophy, WTA Tournament of Champions, Next Gen Finals, etc...) into the yellow we now use only for the ATP/WTA Finals. It's not my preference since I feel that devalues the ATP/WTA Finals, but we could. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:54, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

New Guideline Proposal for "Greatest of all time" Mention in Lead Sections
Hi everyone, I thought I'd bring this up because over the past few years, especially since last year, there have recently been issues across the tennis articles in Wikipedia regarding mention of tennis players being considered among the "greatest tennis players of all time" or the "greatest tennis player of all time" in the lead section of such articles, which has especially been a major issue in the articles of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Rod Laver. I personally didn't have a huge issue with it being mentioned in the lead sections of the tennis articles but since I took part in this discussion in the Roger Federer talk page last year (partially encouraged by this discussion in Rod Laver's article), it was then agreed that we should not mention Federer being the "greatest of all time" (or even to some extent, "one of the greatest") within the lead and keep that to the legacy section on the basis that this was too subjective and unencyclopaedic to be mentioned in the lead, which I can understand better now due to "greats" in tennis constantly changing each era (Federer might be regarded as the greatest now by many but it could change if Nadal or Djokovic overtake his Slam record) and this is a matter mostly fuelled more by opinion than fact (even if sourced to reliable references). Not to mention another issue with these "greatest" statements are that anyone can reword "one of the greatest" to "the greatest" or vice versa and I must add that before it was considered to remove "greatest player of all time" from the lead and relocate to a legacy section, there were some talks on whether it should be mentioned at the top or bottom of the lead.

And it was also decided that the same applied to Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic's articles and it wasn't a major issue towards the end of last year (with User:Fyunck(click) in particular ensuring the "greatest players" were not mentioned in the lead and kept to Legacy sections), however since Wikipedia users have still been readding this statement from time to time which has become more prominent this year, especially in Roger Federer's article, I later decided to remove the "greatest" statement from the leads of most of the other tennis articles of players considered among the greatest (e.g. John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Venus Williams, Martina Navratilova etc.) in order to maintain consistency for this matter and I added a notice in the Federer, Nadal and Djokovic articles against added such statements in the lead without consensus but even that still didn't stop it getting readded into Roger Federer's articles (User:Hippo43, who was very vocal against these changes to the lead section of Federer's article and endlessly reverted my edits and removed my added notice, said that there was no proper consensus based on the talk page discussions about mentioning "one of the greatest" in the lead). I have looked at the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy carefully and it does state that "greatest" is subjective and somewhat out of place in an encyclopaedia (one of the reasons why Encyclopaedia Britannica in particular avoids these terms) but also states that it can be mentioned as long as prominent people or the general public consider the person as such. while the Manual of Style/Words to watch states that "great" or even "best" are both peacock/puffery terms. I might also note that articles like William Shakespeare, Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Muhammad Ali, Lin Dan etc. have this mentioned without similar issues like what is currently encountered across the tennis player articles which creates another issue here.

With this in regard, the main issue for the tennis player articles to me is that there is no guideline in place within this WikiProject Tennis article for whether subjective or peacock statements like "greatest of all time" can be mention in the lead which means Wikipedia users can do whatever they like with it, and if it still can be mentioned, should it be mentioned in the top or bottom and if it can't be mentioned, should it just be kept to a Legacy section? So due to these endless issues, I propose adding a new Guideline here about adding subjective terms such as this into the lead of tennis articles (e.g. "Should it be mentioned in the lead or kept to a Legacy section?" or "Can it be mentioned in the Lead but maybe kept towards the bottom of the Lead rather than Top?" or "Mention in Top and not Bottom of the Lead" or "He/she is considered one of the greatest, with many considering him/her the greatest tennis player of all time") because to me this is the only way to really help resolve this issue and I invite all tennis fans in Wikipedia to take part in this discussion and give your opinions on the matter until a consensus is hopefully reached on the matter. Many thanks. Broman178 (talk) 17:09, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

RFC - placement of "greatest" in tennis article leads
Shall we place somewhere in the lead of tennis player Roger Federer, and many other tennis players, the sentence "He/She is considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time?" This includes variants on this theme.

There has been back and forth on this issue for a lot of tennis players leads as pretty much every player in the Hall of Fame of tennis history is in this category. In the recent past we have been eliminating any subjective terminology such as this from all tennis bio leads and been putting them in legacy sections of prose of the bio, with sourcing of course. When present, these leads get fought over with wording regularly. "One of the greatest", "the greatest" widely considered the greatest", "some call one of the greatest", etc. Encyclopedias such as Britannica don't use these subjective terms at all with Federer, let alone in the lead. I have found that past players and critics who dole out these subjective headlines to sell papers and magszines, change their minds frequently. It's great for the water cooler but I'm not sure it's great for the lead of biography articles. As long as all tennis player bios are treated the same at wikipedia (such as Rod Laver, Steffi Graf, Helen Wills, Pete Sampras, Chris Evert, Jack Kramer, Bill Tilden, etc...) then I'm ok with whatever decision is made here, however it is probably easier to maintain with no mention in the lead for subjective terms such as "one of the greatest." Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:17, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Survey

 * Oppose as nominator. I think it best to keep "greatest" mentions to player legacy sections further down in prose, not in the lead sections of a player biography. It's more trivial in nature and more baseball-card-fascination than actual fact. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:08, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Support variants, but weak oppose to the specific phrase "one of the greatest of all-time" in most cases for being too vague. This kind of statement should be more specific. Here are some good examples from featured articles of athletes regarded as the best in their respective sports:
 * 1) Babe Ruth: "Ruth is regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture and is considered by many to be the greatest baseball player of all time."
 * 2) Michael Jordan: "His biography on the official NBA website states: 'By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time.'"
 * 3) Wayne Gretzky: "Nicknamed 'The Great One', he has been called 'the greatest hockey player ever' by many sportswriters, players, and the league itself.
 * 4) Don Bradman: "Sir Donald George Bradman, AC, often referred to as 'The Don', was an Australian international cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time."

I agree that it isn't so helpful to just have the phrase "one of the greatest of all-time" in 100 different articles. If this type of statement specified (1) who considers someone the best, (2) what they are the best in, (3) where they are ranked, and/or (4) why they have that ranking, then that would be much more helpful. For example:
 * 1) Roger Federer: Federer has been ranked as the greatest men's tennis player of all-time by Tennis.com.
 * 2) Rafael Nadal: Nadal has been called the "King of Clay" for having the most clay court titles in the Open Era and the most French Open titles in history.
 * 3) John McEnroe: Along with Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors, McEnroe was one of the most dominant male tennis players of his era.
 * 4) Bjorn Borg: Borg is widely considered one of the ten best male tennis players in the history of the sport.

While it may seem biased to call someone the greatest of all-time, it is even more misleading to leave that kind of phrase out. For instance, did the person who cut down Nadal's lead do so to conform to the manual of style, or were they trying to hurt his reputation? Sportsfan77777 (talk) 03:50, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The phrase isn't being left out, just out of the lead. Plus the Borg statement is likely untrue, and Federer statement then should also include the fact that other sources rank him lower. It will cause so many edit wars of tweaking just like it did before. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:26, 13 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Support obviously, subject to policy and guidelines. This should be early in the lead if it is especially significant, as in the examples User:Sportsfan77777 gave. --hippo43 (talk) 22:35, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose Very conflicted over this matter but still I'm more inclined to oppose than support because, yes while policy guidelines lean towards supporting mention of "greatest" mention in articles, mentioning it in the lead potentially in the longer term can lead to the issues which Fyunck(click) mentioned in his statements. However, it can definitely stay in a Legacy section. Broman178 (talk) 09:24, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose Surely any mention of "greatest" is POV, and the relative status of any individual player can easily be judged by his/her tournament record? Deb (talk) 10:53, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * No, mentions of who is considered the greatest, if they are reliably sourced, are consistent with WP:NPOV. See here - WP:SUBJECTIVE, which Broman also linked to above. --hippo43 (talk) 12:49, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Even if sourced, it can only ever be opinion and it certainly doesn't belong in the lead paragraph. Deb (talk) 07:59, 15 August 2019 (UTC
 * According to NPOV, it does belong in the lead, sorry. --hippo43 (talk) 20:35, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I see no support for that statement, and you cannot argue that "is the greatest", even if backed up by references, is the same as "is widely considered the greatest". Deb (talk) 08:43, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I never did argue that. Actually the opposite. Maybe read my comments again? --hippo43 (talk) 21:11, 16 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Support, Bo99 (talk) 13:32, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Support per Sportsfan77777.  on camera  19:59, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Support – Sportsfan raises excellent points. – Levivich 03:47, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I think you may have missed Fyunck(click)'s response. This is not about whether the phrase can be included in the article, but whether it should be in the lead paragraph. Deb (talk) 08:01, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * If it wasn't already clear, I'm clarifying that I did mean it would be misleading to leave that kind of phrase out of the lead specifically. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 09:34, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * , I would argue in favor of the "one thing" test when it comes to leads. If there was one thing, and only one thing, that you could tell someone about a particular topic, what would it be? That should be in the lead (and of course the article). (If there were two things, what would the second thing be? That should be in the lead. And so on.)
 * So, if there was one thing I could tell you about Michael Jordan, it's that he is considered to be the greatest basketball player of all time. Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback. Babe Ruth is the most famous baseball player, if not the greatest (Ted Williams is the greatest hitter, and Nolan Ryan is the greatest pitcher, but I digress...). Pelé is the greatest footballer. All of these should be (and are) in the lead of those articles. It would be a huge omission, in my opinion, if we didn't tell the reader right away that Pelé is known as being one-of-if-not-the greatest soccer players of all time. No different for Federer.
 * I understand the concern Fyunck raises about edit wars of tweaking, but the solution to that can't be that we don't tell the reader the most important thing about a topic, right in the lead of that topic. Leads are hard–really hard–and often subject to a lot of disagreement, and, unfortunately, this is not going to be an exception. But we can't have it any other way. We have to tell our reader that Federer is one of the greatest–it's the "one thing". (That said, of course extraordinary claims require extraordinary sourcing. Any claims of "greatest" would need to be extremely well-sourced.) – Levivich 18:10, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * , I can only say I'm surprised by that. To me, all those examples are pretty subjective. "Considered by many to be the greatest" I might accept, but I think there's usually a better way of expressing it. Sport is far too competitive for most of these statements to be simply accepted as fact. If Babe Ruth really is the most famous baseball player - which is probably true - you'd hardly need to tell the reader that. Pele's intro actually only says "He is widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time". Deb (talk) 18:33, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Funny, I would say the same thing Deb and not put greatest of all time in any of those player leads. I'll bet if you went up to 100 little league 12-13 year olds, none of them would pick Babe Ruth as the most famous. The rest are all really debatable, and while fun to think about, doesn't really belong in the article lead. If I were to pick from that list of six, five of my choices would be different. I actually don't find tennis article leads to be hard at all. Almost all the leads I see are pretty stable without infighting. That's because most players aren't the greatest and don't have that subjective item in the lead. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:20, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's really that subjective at all; I think Jordan, Gretzky, Brady, etc., are considered the greatest players in their fields by overwhelming consensus of reliable sources (not 12–13-year-olds), and also by objective statistics, e.g., the records they hold. And even if "the best" is tough to substantiate, certainly "one of the best" is indisputable. – Levivich 03:12, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I would think there are plenty of sources that disagree with Jordan and Brady, not so much Gretzky. I still see plenty of Joe Montana as goat. And heck, I also see plenty of Wilt Chamberlain votes over Jordan. Even Jordan's teammate Pippin picked Chamberlain. These things are not cut and dry, and to say they are just invites edit wars from those who feel differently. It's water cooler fluff. It is reasonable to say players are among the greatest in their sport. In tennis you'll have plenty. Tilden didn't lose a match one year and won 57 consecutive games. No 1 for many years. Renshaw won Wimbledon 7 times. Budge won a Grand Slam and 6 consecutive majors. Lew Hoad was amazing and Rosewall won more majors than any male player. Kramer, Borg, the Doherty bros, Sampras, Emerson, Wilding, of course Laver... and on and on. The ladies have even more dominant players than the men. It's almost inconceivable how dominant Helen Wills was. Her and Lenglen would be the Wayne Gretzky's of tennis, with numbers so out of reach as to be laughable in ever catching them. I think the numbers speak for themselves without having to add some persons greatness scale to the lead. It's like the poetry greatness scale Robin Williams scoffed at in Dead Poet's Society. But if more editors would like to add greatness sentences to the lead, I'll do what the majority wants. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:47, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * , you said it with the phrase "objective statistics". Objective statistics are given close to the start of the article if not in the lead, and are far preferable to a comment like "he is the greatest [whatever]". Deb (talk) 08:46, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * No one is arguing to include a statement like "he is the greatest [whatever]". --hippo43 (talk) 22:28, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * , you said it with the phrase "objective statistics". Objective statistics are given close to the start of the article if not in the lead, and are far preferable to a comment like "he is the greatest [whatever]". Deb (talk) 08:46, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * No one is arguing to include a statement like "he is the greatest [whatever]". --hippo43 (talk) 22:28, 16 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose far too subjective. — Ched : ?    —  12:59, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose These statements are far too subjective. And in case of players like Federer, Nadal or Djokovic, who are still active and performing to the top level, far too susceptive to ongoing events. A fine example is a 2014 interview with former player Andre Agassi who then considered Nadal "the greatest of all time" which is often use to justify that claim in Nadal's article. Since then however, Federer won another three majors thus becoming the first man who won 20 of these tournaments. Likewise Djokovic has racked up quite a number of major titles since then is now very close to tying Nadal. These are all events that hadn't occurred yet in 2014 and which Agassi could possibly take into account. Needless to say, he has no reaffirmed his 2014 stance since. Therefore these statements are too subjective and basically POV. We really should let our readers make their own assessments of the players' importance.Tvx1 19:37, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think that Agassi quote is a good example - a single quote is not a strong enough source for the statement that "X is (widely) considered the greatest". I don't think anyone here is arguing for including that. A good quality reliable source which said that Nadal was generally considered the greatest would be a different matter altogether. --hippo43 (talk) 21:31, 16 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Support if verifiable that it's a general opinion. Per WP:WEASEL regarding use of considered: The examples above are not automatically weasel words. They may also be used in the lead section of an article or in a topic sentence of a paragraph, and the article body or the rest of the paragraph can supply attribution. Likewise, views that are properly attributed to a reliable source may use similar expressions, if they accurately represent the opinions of the source. Reliable sources may analyze and interpret, but for editors to do so would violate the no original research or neutral point of view policies. I would require sources that have analyzed and made a verifiable statement about who is generally considered [fill in blank]. A statement that it is one person's opinion, or multiple sources each holding the opinion, is not the same as it being a general opinion. General (or the equivalent) needs to be stated explicitly. Finally, it's a given that these statements are subjective. While there are alwasys opponents of a general opinion, that does not preclude a general opinion from being included.—Bagumba (talk) 10:25, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose Even if sources have analyzed and made verifiable statements, "one the greatest" is still subjective and sensitive to ongoing events. Why not just let the awards and stats in the body speak for themselves? Comatmebro (talk) 21:54, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * 'one the greatest' is still subjective: There's nothing wrong with subjective. WP:NPOV does not mean no POV. sensitive to ongoing events: That's why editors update.  For example, we don't say people are not living because they might be dead for days or weeks without an update.—Bagumba (talk) 04:43, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * More like subjective opinion from people who change their minds a couple times a year. It's fun to compare, but should it really be in the lead summarization of articles rather than in some prose legacy section? We can certainly verify a lot of info, but that doesn't make that info the best choice for the lead of a biography. And if you've ever been a part of maintaining these tennis bios, words such as "some", "many", "one of the", or "generally", become fighting words that can be interpreted multiple ways. We sit there through weeks of reverts and finagling, only to wind up back at square one. I'm not saying this is an easy choice for players like Federer, Wills, Laver, Nadal, Tilden, etc... but like Encyclopedia Britannica, I'm not convinced that it is lead-worthy material. Hence the reason I opened this conversation to see what other editors would reasonably conclude for Hall of Fame level players, and whether we should change from keeping those terms out of the lead. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:56, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

 * Comment As I raised this topic in the first place, I can say I'm personally mixed about this whole issue because the term "greatest" was mentioned in articles like Federer's or Nadal's for many years and it is mentioned in the articles (from William Shakespeare) outside the Tennis world which I've listed in my long comment above, and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view states that while terms like "greatest" are subjective and unencyclopaedic, it is appropriate to be featured in the article as long as there are "verifiable public and scholarly critiques" available. On the other hand, Manual of Style/Words to watch mentions that words like "greatest" or "best" are both peacock/puffery words which should both be treated carefully as they both can introduce bias. In any case, its not just whether "greatest of all time" should or shouldn't be featured in the lead, Nadal's "King of Clay" and "greatest Clay court player" were also removed from the lead in his article, which also brings the "greatest of all time" in an individual surface (e.g. Grass, Clay and Hard - Indoor and Outdoor) along with valued nicknames into here. I can say that while I'm conflicted, at the moment I'm leaning a bit towards opposing its mention in the lead because anything featuring "greatest" can indirectly introduce bias and can be reworded according to what other editors prefer in their own opinions as Fyunck(click) mentioned above. Whatever agreement/consensus is reached here, I think a rule on these subjective terms needs to be featured among the WikiProject Tennis article guidelines. Broman178 (talk) 20:53, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * This edit here is an example of why including even "one of the greatest" in the lead can be problematic in the longer term. This is because even if it is sourced to reliable references, other editors can act on their own opinion and reword it according to what they prefer, as User:CharisTra did there before Fyunck reverted it. Broman178 (talk) 08:34, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That's not really problematic though. If consensus is established at an article based on what sources say, and someone changes it, they can be reverted, discuss, etc. Same as any article.
 * Right now, the same thing happens if the statement is left out. People come along and add their preferred version, because some version of it should be in the lead. This really isn't a special case. I think Sportsfan77777's examples above are useful. --hippo43 (talk) 12:23, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That's your opinion and it doesn't change my views. I still am more inclined to oppose than support it, though if the majority support its mention, I am okay with that. Broman178 (talk) 13:56, 17 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment Leads should summarize the articles. I think the leads could include "greatest" or "one of the greatest" if it's well sourced, nicknames (King of Clay is well-known), endorsement information, playing style and business ventures if it relates to the sport, using the featured article Michael Jordan as an example. I don't think Federer's or Nadal's article leads properly summarize their articles since (some of) that stuff is missing. Then again, neither are featured articles. Milos Raonic is a featured article and it has borderline nicknames listed in the lead ("the real deal", "a new star", part of "a new generation", and "a future superstar") so I don't know where the line is being drawn with subjective terms in the lead. *Shrug* I tried to update Nadal's article so it summarizes the article, but the info was deleted back to its current condition. Does Wikipedia Tennis exist in its vacuum where the lead doesn't summarize the contents? I suppose I could take that up on the talkpage of his article lol  on camera  22:46, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * But in summarizing of course some of the stuff is missing... that's what summarizing is. You don't include a players family in the lead, even though it could be important in the family section. You don't write about the racket manufacturer or coach in the lead either. And something as water-cooler fun as the level of greatness is more a trivia item, and while sometimes important enough to be included in the article, is probably not best in the lead. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:11, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Sure, not everything needs to be summarized in the article, but their articles are still lacking in comparison to others. And back to the main topic, featured articles Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, Babe Ruth, Jim Thorpe, all include some variant of GOAT of their respective sport. I don't understand this vacuum Wikipedia Tennis lives in where it's soOoOo subjective to call a player like Federer the GOAT or even "one of the GOAT".  on camera  23:30, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Probably for the same reason other encyclopedias don't do it. Plus we have readers scratching their heads at all the tennis player goats over a 150 years of the sport. Every decade we add another goat to the mens and womens articles. Every year we add another "one of the goats" to the same. It gets confusing. Plus the retired players and sportscasters calling players the greatest, change their minds every other Grand Slam tournament. It's not reliable. But as I said, if everyone loves these things at the tops of articles, so be it, as long as all tennis players get the same courtesy as Federer. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:06, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Sure, spread the GOAT love around and added it to where it's warranted.  on camera  00:20, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment Agree completely with User:Sportsfan77777 and User:Oncamera. They make great points. Tennis is not a special case. Wikipedia has policies and guidelines in place which cover this question just fine.


 * User:Broman178, your comments about Britannica are irrelevant and untrue. Irrelevant because we are not discussing writing for Britannica. And untrue because Britannica uses the term "greatest" all the time. Maybe you didn't actually look at many of their articles? For example: Shakespeare - "considered by many to be the greatest dramatist of all time", Gretzky - "was considered by many to be the greatest player in the history of the NHL", Jordan - "widely considered to be the greatest all-around player in the history of the game" etc.


 * In addition, Britannica has published related articles that would not survive scrutiny on Wikipedia - The 10 Greatest Basketball Players of All Time for example.


 * We are not really talking about subjective statements at all. It is not subjective to say that "X is widely considered to be the greatest player of all time" if reliable sources state that X is "widely considered" to be the greatest. If a reliable source says "X is the greatest", then including that in the article without any attribution would be subjective.


 * Further, your misreading of WP:NPOV is a concern. To quote it at some length:


 * "Aesthetic opinions are diverse and subjective—we might not all agree about who the world's greatest soprano is. However, it is appropriate to note how an artist or a work has been received by prominent experts and the general public. For instance, the article on Shakespeare should note that he is widely considered to be one of the greatest authors in the English language. Articles should provide an overview of the common interpretations of a creative work, preferably with citations to experts holding that interpretation. Verifiable public and scholarly critiques provide useful context for works of art."


 * This policy simply does not support leaving out well-sourced opinions of experts.


 * WP:PEACOCK likewise is clear: "Instead of making unprovable proclamations about a subject's importance, use facts and attribution to demonstrate that importance." No serious editor here is suggesting that we include unprovable proclamations.


 * User:Fyunck(click), you have introduced some red herrings, which are not helpful.


 * First, statements of opinion by sports commentators or ex-players, even magazine opinion pieces, are irrelevant. They are not reliable sources.


 * Next, edit warring. The fact that these are contentious issues does not mean they should be buried in a later section. That is what page protection is for. The fact that a lot of editors have kept adding this to the Federer article for a long time just shows that people disagree with your view, and there has never been consensus to keep it out.


 * Next, the GOAT changes over time. This is true. All sporting records also change over time. Articles need to be updated as things change. This is not a problem at all. We just stick with what reliable sources say.


 * Finally, "all tennis players should be treated the same". On this we agree, at least insofar as all players' articles should be based on what reliable sources say, and consistent with policy. What the sources say about Federer, for example, is different to what they say about Borg, or whoever, and the articles need to reflect that. --hippo43 (talk) 23:26, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You keep talking about "leaving opinions out" of the article. That is patently false. Those opinions are in the article in a legacy section. As for your edit warring, that is policy and you subjugated it by putting the cart before the horse in discussing, demanding it stay until discussed. That is unacceptable. Next, statements by sports experts are not irrelevant as long they are presented in context and properly sourced. You also mention that we shouldn't include "unprovable proclamations" about a player's importance. Well, trying to rank the level of a player's importance is unprovable. It is extremely subjective opinion to say so-and-so is ahead of what-his-name on the greatness scale. Is there a place for it in the article? Sure there is. Should it be in the lead? That's very debatable. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:55, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Where do I "keep talking about "leaving opinions out" of the article"?? I don't think I ever wrote that.
 * "Unprovable proclamations" basically means "unverifiable statements". We have a policy - WP:V - which covers this very well.
 * You are right that it is subjective to say X is greater than Y, but again you have missed the point. It is not subjective to say that "X is considered to be greater than Y" if reliable sources say that "X is considered to be greater than Y". --hippo43 (talk) 12:44, 14 August 2019 (UTC)


 * And another thing. I don't know whether you are a member of Tennis Project or not, but I am and I have to handle ALL these "greatest" additions all the time. I go through all the edit wars of the tiniest little changes. Djokovik is the greatest, Nadal is the greatest, Federer is the greatest, Williams is the greatest, etc... It has been much quieter since the removal of this item in the lead. I sure hope you will be sticking around to handle all the issues that "will" come up with their reintroduction. As I originally said long ago, I favored a simple "one of the greatest" in players leads but was overruled a couple times. That's cool as I can go with the flow, but it actually has helped keep things quieter as far as edit warring. If it changes to including it, again that's cool, but I sure hope that everyone defends the additions to all the articles and keeps check on the wording and edit warring that may begin again. So many times in the past there have been hit and run change that leave a very few project members the unenviable task of cleanup. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:11, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, being a member of the tennis project does not give you some special status. Anyone is free to edit these articles, or not. No one is forcing you to "handle ALL these "greatest" additions all the time". Articles change as the facts change. If sources emerge which contradict earlier ones, we have to deal with it as editors. If people disagree about a particular article, there are mechanisms for handling it. We don't make decisions on what to include based on what is convenient for you. --hippo43 (talk) 12:44, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Never said there was some privilege with Tennis Project. But dealing with hundreds of such articles is part of the deal that you don't seem to care about. You can complain about the Roger Federer article, change things by edit warring, and then run away and hide from the tennis world, and just leave it to others to handle the later edit wars and crap. I don't do that. I try to listen to everyone and then come up with something that will actually work to some degree. You're right, no one is forcing me to do that. I could let any chaos just go on and on. But in being a member of the Tennis Project I take a certain responsibility to tennis readers and my tennis editing peers. And those "mechanisms for handling it" you mentioned, are the very mechanisms you went and broke. Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:54, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Again, you're arguing for your own convenience. If random people want to insert new stuff into the lead, they will do that in any case, whatever we agree here. Your opinion does not count for more because you are volunteering to spend more time on this than others might.
 * You broke with policy by dishonestly writing that consensus had been reached for your view. That was clearly untrue. Being part of the Tennis project does not exempt you from the broader consensus that already exists (WP:NPOV, WP:LEAD etc). You disagree about the significance of these statements, but your opinion is not widely shared. --hippo43 (talk) 20:48, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That's a load of condensed all-soup and you know it. You may have gotten away with your non-guideline edits, but that doesn't make it right. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:08, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You're not making a lot of sense. The policies I cited above make it right. --hippo43 (talk) 00:48, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * If you think that you can keep on reverting multiple editors just because you feel there are policies, dream on. It may have worked here, but I feel a 3RRR block will be coming your way if that continues in other articles. Good luck to you though. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:17, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * LOL... never mind, I see you have already been blocked 11x for edit warring and 3RRRs. I'm sure it will happen again. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:38, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I respect what you have stated Hippo43 but I have to respectfully disagree with your statement that I misread the WP:NPOV policy because contrary to you saying you believed I mentioned leaving well-sourced opinions out - "This policy simply does not support leaving out well-sourced opinions of experts.", I definitely did mention in my comments above that "greatest" statements can be mentioned if supported by well sourced opinions by experts: "but also states that it can be mentioned as long as prominent people or the general public consider the person as such" (I only believe they should be left out if there aren't any reliable sources to support it's mention) and "it is appropriate to be featured in the article as long as there are "verifiable public and scholarly critiques" available" although since it gave you the impression I misread it (if I said above "greatest" statements can be removed, I mean from the lead as long as it's in a Legacy section, not whole article), maybe I could have worded that better in my comments, and since you quoted most of that paragraph in that WP:NPOV policy, I might as well quote the first sentences of that paragraph in WP:NPOV because you didn't mention them in your quoted comment: "Wikipedia articles about art and other creative topics (e.g., musicians, actors, books, etc.) have a tendency to become effusive. This is out of place in an encyclopedia.".
 * And also while you claim the articles you mentioned in Britannica (The 10 Greatest Basketball Players of All Time, Shakespeare etc.) feature greatest in them, yes that is true but it doesn't change the fact that some of the tennis articles in Britannica (Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic) have avoided using the term "greatest of all time" or even "greatest". And while its your opinion if you believe the comparison with Britannica is irrelevant, you can't just say its entirely "my comments on Britannica" when it was mainly Fyunck(click) who made the comparisons with Britannica in the first place. If most people support the mention of "greatest" in the Tennis article leads, I am okay with that as long as there is a new guideline here to support it, but having experienced those problems myself over the last year, I also agree with Fyunck(click) that it's mention in the lead can potentially create problems later on which is the reason why despite my mixed opinion, I am more inclined to oppose its mention in the lead (as long as it's still mentioned in a Legacy section) then support it. Broman178 (talk) 08:58, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I find it hard to understand what you're saying with these really long sentences. You are right, it wasn't just you that mentioned Britannica. --hippo43 (talk) 12:44, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Its not that hard to understand if you read it carefully but anyway, I'll summarise my above comment a bit for you. I do disagree with your claim that I misread that policy because I did mention that policy states if reliably sourced, mention of "greatest" can be included in an article. Though I maybe didn't word it that well which gave you the impression I misread it. However, while I believe it can be included in an article if supported by reliable sources, I can understand Fyunck's points that mentioning it in the lead can be problematic in the longer term which is why it could be more suitable in just a legacy section. And also, even though some Britannica articles (e.g. The 10 Greatest Basketball Players of All Time) feature "greatest" in them, it still is true that some of the tennis articles there (e.g.Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic) have avoided using the term "greatest of all time" or even "greatest". Hope thats easier for you to understand and you can disagree all you like, but I still stand by my points that while my opinion is mixed, I'm more inclined to oppose than support these mentions. Though if the majority support this mention in the lead, then I will accept the consensus given here and add a new guideline here about it. Broman178 (talk) 09:07, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Comment: Many of User:Sportsfan77777's comments above are sensible, but one of the examples cited: "Sir Donald George Bradman, AC, often referred to as 'The Don', was an Australian international cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time" strikes me as a particularly bad one. The word "acknowledged" means that you accept a fact. "Widely believed to be" might be acceptable, but not the present wording, which implies universal acceptance. Yes, Bradman has come top of polls, and yes, in terms of his test average he is way ahead of anyone else, but there are many other candidates for the title, especially bearing in mind the limited competition Bradman was up against at the time he was playing. One day Tests, which would certainly have lowered his average, didn't even exist until 1971. Better to say that "He has the best batting averages of all time in Test and first-class cricket" and let the reader decide whether that makes him the greatest batsman ever". Deb (talk) 08:14, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * My point is that all four of those examples have faced intense scrutiny and survived. In Bradman's case, the article underwent a peer review and a FAC review. The question about the neutrality of that sentence was raised by Tony (who was a very harsh FAC reviewer), and it was discussed here. In the end, the wording of "widely acknowledged" was agreed upon to satisfy NPOV based on the sources they had by about a dozen editors (between from the Cricket project and FAC reviewers), and passed with no opposition. That doesn't mean a similar statement is true for another athlete, but it is was found to be justifiable in Bradman's case. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 09:41, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I know zero about cricket so I can't comment on Mr Bradman's prowess. I can say that there are always exceptions... nothing should be etched in stone. But exceptions should be of the 6-mile meteor hitting the earth rarity. In sports, the only player I can think of with that type of assuredness is Wayne Gretzky. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:33, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Now before the current comfort zone of no mentioning subjective greatness in the lead, there was an RFC at the Rod Laver talk page that also encompassed all tennis players. It was a small RFC but the decision at that time was "has been described as one of the greatest players of all time" is appropriate for articles as not being too out there in it's subjectivity. This came about because past generation players were being treated unfairly compared with current era players. That happens all too often with younger editors feeling current era is always best (ceib). It was discussed that the first paragraph of the lead with that was not too good... somewhere near the bottom was best. I still think that subjective thoughts of old players and newscasters don't really belong in the lead (it makes us more tabloid than encyclopedic), but as long as we follow the same pattern for all players that was decided in the Rod Laver RfC, then 40-50 men and 40-50 female players with that sentence near the bottom of the lead can be handled. Of course if it changes if would really help if others chip in when troubles arise. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:02, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Again, Fyunck(click), this is simply dishonest. The RfC on Rod Laver did not reach consensus at all that this should be at the bottom of the lead. In fact, users Meatsgains, Scolaire, Zerilous and Aircorn all explicitly supported keeping the sentence at the start of the lead. No one supported moving it to the end of the lead section.
 * Second, I don't see any support for having the same text in 80-100 articles. Reliable sources treat players differently, so the articles have to reflect what sources say in each case, as in Sportsfan77777's examples above. --hippo43 (talk) 00:48, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I didn't see that at all. But yes, 100 articles will have it because it can be sourced. I have a lot of newspaper articles that tell me so. With 150 years of tennis there will be many. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:12, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Again, no one has argued to include the "subjective thoughts of old players and newscasters" in the lead, or to include statements based on a single newspaper article. You are arguing against a straw man. --hippo43 (talk) 21:23, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Well so far I don't see a consensus for change from the status quo. I tried to get more eyes on this from outside projects but they seem uninterested. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:13, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * There is no status quo. Lots of users have put "greatest" and other variants in the lead of plenty of different articles, and lots of other users keep removing it. That's why we're having this RfC. The last established consensus was that "has been described as one of the greatest players of all time is appropriate" in the Rod Laver RfC. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 08:36, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually the articles where most of the problems have occurred (Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Williams) have been greatest of all time free for over a year I think. Only minor issues since, mostly with anon IPs till this go around. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:02, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The last time I checked, those weren't the only players affected by this RfC. And there has been one major issue of course: that this info shouldn't be removed from the lead. That's what was decided in the last RfC. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 15:56, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * This is true... a hundred articles could be affected. These several articles, because they are current players, have just born the brunt of sparring over the terminology, especially "goat" battles. It's been much calmer for a year. I'm not saying that keeping things to some form of "one of the greatest" wouldn't work, but we'd all have to be diligent in our article patrolling. I do feel that its placement in the lead would be better towards the bottom, as a final roundup of the summary. But I still don't see the info as being very encyclopedic. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:43, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @Sportsfan77777 Since you just reverted some of the changes I made for the lead section in a few Tennis player articles (e.g. Jimmy Connors, Margeret Court), I would definitely suggest you do the same for all the other Tennis player articles in which GOAT statements were removed from the lead because it would help keep the consistency rather than revert a few I changed just because consensus wasn't made. I'm not changing it myself unless there is a consensus in this Rfc as I'm more for opposing this mention than supporting it. Broman178 (talk) 11:57, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Considering there hasn't been a single update to this survey/discussion for nearly a month, looks like there won't be any consensus generated out of this as it currently seems to be a tie between supporting and opposing mention of terms like "greatest" in the lead and hardly anyone seems to be interested in adding further to this conversation (unless I'm proven wrong after this point) which is a real shame as I really hoped this would finally solve the problems the tennis player articles have faced over the last year through generating a consensus which we can all agree on. Broman178 (talk) 08:15, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool
Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:25, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Overall Win-Loss
Hello guys! Can someone tell me where you find information about correct score of Win-Loss for some player? Talking about ATP players, I found that information on their official site, but what about WTA players? So far, I used to count number of w/l manually, but it takes a lot of time. And if there is not a information about w/l score, can someone tell me what are all included for that "Overal Win-Loss"? Ex. Somewhere I find that Fed Cup's results are included, somewhere not. Thanks for the answer. JamesAndersoon 12:35, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Doesn't the WTA have that info right up front on the player's overview? Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:11, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I do see the issue I think you are referring to. Looking at Ashley Barty at the WTA, they have her overall record as 236-89, which must include her non-WTA tour events also (ITF/qualifying). Her actual record that I can tell is 136-61 which includes all WTA tour sanctioned events (WTA tour/Grand Slam tournaments/Fed Cup). Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:10, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Correct way of writing Finals achived in both ATP/WTA tour
Hello guys/girls! If I understand right, this is main page for tennis guidlines? I think it's enough of this childish games, and let's people finally deside how this will be. I have other things to do, so don't want to spend time undoing someone's edits, and they also mine. If you ask me, I also think it's kinda ridicoulous to call Luxembourg Open, Luxembourg instead maybe Luxembourg Open only, or Morocco Open, Morocco instead of Morocco Open, Fes. I also saw that when I write ex. Italian Open, Italy people correct me it should be Italian Open, Rome, but when I corrected it to Italian Open, Rome, someone corrected it back. I really don't have problem with both options, but it will be nice if we will defined it once for all. I Invite some of you, that I know I used to arguied about this, and other stuffs. If you know someone else that has some opinion about this, invite them. So, please, declare yourself about this, if you want, reather then only arguing in comments of edits. Thanks :)
 * Pretty basic here. We always use "countries only" so it's uniform. We used to have tables all over the place... states, cities, countries, provinces, etc... There can also be problems with table widths getting wider and wider and tough er fit across a screen. It's why we settled for countries only and they are required. If readers really need more than that it will usually be in the tournament link. It is specifically spelled out in the Tennis Project Guidelines as "The common tournament title should always be used along with its host country (e.g. Australian Open, Australia)." Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:11, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Pretty basic here. We always use "countries only" so it's uniform. We used to have tables all over the place... states, cities, countries, provinces, etc... There can also be problems with table widths getting wider and wider and tough er fit across a screen. It's why we settled for countries only and they are required. If readers really need more than that it will usually be in the tournament link. It is specifically spelled out in the Tennis Project Guidelines as "The common tournament title should always be used along with its host country (e.g. Australian Open, Australia)." Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:11, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:ITF junior profile
Template:ITF junior profile has been nominated for merging with Template:ITF profile. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Iffy★Chat -- 11:41, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

IMPORTANT - WTA changed its link again
Unless it's a temporary thing, none of our female players links to the WTA will work anymore. ITF and Fed Cup links still work. Is there a way to fix this at our WTA template? Fyunck(click) (talk) 11:13, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
 * They used to link to: http://www.wtatennis.com/player-profile/######
 * Now we need a link to: https://www.wtatennis.com/players/######/jane-doe
 * For Chinese players, they've swapped the name order from the order Wikipedia uses. See Wang Qiang for an example. Iffy★Chat -- 11:18, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes they have. A fine stew they created, but I'm hoping some talented wikipedia coder will be able to fix things. Fyunck(click) (talk)
 * I found another issue, Carla Suárez Navarro gets converted to carla-su-rez-navarro but Anna Karolína Schmiedlová is anna-karolina-schmiedlova because the WTA doesn't use her diatrics. I doubt this is going to be as easy as just fixing the template. Iffy★Chat -- 16:14, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I've filed a bot request Bot_requests that should fix this problem for most players. For the Chinese players, I've got those sorted in my list, but the diactrics issue will have to be resolved manually. Iffy★Chat -- 20:39, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
 * If 90% get fixed and the rest we have to do manually, that's better than nothing. The diacritics issue is for all of tennis since their ruling in 1924 that pretty much said all names must be in English. That and sourcing is why I always pushed for the article titles to do the same, but that ship sailed. We'll just deal with it as best we can. What happens if you put in anna-karolína-schmiedlová as the link? Does it go to dead space? Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:00, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Yep, anna-karolína-schmiedlová 404's. Iffy★Chat -- 07:44, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Note : The corresponding section on Wikidata.--Kacir 13:01, 14 November 2019 (UTC)


 * The ITF have changed their URLs too, so none of our female tennis players currently have working URLs. See wikidata:Property talk:P599. I'll check what format we need the IDs for the new URLs when I get back home. Iffy★Chat -- 13:45, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Just as a note in case this was overlooked, the ITF IDs have been changed for all players, so this is also now a problem with the male players. Adamtt9 (talk) 16:08, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Tournament results URLs are also changed.--Wolbo (talk) 23:18, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * It does seem that player URLs are automatically converted to the new URLs but for some (e.g. Navratilova) it results in an error page.--Wolbo (talk) 19:55, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Sports reviewing idea
I've floated some ideas in the hope of increasing participation for FAC reviews of sports related articles at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports if anyone is interested in the idea or has a better one. Kosack (talk) 09:48, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

New bot to remove completed infobox requests
Hello! I have recently created a bot to remove completed infobox requests and am sending this message to WikiProject Tennis since the project currently has a backlogged infobox request category. Details about the task can be found at Bots/Requests for approval/PearBOT 2, but in short it removes all infobox requests from articles with an infobox, once a week. To sign up, reply with and tell me if any special considerations are required for the Wikiproject. For example: if only a specific infobox should be detected, such as infobox journal for WikiProject Academic Journals; or if an irregularly named infobox such as starbox begin should be detected. Feel free to ask if you have any questions!

Sent on behalf of Trialpears (talk) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:34, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

ATP Cup teams/countries
Isn't the country link should be the national team like Spain Davis Cup team instead of the whole country. See in e.g. 2018 FIFA World Cup. I suggest to change Template:ATP Cup box to a format like in Template:Hopman Cup box so that the countries as a whole no longer associated to the tournament but instead the team representing each of them. Flix11 (talk) 09:42, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Alexandra Eala
There is a deletion discussion taking place at Articles for deletion/Alexandra Eala that you guys may be interested in participating in. Adamtt9 (talk) 02:34, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Collapsible legend boxes?
We have an editor systematically turning the legends for things like "career finals" into collapsed boxes. Our guidelines currently always show the legends to help our readers. Personally I think it's helpful for our readers to see a legend at least once, with subsequent equivalent occurrences left either collapsed or not. But that's one layman's preference. I'm flexible but the question is always, what is best for our readers, both young and old alike? Should we always show them...show them the first time...always collapse them? Any thoughts on whether we should alter the guidelines to accommodate collapsed legend tables? Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:10, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm sitting here looking over many players and their legend boxes. Change probably won't happen, but my thoughts follow. Our legend box isn't really only a legend, it also often has a player's mini court record in it. A legend should be just that... a legend only, just like our performance timeline doesn't have records. You'd only need the un-collapsed legend one time with all the event colors, so our readers could quickly see the different levels of events. We wouldn't need a legend for every discipline as it would already have been shown. The ITF section would need a legend and the WTA section would need a legend, but we wouldn't need one for each singles and doubles and mixed within those sections. Things other than an actual legend could easily be collapsible and collapsed. That would be the "finals by surface" and "finals by setting" boxes. That info is already in the table below it and it's why we have the tables sortable. They are simply a convenience box so a reader doesn't have to count. Anyway, those are some musings as to how I would have done things with a clean slate. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:30, 25 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I also oppose it, mainly because of the records in the boxes. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 21:42, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Guideline updates - mostly minor - on main page timelines
A long while back now (per requests) I made some minor updates to the guidelines. Mainly just conforming ATP and WTA charts so they were the same. I had listed the items on the guideline talk page when I did it, for scrutiny sake. I wanted to make sure they were ok even if they were minor. No complaints so I pretty much forgot about it. Today one item was reverted. And of course that was one item I missed when explaining the update. The revert today was a bit tardy but I'm ok with it. I was simply following the usual bottom chart we use for all main pages when there is also a player career stats article. We use the simple chart at the bottom of the WTA performance timeline example and keep the heavy duty charts on the career stats page. That's one of the reasons we have a career stats page. We want the front article chart short and simple. That chart is the type we used in one of our best featured articles with Milos Raonic. I had tweaked the wording to conform with that standard table we use on main articles. I thought it no big deal at the time. We may have actually discussed it years ago but I haven't had time to look.

Since it was just reverted a few minutes ago I thought we should discuss before keeping the clarification removed or putting it back. Any thoughts? Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:15, 28 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Having one line for the year-end rankings doesn't prevent the chart from being short and simple. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 05:30, 28 January 2020 (UTC)


 * No, but if you check the talk archives you can find many examples going back a decade that the main page of players only contains a Grand Slam tournament table. It's been talked about way before now. I simply clarified the instructions for editors asking about creating new articles. And it's not just year-end-ranking that get added. And it's not just one line looking at what you just reverted again at the Ashleigh Barty article. Its long-standing chart was a standard grand slam only chart yet you just reverted it again to your new version without discussion. That is not the way it is supposed to work here. If you change something and it gets reverted to the longstanding version you bring it to talk to change minds. You haven't done that. And it's not just one line. Looking at the Ashleigh Barty example it's four extra lines, and other editors may now add more. In fact, look what you just did to Dayana Yastremska's article. You added even more rows of titles and finals. That is WAY over the top. When will it stop? It's one thing to discuss potential changes here and get others to agree. It's another to force it upon us. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:51, 28 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I agree with keeping the timelines on the main articles as they were. I really can't see the benefit of the proposed added information. In any case Sportsfan77777 should stop changing these timelines without a consensus to do so.Tvx1 22:42, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Why we should have the year-end rankings in the main page performance timelines
Fyunck and I have been discussing what to include in the main page performance timelines. Currently, the example ATP performance timeline in the guidelines has the year-end rankings on the main page. At the moment, some players have them on their main pages, and some players don't.

Why should we include the rankings? To answer that, you have to think about what a reader would want to use the performance timelines for. Most readers probably use the timelines to figure out which years a player was playing the best in their career, and when they weren't. Unfortunately, you can't always tell that from just a player's Grand Slam results. For example, Wozniacki was No. 1 for two years when she didn't reach a Grand Slam singles final. She also finished outside the top 5 in one of the years where she did have a US Open runner-up finish. The rankings give that away. The Grand Slam tournaments aren't the only thing that is important.

Having the year-end rankings doesn't make the chart that much more complicated. What are everyone's thoughts? Sportsfan77777 (talk) 05:37, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually we don't seem to be discussing it, you are forcing the change without discussion.... big difference. And this is being discussed right above... why the new section? Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:53, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't think it was worth it to discuss having the rankings in the charts, if they are already in the guidelines. If you want to discuss whether we should keep them with the whole project, then we can do that. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 06:02, 28 January 2020 (UTC)


 * And those charts for ATP and WTA were always interchangeable. They were examples of charts we use, but that was also before we really had player career statistics articles. When that happened we tend to only use a Grand Slam tournament chart on the main page and leave the rest for the career stats page. You are now adding year-end championships, totals wins, finals.... look what you just did today at Dayana Yastremska's article. That isn't just a yec. Please don't mass-change anymore of those tables tables. The small tables are required on all player main pages and to start making them different on all our articles is a problem. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:59, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The small gs only chart comes up as commonly known all the time. We were discussing creating a framework module in 2018, instead of hard coding the performance charts. The small chart for the main page was discussed then. Had we gone with that code written in LUA you wouldn't be able to change the "gs only" chart at all. We didn't do it because there were other issues with the coding and it wasn't flexible enough. But we were trying for two charts only... a main page gs only chart and a full chart for the career stats page. Those are the defacto standards here. The question is, should we change consensus to add 5 extra rows like you just did to Ashleigh Barty's chart? because when you add a new subject row now you also have to add a "Grand Slam tournament" row, a "Year end Championship row, and a "Career statistics" row, to separate the new topics. Standard today is sic total rows. Doubling the size when it's already on the career statistics page doesn't sound correct to me. And remember, the small chart is only if they also have a large chart on the career stats page. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:29, 28 January 2020 (UTC)


 * So certainly we can change the standard gs only main page chart, though I'm not sure we should. The one we should stick with is the one on our "featured article" Milos Raonic or a "good" article like Petra Kvitová, and for the rare great player who really warrants it we would add a small yec chart like we do here at Novak Djokovic. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:02, 28 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't understand why you want the Grand Slam performance timeline at all if it repeats the information in the big performance timeline on the career statistics page? Sportsfan77777 (talk) 01:30, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I also don't understand why you think it is within the guidelines to have the YEC chart on the main page, but not the year-end rankings? Sportsfan77777 (talk) 01:30, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It actually is not within guidelines to have a yec chart, but with discussions on certain players we went with consensus to keep it. I probably voted against it but I often get outvoted so no big deal. That's how it works. As for having the simple chart, per longstanding consensus, when a separate article is split off we kept the absolute most important item on the frontpiece... the item 90% of our readers care about or have heard of... the Grand Slam events. It seemed important enough to be a requirement on all tennis bios. We have to make exceptions of course, particularly with older historical figures, but it is a staple that has worked. It has worked for our featured articles and good articles. I see no reason to change it, but that's why I started a discussion about it above this one. Fyunck(click) (talk) 01:45, 29 January 2020 (UTC)


 * And once you start adding one thing it's like dominoes. You have added two headings and year-end championships on one article and a couple of career statistic rows on another. Someone else will say that the Olympics are more important that the yecs, or perhaps Davis Cup. And if two career stats are ok, why not four? It is very tight and simple to include the results of our four biggest events by (far). It's what most of our readers look for. To be honest I think the performance timeline is the most important chart we have at Tennis Project and I'm often dismayed that it often gets put far down the page. When we start a career section I think it should be at or near the very top. Lately I've been seeing it placed below exhibition matches (which should always be near the very bottom of a bio since they are nothing official). Fyunck(click) (talk) 01:56, 29 January 2020 (UTC)


 * the item 90% of our readers care about or have heard of... the Grand Slam events. <<<=== This is what I'm worried about. We're making it look like the Grand Slam tournament results are the only thing that matters. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 02:52, 29 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I'm often dismayed that it often gets put far down the page. When we start a career section I think it should be at or near the very top. <<<=== I don't like (clarifying edit: that the performance timeline is too hard to find on the career statistics page) either. This is part of why I'm advocating adding more to the main page performance timelines. I don't want force any to look through the career statistics page for basic information. I know how much I hate doing that. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 02:52, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, like it or not, I would guess that the Grand Slam events are far and away the only thing many readers care about. However, the prose takes care of all the highlights, not just the Majors. As for the placement of the performance timeline, I guess we just have a big disagreement on how important it is. It's not more important than prose, but once you start throwing up a bunch of charts it should head the list. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:39, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I meant I agree with you that the performance timeline should be at the top of the career statistics page. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 04:49, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Gotcha. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:14, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

ITF Question
Is it necessary to put ITF with the tournament name? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexa_Noel as an example. It seems repetitive to me. It is listed under "ITF Circuit finals". Why put ITF Cancún, Mexico instead of just Cancún, Mexico? Isn't it implied these are all ITF tournaments? We don't put WTA next to every tournament when listing someone's WTA wins. Michfan2123 (talk) 09:56, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
 * However, Cancun or Cancun, Mexico is not the name of the event... it is the name of the city the event takes place in. By the ITF, the Cancun event is called "W15 Cancun." Some titles get more elaborate, but remember these are actually non-notable events. None of them (35k or below) have a wikipedia article because they are the minor-minor league of pro tennis. We always try and put the tournament name in the tournament name column, not the city and since most of the event names are variations on each other we decided the best course for our readers was to simply put ITF Cancun, Mexico (basically just short for The ITF Tournament in Cancun). A quick column glance will leave no doubt that you are looking at a minior-minor league ITF event. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:00, 31 January 2020 (UTC)


 * This makes sense, thanks man. Michfan2123 (talk) 10:44, 1 February 2020
 * No problem. Tennis is very tricky with its major/minor/minor-minor league tours, sponsored names, event name changes, events considered the same even when moved 1000 miles away, Open Era, challenge round era, pro vs amateur events, clay courts/sand courts/wood courts... its mind boggling even for someone with a lot of knowledge on the subject. Trying to convey it quickly to a reader of this encyclopedia to give them the info they need, without their eyes glazing over, is tough. We do the best we can. Thanks for the query and welcome. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:58, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
 * So true. Good to be in the mindset though of how can we make this as understandable as possible for the average reader. Michfan2123 (talk) 9:12, 2 February 2020

Infobox guidelines
Hello all, are we able to establish a guideline for how we list the dates for current and highest rankings in the infoboxes? JamesAndersoon (talk) is determined to shorten everything to Feb from February for example. His justification seems to be that the WTA Final's tables shortens the month, so infoboxes should too (I have no problem shortening the month in the Final's tables, I think it makes sense). I have never seen infoboxes shorten months in tennis or golf, except for when he does it. 99.9% of articles do not shorten the month. If people disagree with me then that is fine and we don't need a guideline but this just seems so silly to me. Any input is appreciated. michfan2123 (talk) 12:36, 4 February 2020 (UTC) Michfan2123 (talk) 7:33, 4 February 2020
 * Agree. It's better that anyone said their oppinion, to know what we are on. - JamesAndersoon (talk) 12:59, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I would say personally that the month shouldn't be shortened. No real reason to shorten it as it doesn't clutter up the infobox anyway. Adamtt9 (talk) 14:28, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Expression of prize money in infobox
Hello to everybody! I'm forcing to change ex. $400,000 into US$400,000 but it seems that someone users are against it. Some higher-ranked player (actually a lot of them) have US$ instead of $. I think it's better to habe US$ as some kind of full-form version of american dollar, cuz as soon as I know, prize money is expressed as american dollar?? What do you guys think? - JamesAndersoon (talk) 12:59, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't feel strongly either way. michfan2123 (talk) 16:17, 4 February 2020 (UTC) Michfan2123 (talk) 11:17, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not really particular about this either. I do kinda like how it is done on Roger Federer article with a simple mouseover (like this $129,231,891 ) that tells you it's in US dollars. It looks a bit cleaner to me. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:59, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Tnx, probably the best solution. :) - JamesAndersoon (talk) 20:27, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

ITF External Links
Hi all, sorry for blowing up this page recently haha. I have noticed in external links some players have a link to their ITF profile, as well as their ITF junior profile. Not sure if this used to lead you to different pages, but it appears that right now it leads you to the same page. Should we go ahead and delete all of the links to the ITF junior pages? Once you are on a player's ITF page it lets you toggle between Womens and Girls or Mens and Boys. See Alison Riske's external links for one example. michfan2123 (talk) 16:16, 4 February 2020 (UTC) Michfan2123 (talk) 11:14, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * On old version of ITF's page, it used to have separete junior and senior profile. With new version of this site, as soon as I saw, there are junior profile, only for juniors, but it is removed for senior players. - JamesAndersoon (talk) 16:26, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I opened a TfD discussion which closed with a consensus to merge the 2 templates, but this hasn't happened yet. Iffy★Chat -- 16:41, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * For sure, yea I guess keep us updated. michfan2123 (talk) 13:42, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

European infoboxes and Britain
I am updating the top European players template, should Konta and other British players still be included after Brexit? I am leaning towards yes as it is still in process but not really sure. michfan2123 (talk) 12:49, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, in this case, European refers to the continent of Europe, not to the European Union, so yes, the UK is still in Europe. Adamtt9 (talk) 12:52, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * And more specifically to Tennis Europe, which is not related to the EU at all. Iffy★Chat -- 13:01, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * True, thanks y'all. michfan2123 (talk) 13:42, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

2020 Fed Cup Qualifying Round
Shouldn't this page be called 2020 Fed Cup World Group Play-offs per past years pages? michfan2123 (talk) 13:07, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * No. The World Group Play-offs is a different round. That will feature the losers of the Qualifying round versus the winners of the Zone 1 groups. Also there was different format in previous years.Tvx1 18:12, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Ah got it, my mistake, thanks. michfan2123 (talk) 01:31, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

ATP Tour 250 is "too big"
It's hitting a Wikipedia technical limit causing templates to not work properly.

I've opened a discussion on what to do about it at Talk:ATP Tour 250. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)  17:42, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Are you sure? It's the same size as our George Washington article and no one says there are issues with that. It's only 3/5s the size of our Roger Federer career statistics article and no problem there. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:22, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm sure. See the explanatory text at the top of Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded for details.  A page can have a lot of words in it and not be "too big."  Likewise, due to template and module use, it can "look" pretty average sized but exceed the limits, causing templates and modules lower-down on the page to not render properly. davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  20:26, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Other "template expansion size exceeded" Tennis articles
I haven't taken the time to start discussions for these articles yet, but these tennis-related pages are in Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded. As a result, templates and modules that are lower-down on the page do not render properly. See the discussion at the top of the category pages for ways to deal with this issue. Before making any non-emergency change, I recommend discussing it on the article's talk page and announcing the discussion on the relevant WikiProject pages.


 * 2013 ITF Men's Circuit (July–September)
 * 2014 ITF Men's Circuit (July–September)
 * 2015 ITF Men's Circuit (April–June)
 * 2015 ITF Men's Circuit (July–September)
 * 2018 European Men's and Women's Team Badminton Championships not tennis
 * 2019 BWF World Senior Championships – 45+ not tennis
 * U.S. Pro Tennis Championships draws, 1927–1945

ATP Tour 250 is also in this category, see the discussion right above this one.

davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)  20:35, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually two of those are badminton (2018 European Men's and Women's Team Badminton Championships and 2019 BWF World Senior Championships – 45+ and we have no say over that project's contents. My other question would be, how do we know when editing an article that the template include size is exceeded? Does it tell us when we finish an edit in red type somewhere as a warning? Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:50, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The top of a preview says "Warning: Template include size is too large. Some templates will not be included." The page is added to the hidden Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded, also shown on preview. The bottom of any preview shows how much of the limit is used under "Parser profiling data".  It stops processing at the limit 2,097,152 bytes so it doesn't show much a page goes over the limit. Sometimes a page was OK when it was saved but later broke the limit because a used template was edited. This also means the page history is not a reliable way to say which edit first broke the limit. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:33, 11 February 2020 (UTC)


 * U.S. Pro Tennis Championships draws, 1927–1945 should be split by year, as is standard practice for tennis draws to be split from their main articles. Not sure what to do with the ITF articles as they're split the standard way, and most of the other articles don't have this issue. Iffy★Chat -- 18:27, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * True but if we look closely at the difference between the Jul-Sep 2012 ITF article (which is fine), and the Jul-Sep 2013 ITF article (which has the issue) you'll notice that the 2012 article has 196 tournaments while the 2013 article has grown to 231 tournaments. That's a huge increase, and so many flags is obviously the cause. I assume the same tournament numbers for 2014 and 2015. I counted 2016 (which works fine) and the number of events had dropped back down to 191. Why there were so many events for a few years I have no idea. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:01, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * We may get a slight reprieve. I've asked for edits to Template:Flag/core and Template:Flagcountry/core that should shave 30-odd bytes off each flag template use.  It's not a lot, but if some of these pages are "just over the line" it might bring them back under the line.  An xlm-formatted list of articles that are "over the line" is available here. davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  19:37, 12 February 2020 (UTC) My proposal wasn't as clean as I thought, I have withdrawn it. davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  00:55, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Interesting. When I went to U.S. Pro Tennis Championships draws, 1927–1945 and I removed only one year, 1945, all was well. Maybe that would be one that gets relief from that possible code tweak. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:32, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is right up at the limit. Without Grand Slam Tournaments at the bottom, its "Post-expand include size" is 2,096,104/2,097,152 bytes.  If this were The Price Is Right it would have won both showcases but for that pesky navigation box at the bottom. davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  21:50, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * U.S. Pro Tennis Championships draws, 1927–1945 has 435 . They each add 857 bytes to the post-expand include size. The actual output is only 133 bytes. The remaining 724 bytes are used during processing when other templates are called. If a template is called multiple times with the same parameters then full processing is made each time. But if a template is called multiple times without any parameters then the result is stored and reused, so it only counts with the size of the output. If we made a new template   which only contained   and called   without parameters 435 times then we would save (435−1)×724 = 314216 bytes. But it may be controversial to make extra templates for this purpose. Thousands of such templates could potentially be made for flag icons alone. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:24, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It would be very controversial to do it without discussion. It sounds like the Wikimedia code needs to be improved to cache "common template expansions" that are stored for re-use not just for the page being loaded, but indefinitely for all uses of the template anywhere in Wikipedia until a template it is dependent on changes. For modules, only those marked "safe to cache" could be cached this way.  This would be a win all the way around for templates that always produce the same output, not just with flag templates.  For example, 🇺🇸 USA digs trough several layers of expansion, but as far as I can tell, it always produces the same HTML or at least the same wiki-code. Unfortunately, it's hard to do this for the general case because for some templates, the behavior depends on the user's Special:Preferences so not all template/parameter combinations can be cached that way. For example,  will render in a different color if you have disambugation links set to be a different color, but it won't if you don't, so the la template with a 1 cannot be cached "across the project, for all users." davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  22:38, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * However, multiple flag icon calling probably happens mostly in sports articles... especially tennis, auto racing, and association football. Above it said there were 435 calls for . Is there any other flag parameter that is even close to that number in the article? The US and Australia dominated those years and I don't think Australia has a change of flag parameter during that time. I'm guessing that most of these sports articles don't have many parameters unless a particular team dominated and uses one. It could be that only 10 templates would solve 99% of the problems with no more being needed. I don't think it will help articles like "2015 ITF Men's Circuit (April–June)" because it doesn't really use extra parameters that I can see. It just has lots of icons. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:51, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Hmm, this sounds like an idea that should be brought up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Flag Template. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)  00:35, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * "Display links to disambiguation pages in orange" is a gadget at Special:Preferences. Gadgets work by running JavaScript or CSS in the browser. It doesn't require MediaWiki to produce different versions of the page. In this case it's just one line in MediaWiki:Gadget-DisambiguationLinks.css telling the browser how to render links which are marked as going to disambiguation pages. But there are other issues with trying to cache template output across different pages, e.g. templates depending on the page itself like the namespace, page name or Wikidata item. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:49, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Bot requests
Hi all, has anyone dealt with bot requests before? I see that Jennifer Brady's page was recently moved from Jennifer Brady (tennis) to Jennifer Brady. I just requested Taylor Townsend (tennis) be moved to Taylor Townsend and it went through. There are over 500 articles that include Taylor Townsend (tennis), and about 300 for Brady. I guess it wouldn't take forever but it would be a hassle. If anyone has experience with this and can assist, let me know, thanks. michfan2123 (talk) 17:57, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It seems like low priority since they are both automatically redirected to the correct page. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:29, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Per WP:NAVNOREDIRECT, navboxes should link directly to produce a bold selflink when the navbox is used on the article itself. I have done this for five navboxes [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AWhatLinksHere&target=Taylor+Townsend&namespace=10] with Taylor Townsend (Eugenie Bouchard isn't used on her article). This also removed 179 links from articles. michfan2123 already did it for Jennifer Brady. The remaining links don't need updating per WP:NOTBROKEN. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:13, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Interesting on the direct link on the article itself. I never knew that but it makes sense. Thanks. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:40, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Rafael Nadal/Novak Djokovic rivalry
An IP editor is asking whether or not a 2009 sourced statement about the rivalry should be included in the Rafael Nadal article. Link to discussion: Talk:Rafael Nadal. Cthomas3 (talk) 03:33, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Having an old sourced statement describing the rivalry is fine... but make sure it is understood it is a 2009 statement and based on results up to that time. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:32, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Wikidata & Infobox
Hi. Around six yrs ago a change was made to Infobox tennis biography, which means a player's career record (eg 76-55) as listed in Wikidata will automatically show up on their infobox if not already filled in.

The career record from Wikidata, in the case of female players, comes from the WTA Tour website. Unfortunately this data is often wrong, as the website has an incomplete career record for the earlier tour players. Eg: Fiorella Bonicelli, a Wimbledon quarter-finalist, has her career record listed as 0-1. This is one of many examples. Another issue is that for players with no record on the website, the term "no value" is inputted to Wikidata and thus appears on the player's infobox, eg Lita Liem Sugiarto. This may be fine for the purposes of Wikidata, but is not appropriate when transferred here.

I recently went about removing the career record from Wikidata of a particular player (Eugenia Birioukova) where like Bonicelli the data was faulty and shouldn't be appearing on the infobox. This edit was then reverted on Wikidata by the user who it turns out set this system up, insisting it stays because that is what the source says. I'm still in the process of discussing the problem with them on Wikidata, but I'm not holding up much hope so wanted to flag it here.

Is there a solution to this? The obvious thing to do would be to remove this function from the infobox, but I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, if this is an otherwise useful thing. This is only an issue for early WTA Tour players, as far as I'm aware. Thanks in advance for any input. Jevansen (talk) 08:35, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * But for those older players it can be overwritten, correct? Wikidata puts in good values for most players, bad values for a few players, and "no value" for old-time players. So overall it sounds like a good thing that editors don't have to keep re-adding new values. And the ones it puts improper values in would be blank if it wasn't in the template, correct? Those can be over-ridden simply by changing the player infobox to the proper number. And I assume "no value" isn't much different than leaving the infobox blank. Can't we just fix it as we find it? Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:31, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The infobox can be overwritten, but this doesn't work if you want the field left blank. Only way is to remove it from Wikidata and when there is an existing value on the WTA website it is apparently considered "original research" to do so, at least according to the user I'm dealing with.


 * One could add in the "proper" value to the infobox as you suggest, which would over-ride the wrong value, but I'm not entirely confident on how to get an accurate figure from the records (Fiorella Bonicelli for instance would be difficult). This is why I'd prefer just to have the field left blank in these cases.

that suggested or perhaps &nbps; (non-breaking space) would work. I would recommend adding or something like that so future editors know why it is even there. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)  15:32, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I have tried already to remove "no value" from Wikidata, but I was reverted on the basis that the Dutch wiki is apparently using this field in their infobox. Jevansen (talk) 10:22, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * For Fiorella Bonicelli you could put in an ndash (–) or a . That would give you the required result and eliminate the wikidata input. I just blanked the singles and doubles records there. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:44, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The only other thing you can do is fight fire with fire. Per the ITF Bonicelli has more of a record... incomplete, but it 100% directly contradicts the WTA. You can add that to the wikidata reference to prove the stats are not accurate and then remove the 0–1 record as proven false. As long as you can prove the WTA record is badly wrong (and in this case it is bad) there should be no issue. I'm just not sure it's worth the fight when we can blank it pretty easily by other means. Other wikis of course will have the bad 0–1 record, but I don't care about other wikis. Fyunck(click) (talk) 11:06, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Something like the ndash or
 * Thanks guys, these seem like good options. I'll see how my conversation progresses on Wikidata and may bring up the ITF record as suggested, but in terms of what can be done on site any of those infobox edits will do the trick. I had previously tried removing the actual parameters from a player's infobox yet the value still appeared. Will never understand how some of this stuff works. Anyway .. appreciate the help. Cheers Jevansen (talk) 20:57, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I also tried removing the parameter to no avail. That got me thinking that if I didn't know about it, and you didn't know about it, then few others would know about it. I changed the documentation of the template to let editors know about the auto fill-in and how they can get around it, since the data on pre-1968 players at WTA and ATP is never correct. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:59, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Indian Wells postponement
Right this moment, the Indian Wells Open has been postponed till later in the year. It could get canceled. I see changes being made to that tournament article with incorrect info about it being canceled. I fixed it. What is also a bit worrisome is editors changing all player performance timelines to "NH" (not held) for this years Indian Wells event. That's really not a true statement for our readers and we should be careful about this. It's certainly a unique situation for us and I would suggest we leave it blank until such time that it actually gets canceled. I suppose we could put a question mark or "–" in the box, but NH seems inappropriate at this time. This has the potential to affect many tournaments this year so I want to make us all aware of not jumping the gun. Thanks. Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:32, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I would suggest putting in a greyed out "P" instead of "NH" since the performance key already had an undefined "P". I just defined it on the template (since it was already there) in case someone wants to revert that change. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:29, 11 March 2020 (UTC)