Alright, let me tell you about this thing I started calling ‘roic tennis’ in my notes. It wasn’t some official project, just something that cooked up in my head one slow afternoon. I follow tennis a bit, you know, watch the big matches. And I’ve always been interested in how things work, like trying to figure out value, what gives you a good return for what you put in. That’s where the ‘roic’ part, return on invested capital, kinda slid in from my reading about business stuff.
So, the idea popped up: could you look at tennis players like… investments? Crazy, maybe. But I thought, okay, what’s the ‘capital’ you ‘invest’? For me, it started as just the time and attention I spent following certain players. Watching their games, reading news about them. The ‘return’ was supposed to be… well, initially I thought maybe predicting wins better? Or just seeing if some players consistently outperformed expectations based on the effort I put into tracking them.
Getting Started – The Setup
I grabbed a notebook first, then moved to a simple spreadsheet. Nothing fancy. I listed a few players I was watching. Then I started jotting down stuff:
- Who they played
- Surface type (clay, grass, hard court – it matters!)
- Did they win or lose?
- My quick feeling – did they play well, struggle, get lucky?
- How much time did I actually spend watching or reading about this specific player that week?
This ‘time spent’ was my rough ‘invested capital’. The ‘return’ was fuzzier. Was it just the win? Or how well they played compared to my expectation? It got messy fast.
The Back and Forth – The ‘Tennis’ Part
This is where the ‘tennis’ part of the name felt right. It was a constant back and forth. I’d think, “Okay, Player X looks solid, putting in consistent effort, good ‘return’ on my attention.” Then boom, they’d have a terrible match, lose to someone unexpected. My ‘investment’ felt wasted.
Or another player, Player Y, maybe I barely watched them, just scanned the scores. But they kept winning! High ‘return’ for low ‘investment’. So, should I ‘invest’ more time in Player Y? I tried. Started watching their matches more closely.
It was a real grind. Keeping track, even for just a handful of players, took way more effort than I thought. And the factors you can’t easily put in a spreadsheet? Mood, injuries popping up mid-match, weirdly timed rain delays… it constantly felt like trying to hit a moving target.
Hitting the Net – Challenges
The biggest problem? People aren’t stocks. Shocker, I know! A player having a bad day because of personal stuff, or getting a sudden burst of confidence – my simple ‘roic’ idea couldn’t capture that. It felt like I was trying to measure the ocean with a teaspoon.
I also realized my ‘invested capital’ – my time – wasn’t always spent wisely. Sometimes I’d watch a match just because I’d already ‘invested’ time in that player, even if it was clear they were off their game. Sunk cost fallacy, right there in my tennis watching.
Game, Set, Match – What I Learned
So, did I crack the code? Find some magic formula for tennis success using my ‘roic tennis’ method? Absolutely not. Not even close.
What I did get was a different kind of ‘return’. I learned that trying to quantify human performance like that is… well, mostly pointless for a casual observer. It’s way more complex. I also learned I could get sucked into tracking data for almost anything!
Honestly, the real result was just the experience itself. Fiddling with the idea, watching the matches with a slightly different eye for a while. It was a weird little personal project, kept my brain busy. The return wasn’t predictable wins or amazing insights. The return was just the process, the thinking, the little experiment. And maybe appreciating the unpredictable human side of sports a bit more. So yeah, ‘roic tennis’. Didn’t make me rich or smart, but it was a thing I did.
