Modelling performance at international tennis and golf tournaments: is there a home advantage?

Abstract

In the context of international sports events, home advantage suggests that competitors will perform above their expected level when competing in events held in their own country. The world rankings and tournament performances have been compiled for most competitors in the grand slam tennis tournaments and the major golf tournaments in 1993. Tournament performance was related to world ranking and home advantage by using both permutation and normal regression models. Logistic and polytomous regression models were used to examine progression through the tennis tournaments only. Although there was surprising consistency between the various approaches, there was little evidence of home advantage.