The Australian Open tennis final yesterday between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal has been widely acclaimed as a classic, with the match the longest final ever seen at Grand Slam level, and the longest ever match at the Australian Open.  The final set produced epic drama, with both men seemingly out on their feet, dragging their bodies to the conclusion by sheer will alone.  As a spectacle it was impossible to take your eye off of.

Up until the thrilling conclusion however the match wasn't really the greatest.  Both players had been severely tested en route to the final and it told as the first three sets saw neither player at their best, and the match to that point was not of the same quality as other encounters between the top 4 players in the game.

It reminded me of a famous experiment conducted by Nobel prize winner Daniel Kaheman called the Peak End Rule.  Each subject was asked to undergo two painful episodes. One was to hold one of  her hands for a minute in water at 14" C, which is cold enough to hurt. After a minute the subject took her hand out  of the water. The other episode was to hold her hand for a minute in water at  14" C and then  keep  it  there  for another  half  minute, while the water was slowly warmed to 15" C. This is still cold enough to be painful, but noticeably less
painful. Some subjects suffered the shorter episode first; others the longer one.

Afterwards, the subjects were asked to say which of  the two episodes of pain was worse. Generally they said the shorter one. To test the firmness of their judgements, they were told they would undergo a third painful episode. They were told it would be a repeat of  one of the two I described, and given a choice of  which it should be. They generally chose the longer episode.

He did a similar experiment using positive experiences and found the same thing.  So a short tennis match with a strong ending will generally be regarded as more enjoyable than a longer match with a poor ending.  The reasoning is that the ending is fixed much more firmly in our memories and it's our memories that form our opinion of an event rather than what actually happened.

So the barnstorming end to the match yesterday undoubtably played a major part in our recollection of the match as a whole, and therefore we over-inflated the quality of the match as a whole.

The morale of the story is that if you want to be remembered fondly, you have to go out with a bang.