The two losers of the semi-finals played a match to decide 3rd and 4th places. Matches were decided by the best of five sets, with the match ending once a player had won three sets. Two matches had to be abandoned due to poor weather.
When this happened the winner was the player who had won the most completed sets when the match was abandoned – luckily this didn’t lead to a draw on either occasion.
At the end of the tournament no two players had played the same number of sets, and all players except the winner had lost more sets than they had won.
How many sets were played overall?
Note: Adapted from Enigma Number:1678 by Ian Kay, which appered in the New Scientist on 20 December, 2011.
do-my-math
