Dead rubber is a term used in

sport Sport is a physical activity or game, often Competition, competitive and organization, organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The numbe ...

ing parlance to describe a

match A match is a tool for starting a fire. Typically, matches are made of small wooden sticks or stiff paper. One end is coated with a material that can be ignited by friction generated by striking the match against a suitable surface. Wooden matc ...

in a

series Series may refer to: People with the name * Caroline Series (born 1951), English mathematician, daughter of George Series * George Series (1920–1995), English physicist Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Series, the ordered sets used i ...

where the series result has already been decided by earlier matches. The dead rubber match therefore has no effect on the winner and loser of the series, other than the total number of matches won and lost and the statistics of the players. The term is used in

Davis Cup The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is organised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and contested annually between teams from over 150 competing countries, making it the world's largest annual ...

and Billie Jean King Cup

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

, as well as in

international cricket International cricket matches are played between the teams representing their nations, administrated by the International Cricket Council. The main forms are Test matches, ODI matches and T20I matches. Most games are played as part of "tou ...

field hockey Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...

, the

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often called the World Cup, is an international association football competition among the senior List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams of the members of the FIFA, Fédération Internatio ...

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

Rugby World Cup The Men's Rugby World Cup is a rugby union tournament contested every four years between the top international teams, the winners of which are recognised as the World championship, world champions of the sport. The tournament is administer ...

and the

State of Origin series The State of Origin series is an annual best-of-three rugby league series between two States and territories of Australia, Australian state representative sides, the New South Wales rugby league team, New South Wales Blues and the Queensland ru ...

. For example, in a Davis Cup series, each pair of competing countries play five matches (''rubbers'') where the winner is decided on a best-of-five basis. Once one team has reached three victories, the remaining match or matches are said to be ''dead rubbers''.

International Tennis Federation The International Tennis Federation (ITF) is the governing body of world tennis, wheelchair tennis, and beach tennis. It was founded in 1913 as the International Lawn Tennis Federation by twelve national tennis associations. there are 211 nat ...

's last revision of the competition policies on dead rubbers is from 2011. Since the result of a dead rubber has no impact in determining the winner of a series, dead rubbers are typically played in a less intense atmosphere, often allowing the team that has lost the series to obtain a match win. Sometimes, second-string players who have not played many matches in top-level competition are given the opportunity to play a dead rubber in order to gain experience. This practice makes completing a clean sweep of a series less likely, so in Chinese, dead rubber is often called 'match for dignity' ( Chinese: 荣誉之战), mostly for competitors that lost chance to advance.

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Badminton at 2012 Olympics
Terminology used in multiple sports Association football terminology Basketball terminology Cricket terminology Rugby league terminology Rugby union terminology Tennis terminology {{sport-stub

See also

References

External links