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First, from the Rankings thread:
To go further with this, it is worth noting that Roger reached his peak Elo at age 25, Rafa at 27, Novak at 28. So if Alcaraz is truly cut from the same cloth as the Big Three, expect him to get significantly better. Obvious, I know - and even if he doesn't end up nearly as accomplished, he is almost certainly going to get even better than he is now.
Or compare their Elo ratings by age:
And a bit more detail:
As you can see, he's just a bit below where Rafa was at the same age, and ahead of Novak--and significantly ahead of Roger. Rafa, at the same age, had come closer to reaching his peak level than the other two, so it may be that we should expect something closer to that, than the gradual and/or graduated rises of Roger and Novak.
And remember, Elo is just a number that depicts consistent quality of play over a period of time. Obviously Rafa did get significantly better, but not to the degree that Novak and Roger did (from age 20 to their peaks). Rafa had already surpassed 2400 Elo just after turning age 20 - after winning the 2006 Roland Garros, his second Slam.
Here is the percentage of their eventual peak Elo that they had reached before their 21st birthdays:
Rafa: 94.2% (2403 of 2552)
Novak: 86.9% (2279 of 2629)
Roger: 85% (2168 of 2550)
If we take a very moderate projection and use Rafa's number, Carlos would peak at 2488 Elo (2344 is 94.2% of 2488), which would be 10th best all time.
Now of course it doesn't really work like that, but I'm just crunching the numbers to give a baseline. Let's say that Carlos has performed at 90% of his eventual peak level - that would mean he eventually reaches 2604 Elo, becoming only the third player--after Novak and Borg--to surpass 2600. In the very unlikely scenario where he evolves as much as Roger did from age 20 to 25 (85%), he'd reach 2758!!! Again, very very unlikely - that would essentially be a perfect player. Or to put it another way, he'd be better on all courts than Rafa was at his best on clay (2669 Elo). Also, considering that Elo is based on defeating other players, the chances of him ever getting that high are slim indeed - he'd need to regularly beat a bunch of guys with very high Elos.
But the question is, how much of "peak" Alcaraz are we seeing at this point (at 2344 Elo)? Obviously we just don't know yet. But this is where we can ignore the numbers for a moment and look at what we've seen this year. A month ago, did anyone honestly think he'd be this good on grass, this soon? And beat Novak-freakin-Djokovic at Wimbledon? Maybe his mom?
What we've seen is a player with immense talent that adapts and evolves his game at a rather frightening pace. A player who takes feedback and applies it, and becomes better for it. In that regard, while I'm hesitant to say this when he's still just a fresh blade of grass, it is hard not to think of the over-used cliche: The sky is the limit -- there's no telling how good Alcaraz could become.
But to return to the numbers, perhaps the easy answer, and my guess, is that Alcaraz develops somewhere between Rafa (94%) and Roger (85%) at the same age. One question is whether his incline will be steadier than Rafa, who often had a "post-Wimbledon slump," as you can see in the chart. When Rafa came into his own in 2008 - which is the first of his three greatest years - his post-Wimbledon let-down was much smaller. Carlos did slow down a bit late last year, but unless we see it happen again, he may be able to hold his gains better in the latter part of the year than Rafa often did. As everyone knows, part of Rafa's greatness was the sheer intensity he played with, which was hard to sustain for a whole season. Carlos has similar intensity, but maybe not to quite the same degree. And of course as he matures, we'll get a better sense of his full season approach.
To go further with this, it is worth noting that Roger reached his peak Elo at age 25, Rafa at 27, Novak at 28. So if Alcaraz is truly cut from the same cloth as the Big Three, expect him to get significantly better. Obvious, I know - and even if he doesn't end up nearly as accomplished, he is almost certainly going to get even better than he is now.
Or compare their Elo ratings by age:
And a bit more detail:
As you can see, he's just a bit below where Rafa was at the same age, and ahead of Novak--and significantly ahead of Roger. Rafa, at the same age, had come closer to reaching his peak level than the other two, so it may be that we should expect something closer to that, than the gradual and/or graduated rises of Roger and Novak.
And remember, Elo is just a number that depicts consistent quality of play over a period of time. Obviously Rafa did get significantly better, but not to the degree that Novak and Roger did (from age 20 to their peaks). Rafa had already surpassed 2400 Elo just after turning age 20 - after winning the 2006 Roland Garros, his second Slam.
Here is the percentage of their eventual peak Elo that they had reached before their 21st birthdays:
Rafa: 94.2% (2403 of 2552)
Novak: 86.9% (2279 of 2629)
Roger: 85% (2168 of 2550)
If we take a very moderate projection and use Rafa's number, Carlos would peak at 2488 Elo (2344 is 94.2% of 2488), which would be 10th best all time.
Now of course it doesn't really work like that, but I'm just crunching the numbers to give a baseline. Let's say that Carlos has performed at 90% of his eventual peak level - that would mean he eventually reaches 2604 Elo, becoming only the third player--after Novak and Borg--to surpass 2600. In the very unlikely scenario where he evolves as much as Roger did from age 20 to 25 (85%), he'd reach 2758!!! Again, very very unlikely - that would essentially be a perfect player. Or to put it another way, he'd be better on all courts than Rafa was at his best on clay (2669 Elo). Also, considering that Elo is based on defeating other players, the chances of him ever getting that high are slim indeed - he'd need to regularly beat a bunch of guys with very high Elos.
But the question is, how much of "peak" Alcaraz are we seeing at this point (at 2344 Elo)? Obviously we just don't know yet. But this is where we can ignore the numbers for a moment and look at what we've seen this year. A month ago, did anyone honestly think he'd be this good on grass, this soon? And beat Novak-freakin-Djokovic at Wimbledon? Maybe his mom?
What we've seen is a player with immense talent that adapts and evolves his game at a rather frightening pace. A player who takes feedback and applies it, and becomes better for it. In that regard, while I'm hesitant to say this when he's still just a fresh blade of grass, it is hard not to think of the over-used cliche: The sky is the limit -- there's no telling how good Alcaraz could become.
But to return to the numbers, perhaps the easy answer, and my guess, is that Alcaraz develops somewhere between Rafa (94%) and Roger (85%) at the same age. One question is whether his incline will be steadier than Rafa, who often had a "post-Wimbledon slump," as you can see in the chart. When Rafa came into his own in 2008 - which is the first of his three greatest years - his post-Wimbledon let-down was much smaller. Carlos did slow down a bit late last year, but unless we see it happen again, he may be able to hold his gains better in the latter part of the year than Rafa often did. As everyone knows, part of Rafa's greatness was the sheer intensity he played with, which was hard to sustain for a whole season. Carlos has similar intensity, but maybe not to quite the same degree. And of course as he matures, we'll get a better sense of his full season approach.
