Another Look at Most Dominant Player

[GameSetAndMath]

Rafa's streak has now stopped with a streak length of 15.

Read the article in the OP for details. Briefly, the streak is used to measure the
dominance of a player. It is a sequence of slams (the sequence does not have to
be consecutive, it is ok to miss something due to injury, it is forgiven and only the
slams in which the player participated is taken into account) in which a
player never fails to reach the final twice in a row (row here referring to the GSs in
which the player actually played).

Now, Rafa did not reach final in Wimby 2014 and then again did not reach
final in AO 2015 (he missed USO 2014 and so it is not counted). So, Rafa's streak
at Dominance has ended.

Fed's longest streak length was 19. We can compare how dominant a player
was when he was dominant by comparing their performance during the streak.
Partial stats are available in the OP. They need to be updated though as they are
about an year old. But, I don't think there is no need to calculate though.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

It is amazing to note that Roger's streak ended in 2010 AO where as Rafa's streak ended in 2015 AO. Is it just a coincidence that there is a 5 years age difference between them?

 

[brokenshoelace]

It is amazing to note that Roger's streak ended in 2010 AO where as Rafa's streak ended in 2015 AO. Is it just a coincidence that there is a 5 years age difference between them?

No. I think it's pretty telling re: the peaks and declines (as far as age goes) of top tennis players who have dominated.

I think Federer and Nadal are the rules. When people cite Ferrer, Wawrinka and other late bloomers, they're not factoring in that unlike Fedal, they haven't been winning slams and going deep in every tournament for 10 years.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

I was thinking as to where does Novak stand according to the metric used in the article on Most Dominant Player (see OP).

A streak was defined to be consecutive slams without missing consecutive finals. Federer's longest streak was 19 slams starting from 2005 Wimbledon to 2010 AO. But, Novak's longest streak is 22 slams starting from 2010 USO to 2016 AO. Moreover Novak's streak is active and is likely to increase substantially. So, it is fair to say that Novak is dominating the circuit for a longer period than Federer.

However, Federer's average points earned per slam during the streak is 1680 where as Novak's points earned per slam is 1416. So, it is also fair to say that during Fed's streak Fed dominated the circuit in a stronger manner than Novak is dominating during his streak.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

I am just giving a bump to this thread.

The uninitiated must first read the article in the OP.

Novak's dominance streak that started with his 2010 USO Win is still active and alive. His streak length is now 26. That is larger than that of Fed as well as Rafa. He has 1345 points per grand slam on the average during this streak.

Hence, I strongly object to El Dude's assertion that Novak's dominance is over. He is still the most dominant player on the circuit.

p.s. In contrast, Fed's streak length is 19 and Rafa's is 15.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Incidentally, Andy has no dominance streak at all (it has to be a minimum of seven GSs as per the definition). In fact, it is this one that clearly differentiates Andy from other members of Big Four. Andy never had a dominance streak (so far at least).

Andy had a streak of length 4 before, which was his longest. Currently, he has an active streak of length 4. If he reaches final of AO17, the streak length will become 5.

 

[El Dude]

GS&M, I'm not as much "asserted" that his dominance is over but rather "suggesting" or even just "questioning." But I do think it is clear that his 2015-early 2016 dominance is over, and I don't see a return to that level. I think the best case scenario for him and his fans is that he returns to his 2012-14 "first among equals" status. The main problem with that, though, is that Andy is playing the best of his career and at a consistency--at least over the last seven months--that he's never really had before.

To put that another way, it may be that peak Andy > prime-but-not-peak Novak.

 

[Busted]

Seems pretty clear to me - Roger's the Energizer Bunny of men's tennis and therefore the GOAT. If you look at all of his achievements as a whole - there are records that he has that will probably never be broken because tennis is NOT a young man's game anymore. Roger won his first slam about 6 weeks shy of turning 22. Nadal won his first slam just after turning 19. Name a 19 - 22 y.o. who's won a slam since then? Del Potro. And he's spent most of the last 4 years injured. Name one who's ready to win one now? Zvererv? Nutjob Krygios? At this point I'd say Zverev is closer than Kyrgios. But beside my point - which is that Slam winners these days are going to be in their mid-20s and have a very narrow window to "dominate" Very few players have been late bloomers and won multiple slams after age 30. It's like Noah Rubin said in the clip ESPN showed before his Aussie Open match against Federer - he'd practiced with or played Nadal, Djokovic and other top players, but there's just something abut Federer that's a whole other level. And that pretty much sums up Roger's career and records - it's a whole other level from the other tennis greats.

 

[Busted]

Also, going back to that Deadspin article - for the first graph I added up the Slam numbers for Nadal and Federer from 2014-2016.

Nadal - 4,515 points
=====
2014 - F, W, 4R, absent
2015 -- QF, QF, 2R, 3R
2016 - 1R, 3R, Absent, 4R

Federer - 6020 points
======
2014 - SF, 4R, F, SF
2015 - 3R, QF, F, F
2016 - SF, Absent, SF, Absent

Totals - Federer has a 18,020 point lead...which is INSANE! Even if Nadal wins 3 more slams and ties Roger at 17 - he still will probably never beat his point total...but I"m sure the "experts" will be happy to point out that Nadal leads their H2H 23-12...

=====
1. Federer - 59,145
2. Nadal - 41,115

 

[El Dude]

23-11, actually.

Rafa and Roger have different flavors of greatness.

Roger combines incredible longevity, a high level of play, a game of unparalleled diversity, beauty and mastery, and complete dominance over his generation.

Rafa is more the wounded great, who could play at the highest level when it matters most, defeating any and all opponents. He is the greatest player in a specific context (clay) in the history of the sport, or at least the Open Era.

Some Rafa fans don't like it but there's a generalist vs. specialist thing going on. Roger is the greater all-court player, and greater in terms of his overall accomplishments. Rafa is the greatest specialist, and greater in terms of his big game capability. Some Roger fans don't like it, but when it matters most, Rafa is the greater player - able to rise to the highest possible level against the best of foes.

 

[sid]

All that matters is the here & now,if Roger wins the AO he will be Ranked no higher than 10th.

 

[isabelle]

All that matters is the here & now,if Roger wins the AO he will be Ranked no higher than 10th.

he won't win the AO

 

[Front242]

And I'm sure he'd give a sh1t only being ranked world number 10 if he wins another slam. Haha. Wtf is that ? :cover He's already proven being seeded low meant nothing by mangling Berdych.

 

[Front242]

Winning a slam when ranked how he is now would be EVEN MORE impressive because his current draws are now much harder. :cover

 

[GameSetAndMath]

All that matters is the here & now.

Agreed; all that matters is the her and now.

Andy's longest ever streak is a sequence of 4. He had a streak of 4 before and his current streak stopped at 3. Actually, as per the definition of the author of the article, only streaks of length 7 or more are even considered to be a period of dominance.

Sir Andy, you once again proved that you are not in the same league as other members of Big 4.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

This issue is addressed nicely by the blog article cited in the op of the thread "Most Dominant Player". Unfortunately, the search function is not working properly and so I have difficulty pulling it up (after the merger). The basic theory is that player starts as a rookie and becomes dominant player and after sometime becomes senile and exits. The way to measure and compare the great players is by two criteria 1) How long did the player dominate? 2) When the player was dominating, how dominant was his dominance? Item 1 is measure by a length of longest stretch of GSs in which the player did not fail before the finals twice in a row (everybody gets to slack off once, as no one can be expected to be perfect). Item 2 is measured by the amount of points accumulated by the player as a percentage of the maximum possible in GSs. [Note: This particular theory considers only the GS performance and nothing else].

p.s. Novak's dominant stretch actually ended with USO '16. However, we do know that it ended only now as he needed to exit twice in a row before finals which he did in AO'17 and RG'17. The point is that the formal definition also captures our intuitive idea of player losing their dominance. I believe Novak's stretch is longer than Fed's stretch, but Fed was more dominant during his stretch than Novak was.

 

[brokenshoelace]

This issue is addressed nicely by the blog article cited in the op of the thread "Most Dominant Player". Unfortunately, the search function is not working properly and so I have difficulty pulling it up (after the merger). The basic theory is that player starts as a rookie and becomes dominant player and after sometime becomes senile and exits. The way to measure and compare the great players is by two criteria 1) How long did the player dominate? 2) When the player was dominating, how dominant was his dominance? Item 1 is measure by a length of longest stretch of GSs in which the player did not fail before the finals twice in a row (everybody gets to slack off once, as no one can be expected to be perfect). Item 2 is measured by the amount of points accumulated by the player as a percentage of the maximum possible in GSs. [Note: This particular theory considers only the GS performance and nothing else].

p.s. Novak's dominant stretch actually ended with USO '16. However, we do know that it ended only now as he needed to exit twice in a row before finals which he did in AO'17 and RG'17. The point is that the formal definition also captures our intuitive idea of player losing their dominance. I believe Novak's stretch is longer than Fed's stretch, but Fed was more dominant during his stretch than Novak was.

Novak's dominant stretch is longer if we consider that he dominated from 2011 to 2016, but a) as you said, Fed was more dominant during his prime and b) I don't think it's completely fair to look at Novak's stretch as one dominant stretch since following 2011, three seasons went by without him dominating: in 2012, the big four split all the slams (1 each, obviously). In 2013, Nadal was the best player. In 2014, Novak actually underperformed and only won a single slam (although it was the most memorable). So that's a 3-year stretch in which he only won 1 slam per season.

So it's probably more accurate to say Novak had one dominant year in 2011, then a dominant 2 year stretch in 2015 and 2016, and that on average, he's been the best player in the world since 2011.

 

[El Dude]

Clearly Novak was super dominant in 2011 and then 2015 to mid 2016, but I think he was subtly dominant in 2012-14 in that he was the only player who was there in every big tournament - if not winning it, then going deep. In each of those three years he won a Slam, the WTF, and at least three Masters, or 16 big titles in those three years. Compare that to Rafa's 12, Roger's 6, and Andy's 3.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Novak's dominant stretch is longer if we consider that he dominated from 2011 to 2016, but a) as you said, Fed was more dominant during his prime and b) I don't think it's completely fair to look at Novak's stretch as one dominant stretch since following 2011, three seasons went by without him dominating: in 2012, the big four split all the slams (1 each, obviously). In 2013, Nadal was the best player. In 2014, Novak actually underperformed and only won a single slam (although it was the most memorable). So that's a 3-year stretch in which he only won 1 slam per season.

So it's probably more accurate to say Novak had one dominant year in 2011, then a dominant 2 year stretch in 2015 and 2016, and that on average, he's been the best player in the world since 2011.

Novak's dominant stretch is longer if we consider that he dominated from 2011 to 2016, but a) as you said, Fed was more dominant during his prime and b) I don't think it's completely fair to look at Novak's stretch as one dominant stretch since following 2011, three seasons went by without him dominating: in 2012, the big four split all the slams (1 each, obviously). In 2013, Nadal was the best player. In 2014, Novak actually underperformed and only won a single slam (although it was the most memorable). So that's a 3-year stretch in which he only won 1 slam per season.

So it's probably more accurate to say Novak had one dominant year in 2011, then a dominant 2 year stretch in 2015 and 2016, and that on average, he's been the best player in the world since 2011.

You are assuming that at any point of time there should be only one dominant player. While this may happen in some years, in some years there could be more than one player who are equally dominant. The nice thing about the definition of dominant stretch in the MDP blog is that it allows for three different players to be simultaneously dominant and not any more. If you take any GS, there is a winner and finalist who is potentially dominant at that time and a third player who flamed out in the current GS also could be potentially dominant (recall everybody is allowed to slack off occasionally during their dominant stretches). Another nice thing about the definition is that it does not allow more than three players to be simultaneously dominant. It makes intuitive sense as well.

In 2013, I would say that both Rafa and Novak were kind of equally dominant. Rafa could clinch YE#1 at the last minute only despite winning three slams.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Here is the blog on a better way of assessing greatness that is being referred to in the discussions here. The blog was written in Jan 2014 and so the data is bit outdated, but the point of the blog is not affected by that. Perhaps, you can do little bit of arithmetic bring the data up to date.

We had a thread titled "Most Dominant Player" to discuss this blog at TF. Unfortunately, I could not find that thread to give it a bump.
I was trying to bump that thread after the RG was over as that is when we officially (i.e., as per the definition of dominant stretch given in blog) knew that Novak's dominant stretch ended with 2016 USO (as one had to not reach finals in two consecutive slams).