International Premier Tennis League - 2014

[Federberg]

^It just shows that reality can be hidden by just focusing on the winners. It a bit different when you hear stats like the number of finals Roger has competed in this year. Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to defend a Federer YE#1, just pointing out that it's not as bad or surprising as it seems at first glance. He's been very consistent this year, and been getting deep all the time. And in quality tournaments to boot..

 

[DarthFed]

^ Agreed Billie. It'd be a tremendous achievement if Roger gets back to #1 at all let alone if he finishes the year at #1. But truthfully I think Nole is the player of the year for sure and I'm kind of shocked the points race is remotely close when you consider he has 3 MS titles, a slam, a slam final and a semifinal. It's by far the best year.

On top of my head I think Federer has 1 slam final, 2 slam semis, 1 M1000 and three M1000 finals, with a couple of smaller tournaments wins. Whereas Nole either won M1000 or bombed out of them too early.

If Nole loses his #1 ranking by performing poorly the rest of the year, it will have been his own fault. I still think he can play decently and keep his distance from the other two guys, but tennis is so unpredictable.

Nole has been awesome indoors the past 2 seasons so I expect he will hold onto #1. I also expect Roger will be much better indoors this year than last...pretty much no way he can be worse. Hopefully he can collect YEC #7.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

I believe Novak has about 60% chances of finishing YE #1 and Rafa and Roger both
have 20% chance each of finishing YE #1.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

The ATP ranking system is by and far good. This is because all four GS and all eight
Masters are mandatory and that already account 12 of the 18 countable tournaments
(that is already 66.66%) where players have to duke it out between themselves.

On the other hand because of WTA's use of best two premier 5 results, the
players do not have to directly fight with other players for points all the time.
This produces skewed YE #1's more often than in ATP. They have only 4 GS and
4 other mandatory big events and this accounts for only 8 of the 16 (just 50%)
countable tournaments where they have to directly duke it out.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

In the event that two players are tied with exactly the same amount of ranking points, ATP uses total points won in the mandatory events only (4 GS, 8 Masters and WTF) as a way to break
ties. This later point count perhaps could be used to determine the mythical "player of
the year" even when there are no ties.

 

[NADAL2005RG]

The ranking system is 100% completely fair and perfect the way it is, because the ranking system is a measure of consistency, not a measure of who won the biggest event.
Federer is 100% worthy of the #1 ranking if he were to finish #1.
I'm surprised so many people even question this.

There is not meant to be a correlation between ONE event and the #1 ranking.
Winning one big event (one of the slams) doesn't give you the #1 ranking.
That is why so far this year I consider Federer more worthy of the #1 ranking than Cilic.

And if you're looking for who played the highest peak level of tennis during the year, that's a completely separate issue to the #1 ranking, because the #1 ranking was never intended to reward the highest peak level of the year.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

If Fed ends up being YE #1, I would gladly admit that Rafa's injury and Novak's family situation
were "decisive factors" in it.

I fixed that for ya...

Not as decisive as Rafa's win in Madrid over Kei. :laydownlaughing

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Roger's apparently only playing 2 matches in New Delhi on Dec 7th and 8th at this IPTL crap and then playing his exo with Stan 2 weeks later in Zurich. Could be worse and at least only 2 matches in India is all he's doing for IPTL.

http://www.tennis.com/pro-game/2014/09/federer-unveiling-season-schedule/52874/#.VCSSxRbPC2U

I wonder why this article does not say explicitly that he won't play in Philipines,
Singapore and more importantly in Dubai. I could not find an explicit confirmation that
he won't play in these venues from any news source. Can any one post a link
to such confirmation.

 

[Front242]

^ Probably simply 'cos tennis.com make so many mistakes! Hope he does in fact only play 2 days in IPTL though.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Actually, in some ways it makes sense that Roger plays in India only.

Of the four places, UAE and Singapore are mature markets with Singapore hosting
Women's WTF and Dubai hosting ATP 500 for so many years. So, circus many not
be a novelty there. Translation: doing a circus act in these places might not
bring in good amount of money.

So, basically if you want to make money, one needs to play in new markets.
So, the choices would be Philipines and India. I believe the Indians have more money
to offer with so much population and fairly good economy relatively speaking.

This may explain Fed's choices.

The Indian team owner Micromax company is comparable to "Bestbuy" in USA
in terms of their business and so probably make lots of money.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

OK, Guys. It is now official. Roger is not playing in Beijing/Tokyo. Just stating the
obvious. The only reason I am doing so is because the obvious did not match up
with my wishful thinking.

 

[DarthFed]

I believe Novak has about 60% chances of finishing YE #1 and Rafa and Roger both
have 20% chance each of finishing YE #1.

I'd have it more 80% Nole, 15% Fed and 5% Rafa but it's semantics. Basically if Nole is focused he will finish #1. If Roger plays great in the Fall like he did before 2012 then he does have a chance if Nole drops off. For Rafa he would need the much superior indoor players ahead of him to badly underachieve.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

I believe Novak has about 60% chances of finishing YE #1 and Rafa and Roger both
have 20% chance each of finishing YE #1.

I'd have it more 80% Nole, 15% Fed and 5% Rafa but it's semantics. Basically if Nole is focused he will finish #1. If Roger plays great in the Fall like he did before 2012 then he does have a chance if Nole drops off. For Rafa he would need the much superior indoor players ahead of him to badly underachieve.

I agree that your numbers are better than my initial estimate.

Even more realistic numbers would be Novak: 70%, Fed 20% and Rafa 10%.

This is because Novak also has a chance of missing Bercy apart from needing to
stay focused in all events that he plays.

 

[DarthFed]

Yea Nole might miss Bercy but with his point lead if he wins YEC he almost will surely finish #1 and I'd consider him the solid favorite at YEC. Perfect surface for him.

 

[NADAL2005RG]

Djokovic deserves favoritism based on last year, but I don't think anyone will want to play Nishikori and Cilic at the World Tour Finals. Where they land in the semis will be really interesting, because it obviously wouldn't feel like an "upset" if Nishikori or Cilic beat Djokovic. This World Tour Finals is the biggest lottery in a long time.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Djokovic deserves favoritism based on last year, but I don't think anyone will want to play Nishikori and Cilic at the World Tour Finals. Where they land in the semis will be really interesting, because it obviously wouldn't feel like an "upset" if Nishikori or Cilic beat Djokovic. This World Tour Finals is the biggest lottery in a long time.

I don't think Nishikori will do well on the indoor swing. Cilic will do well on the indoor swing.
This is based on their past record just in the indoor portion of the season.

 

[NADAL2005RG]

Nishikori is hard to put a limit on, considering his best US Open result before this year was 2008 4th Round. And obviously playing very well this week too.

Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, Wawrinka, Cilic, Niskikori (and maybe Murray) will all be fighting for Semi-Final spots at the World Tour Finals, and all can beat each other without it being called much of an "upset".

 

[GameSetAndMath]

As if the main circus being organized by Mahesh Bhupathi is not enough, Vijay Amritaraj is
organizing a mini circus, a poor man's version of IPTL . There are six teams based out of
different Indian Cities. The players involved are second rung players such as Ferrer, Youzhny,
Robredo etc. Now, even the second rung players have a chance to screw up their off season;
not just Federer and other big names.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Cilic Joins Circus. He will perform for UAE Royals in all four cities where the circus moves around.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Here are the teams of mini-circus (Champion's Tennis League floated by Vijay Amritraj involving second tier ATP/WTA players).


Team: MUMBAI
Owner: Not announced
Players: Sergi Bruguera, Tommy Robredo, Alize Cornet, Sriram Bala

Team: PUNE
Owner: Rendezvous Sports World
Team: Pat Cash, Philip Kohlschreiber, Agnieszka Radwanska, Saketh Myneni

Team: DELHI
Owner: Varinder Pal Singh
Team: Juan Carlos Ferrero, Kevin Anderson, Sanam Singh, Jelena Jankovic

Team: BANGALORE
Owner: Mittu Chandilya
Team: Thomas Enqvist, Feliciano Lopez, Venus Williams, Ramakumar Ramanathan

Team: CHENNAI
Owner: Ronnie Sehgal
Team: Mark Philippoussis, Mikhail Youzhny, Martina Hingis, Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan

Team: CHANDIGARH
Co-owner: Gurpreet Singh Kiki
Team: Greg Rusedski, David Ferrer, Garbine Muguruza, Somdev Devvarman