If a player goes into deciding sets very few times say only 10 match out of 100 and then loses 8 of them, their deciding sets won would be just 20%. But, they are far better players than several others in the sense that they let very few matches go to the deciding set in the first place.
However, there is some value in being a clutch player. The "clutch factor' is not just about performing well in deciding sets. It involves performing well in tie breakers, converting break points of opponents and saving one's own break points. ATP has calculated all these four percentages for each player and have added them up. They call it the "under pressure rating" of the players.
If you take the top 6 (across all surfaces and including inactive players), 4 of them are
members of the (erstwhile) Big Four. The other two are Pete and Kei. So, Kei is indeed in
elite company. Now if only his body is not made of glass
lot
1 Novak Djokovic 247.9 44.5% 65.5% 63.1% 74.9%
2 Pete Sampras 241.3 40.9% 68.1% 63.8% 68.5%
3 Rafael Nadal 240.8 45.2% 65.8% 61.0% 68.8%
4 Kei Nishikori 238.0 40.2% 60.2% 60.0% 77.7%
5 Roger Federer 237.7 41.3% 67.0% 64.6% 64.8%
6 Andy Murray 235.4 43.2% 62.5% 60.3% 69.3%
p.s. First number is "under pressure rating", second is % break points converted, third is % break points saved, fourth % tie breakers won and fifth is % deciding sets won. The first number is the sum of the last four.
John Steinbeck came up with some such measure in the recent past to assess "clutch factor". Need to compare this rating with his rating when I have time.
