Tracking the Race to London - 2014 WTF

[brokenshoelace]

This conversation got me curious about the "Slam win rate" of all-time greats - that is, what percentage of Slams they played in that they won.

Borg 40.7% (11/27)
Nadal 35.9% (14/39)
Federer 27.4% (17/62)
Sampras 26.9% (14/52)
Djokovic 17.5% (7/40)
Wilander 15.9% (7/44)
McEnroe 15.6% (7/45)
Connors 14.0% (8/57)
Lendl 14.0% (8/57)
Agassi 13.1% (8/61)
Becker 13.0% (6/46)
Edberg 11.1% (6/54)
Courier 9.5% (4/42)
Vilas 8.2% (4/49)
Nalbandian 0.0% (0/36)

(See if you can spot the outlier in my list of "all-time greats"...my little joke).

Anyhow, it wasn't surprising to see Borg on the top of the list as he retired in his prime.

A couple other interesting things that popped out at me: One, Roger has now played more Slams than any other tennis great of the Open Era. He's tied with Lleyton Hewitt for second on the all-time list, behind #1, the incomparable Fabrice Santoro with 70 Slam appearances.

Also, I found it interesting that Novak Djokovic has now played in one more Slam than Rafa - although with half the wins.

Finally, now while I don't think this is a particularly useful indicator of greatness on its own, it does clearly show us something: the gap between the top four and the rest of the field. I think in this list we see just how great those four players are, certainly the four greatest of the Open Era. I think it differentiates "GOAT candidates" from mere "all-time greats."

It's interesting to see, but I really don't think it tells you that much. You can't get true comparability as some of the earlier guys intentionally missed a lot of slams. Much more interesting would be a loot at wins vs participation by slam in my view.

The stat he's showing displays the amount of slams each player won per participation. The slams players missed are not taken into consideration.

Also, I wouldn't say anyone in contention for all-time greatness intentionally missed "a lot" of slams, other than maybe Connors.

 

[herios]

Murray'll play Shenzen and Beejing so he can take some points and hopefully qualify for London
Go Andy, Go

Shenzen is a new 250 event, replacing St Petersburg. He will be this way the top seed there, as it does not have a strong field. Second seed will be Gasquet. This is a good opportunity to grab
points.

 

[El Dude]

It's interesting to see, but I really don't think it tells you that much. You can't get true comparability as some of the earlier guys intentionally missed a lot of slams. Much more interesting would be a loot at wins vs participation by slam in my view.

As Broken said, the numbers are I gave are the number of championships divided by number of Slams played in.

I think it tells us something, just not everything - whether that is much or not is arguable, but I do think the list has significance.

I think Broken made a good point - that all-time greats tend to inherently play a lot of Slams. Borg is the obvious exception, but he quit in his prime - or perhaps just as he was starting to slip out of it and was being surpassed by McEnroe as the greatest player in the game. If Borg had continued, I think it very likely that he would have both won more Slams (maybe 3-5 more?) but that his overall percentage would have gone down, but still remained very high - certainly above 30%. If he had played six or seven more years through his age 31 or 32 season, averaged three Slams per year, that's 18-21 more Slams. I think he would have probably would have won 4-6 more, so we'll say 5. If he played 20 more Slams, that's 16/47, or 34% (All this, of course, assumes a reinvigorated interest and passion). That would have put him right there with Rafa and Roger for GOAT candidacy.

One thing this list implies is that Borg aside, Nadal is possibly the greatest player of the Open Era when he actually plays; I would also argue that staying healthy is an actual skill, a component of greatness - and that we shouldn't inflate his greatness because of missed Slams. But he clearly has the edge over the field (again, aside from Borg) in terms of how much he wins vs. how much he plays. Again, this isn't everything but it does mean something.

Let me speculate a bit about "what could have been" and "what could be" with regards to Nadal, so as to get a sense of how much his percentage is skewed by missing Slams. He missed two in 2004 that I don't think he would have won, so let's say that is 0-2. Then he missed the 2006 Australian Open, the 2009 Wimbledon 2012 US Open, 2013 Australian Open, and 2014 US Open. That's one just as he was getting going as a top player and four in his prime. Let's say he wins two of those, so 2-5. Then we add the 2-7 to his overall record and we get: 16/46, or 34.8%. In other words, he's still way above everyone else other than Borg.

Let's come back to reality, though. Nadal will be 29 years old next June. We honestly don't know when Rafa will retire, but we can look at historical numbers and say that most players drop off significantly after age 31. So let's say that Rafa has through the 2017 French Open, when he'll turn 31, before he starts slipping in a significant way - that's 10 Slams. Rafa has missed one Slam per year for the last three years, so let's speculate that continues and that of those next 10 Slams, Rafa plays in 8. And then after turning age 31, let's say he plays in 4 more, for a total of 12 more Slams. I'm going to suggest that he wins 2-3 more in those 8 Slams of his prime or near prime years, and pulls out one more after - so 3-4 more Slams in 12 more played. That leaves us with either:

Now: 14/39
Conjecture: 17/51 (33.3%) or 18/52 (34.6%)

Now if we go back to the imaginary history, right now Rafa would be at 16/46, or 34.8%. Given this healthier history we can posit a healthier future, if not a longer one. So let's say instead of 12 more Rafa would play 15 more. Let's say he'd win 4 more Slams, so go 4/15 and finish at 20/61. That's still 32.8%.

All of this is conjecture--and we don't really know what will happen (or would have happened)--but I think my wild speculations are basically reasonable and grounded in historical trajectories. And the point is that no matter how you slice the cake, barring the slim possibility that Rafa is both healthy enough to play a bunch more Slams AND doesn't win any, he's going to finish his career with the best "Slam rate percentage" from an Open Era player that didn't retire prematurely. In other words, Rafa is going to go down as the legitimately greatest player per Slam appearance in the Open Era.

Even if we revised history and project a healthier Rafa, he would have both won more Slams by the end of his career (about 20, by my estimate) and still retained the highest percentage by a fair amount. In other words, if healthy AND consistent, it is hard to deny the idea that Rafa would have been the clear Open Era GOAT - 20 Slams is hard to refute, especially if Roger stays at 17.

Does this mean that I'm saying that Rafa is the greatest player of the Open Era? No, not necessarily - there are many other factors to consider. But my point is that this matters and that it is yet another factor that puts him in the running for the GOAT title.

 

[El Dude]

p.s. Sorry for the novel. I had fun conjecturing!

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Murray'll play Shenzen and Beejing so he can take some points and hopefully qualify for London
Go Andy, Go

Shenzen is a new 250 event, replacing St Petersburg. He will be this way the top seed there, as it does not have a strong field. Second seed will be Gasquet. This is a good opportunity to grab
points.

Perhaps, he can win a title out there.

 

[Federberg]

It's interesting to see, but I really don't think it tells you that much. You can't get true comparability as some of the earlier guys intentionally missed a lot of slams. Much more interesting would be a loot at wins vs participation by slam in my view.

As Broken said, the numbers are I gave are the number of championships divided by number of Slams played in.

I think it tells us something, just not everything - whether that is much or not is arguable, but I do think the list has significance.

I think Broken made a good point - that all-time greats tend to inherently play a lot of Slams. Borg is the obvious exception, but he quit in his prime - or perhaps just as he was starting to slip out of it and was being surpassed by McEnroe as the greatest player in the game. If Borg had continued, I think it very likely that he would have both won more Slams (maybe 3-5 more?) but that his overall percentage would have gone down, but still remained very high - certainly above 30%. If he had played six or seven more years through his age 31 or 32 season, averaged three Slams per year, that's 18-21 more Slams. I think he would have probably would have won 4-6 more, so we'll say 5. If he played 20 more Slams, that's 16/47, or 34% (All this, of course, assumes a reinvigorated interest and passion). That would have put him right there with Rafa and Roger for GOAT candidacy.

One thing this list implies is that Borg aside, Nadal is possibly the greatest player of the Open Era when he actually plays; I would also argue that staying healthy is an actual skill, a component of greatness - and that we shouldn't inflate his greatness because of missed Slams. But he clearly has the edge over the field (again, aside from Borg) in terms of how much he wins vs. how much he plays. Again, this isn't everything but it does mean something.

Let me speculate a bit about "what could have been" and "what could be" with regards to Nadal, so as to get a sense of how much his percentage is skewed by missing Slams. He missed two in 2004 that I don't think he would have won, so let's say that is 0-2. Then he missed the 2006 Australian Open, the 2009 Wimbledon 2012 US Open, 2013 Australian Open, and 2014 US Open. That's one just as he was getting going as a top player and four in his prime. Let's say he wins two of those, so 2-5. Then we add the 2-7 to his overall record and we get: 16/46, or 34.8%. In other words, he's still way above everyone else other than Borg.

Let's come back to reality, though. Nadal will be 29 years old next June. We honestly don't know when Rafa will retire, but we can look at historical numbers and say that most players drop off significantly after age 31. So let's say that Rafa has through the 2017 French Open, when he'll turn 31, before he starts slipping in a significant way - that's 10 Slams. Rafa has missed one Slam per year for the last three years, so let's speculate that continues and that of those next 10 Slams, Rafa plays in 8. And then after turning age 31, let's say he plays in 4 more, for a total of 12 more Slams. I'm going to suggest that he wins 2-3 more in those 8 Slams of his prime or near prime years, and pulls out one more after - so 3-4 more Slams in 12 more played. That leaves us with either:

Now: 14/39
Conjecture: 17/51 (33.3%) or 18/52 (34.6%)

Now if we go back to the imaginary history, right now Rafa would be at 16/46, or 34.8%. Given this healthier history we can posit a healthier future, if not a longer one. So let's say instead of 12 more Rafa would play 15 more. Let's say he'd win 4 more Slams, so go 4/15 and finish at 20/61. That's still 32.8%.

All of this is conjecture--and we don't really know what will happen (or would have happened)--but I think my wild speculations are basically reasonable and grounded in historical trajectories. And the point is that no matter how you slice the cake, barring the slim possibility that Rafa is both healthy enough to play a bunch more Slams AND doesn't win any, he's going to finish his career with the best "Slam rate percentage" from an Open Era player that didn't retire prematurely. In other words, Rafa is going to go down as the legitimately greatest player per Slam appearance in the Open Era.

Even if we revised history and project a healthier Rafa, he would have both won more Slams by the end of his career (about 20, by my estimate) and still retained the highest percentage by a fair amount. In other words, if healthy AND consistent, it is hard to deny the idea that Rafa would have been the clear Open Era GOAT - 20 Slams is hard to refute, especially if Roger stays at 17.

Does this mean that I'm saying that Rafa is the greatest player of the Open Era? No, not necessarily - there are many other factors to consider. But my point is that this matters and that it is yet another factor that puts him in the running for the GOAT title.

I'm sorry you just can't extrapolate and come up with woulda coulda numbers for Borg. He quit for a reason... he didn't feel he could cut it, personal, I don't know. Bottom line.. he left and to speculate about how much he would have won is pointless. Before the 80s, the only slams that appear to have been played fairly consistently are Wimbledon and the US. I just think, and of course it's a personal opinion, that to get to the point where you're playing 50+ slams speaks of a level of passion/commitment. Yes theoretically other greats could have done this if they want to.. but you can't just make extrapolations. It's fantasy. You only have to consider that these extrapolations take titles away from other greats! There can be only one winner.

Anyway... in summary.. the evidence is that some of these greats have simply not been able to maintain their level or passion for long enough to play many more slams. I don't penalise them for that. I just see more value in identifying who has the better win rates in the different slams. That's new information. I for one am not going to claim that if 2 guys have the same number of slams but one has played in twice as many slams that makes the other guy a better player. It's nonsense to me.. sorry

 

[Kieran]

Murray'll play Shenzen and Beejing so he can take some points and hopefully qualify for London
Go Andy, Go

Shenzen is a new 250 event, replacing St Petersburg. He will be this way the top seed there, as it does not have a strong field. Second seed will be Gasquet. This is a good opportunity to grab
points.

Perhaps, he can win a title out there.

Or even reach a final! :clap :clap :clap

 

[JesuslookslikeBorg]

yes, good news..murray is going for the Asian hat-trick again like he did before.

 

[mrzz]

By chance just saw an interesting question on the ATP site:

What if the year end rankings are close enough to the Davis Cup points to make a difference to the number one spot? As the Davis Cup final is after the YEC, so one would have to wait one more week to know who is the YE #1, right?

Isn't it "awarded" just after the YEC final (maybe I'm wrong)? Or maybe the final points will count for 2015 (which I do not think so).

Or maybe they just did not think about that.

El Dude, GSM?

 

[GameSetAndMath]

By chance just saw an interesting question on the ATP site:

What if the year end rankings are close enough to the Davis Cup points to make a difference to the number one spot? As the Davis Cup final is after the YEC, so one would have to wait one more week to know who is the YE #1, right?

Isn't it "awarded" just after the YEC final (maybe I'm wrong)? Or maybe the final points will count for 2015 (which I do not think so).

Or maybe they just did not think about that.

El Dude, GSM?

As far as I know, the finals of DC also counts in the determination of who is YE #1.
Most of the confusion is due to wrong terminology. The proper name of the
tournament you are referring to is WTF, although people call it informally as YEC.
But, YEC is a misnomer as that tourney does not necessarily decide the YE #1.
Quite often, the finals of DC does not play a role even though it counts, as
the margins are high. In fact in many years, the YE #1 even gets decided before
the WTF begins. Last year, it was a close race between Rafa and Novak for the
YE #1. Many thought that DC would play a role in it. However, it got decided
at WTF itself. Nonetheless, the race to finish YE #1 was interesting last year
as Novak got very serious after losing USO and went on a rampage in the
fall season trying to finish as #1 in vain. But, the #1 was not a done deal
when WTF started last year.

It is fairly safe to assume that Switzerland will win it out tomorrow with Federer doing
a fog clearing operation. I am giving below the potential points that Fed could accumulate
in the finals of DC for all scenario.

1. If Fed loses all live rubbers that he plays in .............................0
2. If Fed wins one live rubber only ............................................75
3. If Fed wins both live rubbers, but Switzerland loses ...............150
4. If Fed wins both live rubbers and Switzerland wins the cup......225

It is going to be trickier this year as Novak played in the DC finals last year
against Czech republic and won both of his ties even though Serbia lost.
So, he got 150 points in that round. That will also come off from Novak's ranking
points after the DC finals and Novak cannot possibly defend them as Serbia
is not in the picture anymore. If the race for #1 is a two man race between
Novak and Roger this year, it may come down to the wire and DC may
play a role in view of the huge swing involved.

The bottom line is that if Roger is trailing Novak by less than 375 points
in ATP ranking points by the time WTF ends, Roger can become YE #1 under
scenario 4 above. So, if Novak wants safety, he needs to ensure that he leads
by more than 375 ranking points when WTF ends or equivalently more than 225
race points. At the moment (i.e., as of Monday, the 15th September), Novak has
a lead of 3980 ranking points over Roger; this may look like a comfortable lead,
but he has a lead of only 1130 in the race points.

Finally, in the event of exact numerical tie in the total ranking points, the
YE #1 is decided by considering only the points obtained in mandatory events
(the 4 GS, 8 mandatory Masters and the WTF) and I reckon that
Djokovic is leading Fed on that (having won one GS and three Masters).

 

[herios]

Murray'll play Shenzen and Beejing so he can take some points and hopefully qualify for London
Go Andy, Go

Shenzen is a new 250 event, replacing St Petersburg. He will be this way the top seed there, as it does not have a strong field. Second seed will be Gasquet. This is a good opportunity to grab
points.

Perhaps, he can win a title out there.

Or even reach a final! :clap :clap :clap

Sorry I inserted an error in my message, Shenzen replaces Bangkok and not St. Pete.

 

[El Dude]

federberg, you don't have to apologize. But the root of the difference may be that I see value in the simple fun of extrapolating and you don't. Fun/enjoyment/fantasy = a good thing. It doesn't mean anything, it doesn't change what is, but it is fun to think about. For me.

 

[Kieran]

One of the most curious parts of your posts, Dude, was that Nole has now played more slams than Rafa. Makes sense, given how many Rafa has missed through injury, and also that Nole is only a year younger. Sometimes I need to remind myself of this, because I often feel that Rafa is so much older than him...

 

[Federberg]

federberg, you don't have to apologize. But the root of the difference may be that I see value in the simple fun of extrapolating and you don't. Fun/enjoyment/fantasy = a good thing. It doesn't mean anything, it doesn't change what is, but it is fun to think about. For me.

Please don't ever stop making those statistical posts. It's great to see :clap

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Here are the new ATP race rankings that will be released tomorrow, Monday the 15th of
September. Although some points have changed, there is no movement in positions as
there was no real tournament last week and some DC ties. Qualified are in bold and
virtually qualified are in italics.

1 Novak Djokovic SRB 8150
2 Roger Federer SUI 7020
3 Rafael Nadal ESP 6650
4 Stan Wawrinka SUI 4795
5 Marin Cilic CRO 4000
6 Kei Nishikori JPN 3675
7 David Ferrer ESP 3535
8 Tomas Berdych CZE 3510
9 Milos Raonic CAN 3425
10 Grigor Dimitrov BUL 3335
11 Andy Murray GBR 3155

It looks like the final cut will be substantially higher than the last few years and will probably
be around 3800.

We have 3 slots with 6 serious contenders numbered 6 through 11 above. Murray is making
a real push in this Asian swing as he is camping out in China for three weeks. Let us see whether
Murray manages to get into top 8 of the race by the end of the Asian Swing.

 

[El Dude]

One of the most curious parts of your posts, Dude, was that Nole has now played more slams than Rafa. Makes sense, given how many Rafa has missed through injury, and also that Nole is only a year younger. Sometimes I need to remind myself of this, because I often feel that Rafa is so much older than him...

I think it has to do with how quickly he became visible due to winning a Slam. Novak was also quite good from early on, but didn't win his first Slam until 2008. So while he's only one year younger than Rafa, his "Slam Age" is three years younger.

Actually, here's another way to look at it: the gap between the first Slam title of Roger (Wimbledon 2003) and Rafa (French Open 2005), or six Slams between them, is actually significantly narrower than Rafa and Novak (Australian Open 2008), with ten Slams between them. This makes it feel like Rafa is closer to Roger's generation, even though he's chronologically very much of the same generation as Novak.

 

[NADAL2005RG]

Wow! Nadal has won twice as many slams as Djokovic but Nadal has played less slams than Djokovic.....Incredible state of affairs :lolz:

Regarding the World Tour Finals, I would absolutely love to see Nadal and Federer play each other twice at this year's World Tour Finals :clap

 

[mrzz]

^be careful with what you wish for

 

[Moxie]

One of the most curious parts of your posts, Dude, was that Nole has now played more slams than Rafa. Makes sense, given how many Rafa has missed through injury, and also that Nole is only a year younger. Sometimes I need to remind myself of this, because I often feel that Rafa is so much older than him...

I think it has to do with how quickly he became visible due to winning a Slam. Novak was also quite good from early on, but didn't win his first Slam until 2008. So while he's only one year younger than Rafa, his "Slam Age" is three years younger.

Actually, here's another way to look at it: the gap between the first Slam title of Roger (Wimbledon 2003) and Rafa (French Open 2005), or six Slams between them, is actually significantly narrower than Rafa and Novak (Australian Open 2008), with ten Slams between them. This makes it feel like Rafa is closer to Roger's generation, even though he's chronologically very much of the same generation as Novak.

I think Rafa is nearly his own generation. He came up fast at 18-19, and never relented. Nole won at a good age to be in your sweet-spot, Dude, for long-term success: 20-years old. But he got pushed aside by Fedal (+1 Del Potro) before he got his next Major.

Given that you like numbers, here is the W/L and career totals for Nadal, Djokovic and Murray:

Nadal: 702/137 = 839
Djokovic: 587/139 = 729
Murray: 460/146 = 606 **

With 110 more matches played than Djokovic, Nadal is about 2-3 year ahead of him, in tennis years, and possible 4 "tennis years" ahead of Murray. (Given 60-ish as a norm for a top player.) Interestingly, Nadal has 2 fewer total losses than Djokovic, but 115 more wins.

But, overall, I think this shows, in part, why people don't know what to make of Nadal's potential longevity. Age is one thing, matches played is another. Injury lay-offs can be time in the bank, but it also means he's injury-prone. It all leads to the notion that Rafa's longevity is a great mystery.

**EDIT: Math fixed per GSM.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

One of the most curious parts of your posts, Dude, was that Nole has now played more slams than Rafa. Makes sense, given how many Rafa has missed through injury, and also that Nole is only a year younger. Sometimes I need to remind myself of this, because I often feel that Rafa is so much older than him...

I think it has to do with how quickly he became visible due to winning a Slam. Novak was also quite good from early on, but didn't win his first Slam until 2008. So while he's only one year younger than Rafa, his "Slam Age" is three years younger.

Actually, here's another way to look at it: the gap between the first Slam title of Roger (Wimbledon 2003) and Rafa (French Open 2005), or six Slams between them, is actually significantly narrower than Rafa and Novak (Australian Open 2008), with ten Slams between them. This makes it feel like Rafa is closer to Roger's generation, even though he's chronologically very much of the same generation as Novak.

I think Rafa is nearly his own generation. He came up fast at 18-19, and never relented. Nole won at a good age to be in your sweet-spot, Dude, for long-term success: 20-years old. But he got pushed aside by Fedal (+1 Del Potro) before he got his next Major.

Given that you like numbers, here is the W/L and career totals for Nadal, Djokovic and Murray:

Nadal: 702/137 = 839
Djokovic: 587/139 = 729
Murray: 460/146 = 706

With 110 more matches played than Djokovic, Nadal is about 2-3 year ahead of him, in tennis years, and possible 4 "tennis years" ahead of Murray. (Given 60-ish as a norm for a top player.) Interestingly, Nadal has 2 fewer total losses than Djokovic, but 115 more wins.

But, overall, I think this shows, in part, why people don't know what to make of Nadal's potential longevity. Age is one thing, matches played is another. Injury lay-offs can be time in the bank, but it also means he's injury-prone. It all leads to the notion that Rafa's longevity is a great mystery.

460+146 = 606.