Italian translation at settesei.it
As I wrote at The Economist this week, Andy Murray might sit atop the ATP rankings, but he probably isn’t the best player in tennis right now. That honor still belongs to Novak Djokovic, who comes in higher on the Elo ranking list, which uses an algorithm that is more predictive of match outcomes than the ATP table.
This isn’t the first time Elo has disagreed with the official rankings over the name at the top. Of the 26 men to have reached the ATP number one ranking, only 18 also became number one on the Elo list. A 19th player, Guillermo Coria, was briefly Elo #1 despite never achieving the same feat on the ATP rankings.
Four of the remaining eight players–Murray, Patrick Rafter, Marcelo Rios, and John Newcombe–climbed as high as #2 in the Elo rankings, while the last four–Thomas Muster, Carlos Moya, Marat Safin, and Yevgeny Kafelnikov–only got as high as #3. Moya and Kafelnikov are extreme cases of the rankings mismatch, as neither player spent even a single full season inside the Elo top five.
By any measure, though, Murray has spent a lot of time close to the top spot. What makes his current ascent to the #1 spot so odd is that in the past, Elo thought he was much closer. Despite his outstanding play over the last several months, there is still a 100-point Elo gap between him and Djokovic. That’s a lot of space: Most of the field at the WTA Finals in Singapore this year was within a little more than a 100-point range.
January 2010 was the Brit’s best shot. At the end of 2009, Murray, Djokovic, and Roger Federer were tightly packed at the top of the Elo leaderboard. In December, Murray was #3, but he trailed Fed–and the #1 position–by only 25 points. In January, Novak took over the top spot, and Murray closed to within 16 points–a small enough margin that one big upset could make the difference. Altogether, Murray has spent 63 weeks within 100 points of the Elo top spot, none of those since August 2013.
For most of the intervening three-plus years, Djokovic has been steadily setting himself apart from the pack. He reached his career Elo peak in April of this season, opening up a lead of almost 200 points over Federer, who was then #2, and 250 points over Murray. Since Roland Garros, Murray has closed the gap somewhat, but his lack of opportunities against highly-rated players has slowed his climb.
If Murray defeats Djokovic in the final this week in London, it will make the debate more interesting, not to mention secure the year-end ATP #1 ranking for the Brit. But it won’t affect the Elo standings. When two players have such lengthy track records, one match doesn’t come close to eliminating a 100-point gap. Novak will end the season as Elo #1, and he is well-positioned to maintain that position well into 2017.