Category: Rankings

The Ever-Expanding Top Ten

Tennis fans talk about “cracking the top ten,” “top ten scalps,” and “top ten talent,” suggesting that this ranking milestone is a failsafe marker of the current elite.  While the top ten isn’t quite the same as the big four, the connotation is that the top ten is a class above.

Yesterday, Juan Monaco joined that group.  His Hamburg title earned him the 500 points to put him over the top, capping the best 52-week span of his career.  Since this time last year, he’s played five finals, won three titles, and reached the semis at the Miami Masters.

Job well done, Pico: We can now add you to an illustrious list featuring such names as Mikhail Youzhny, Nicolas Massu, Radek Stepanek, Arnaud Clement, and Marcos Baghdatis.  Kind of like an Olympic medal, an appearance in the top ten is something they can never take away from you.

As my snark implies, the top ten mystique is misplaced.  Sure, a berth in the top ten is an impressive accomplishment.  For that matter, a spot in the top 100 is far out of reach of mere mortals.  But with so many top-tenners hanging around, there’s barely enough mystique to go around.

Any given week, of course, there’s only room for ten men in the top ten.  But the last few spots are–and always have been–a revolving door.  At any given time, there are a staggering number of past, present, and future top ten players in the active ranks.

In fact, of the 146 players ever to reach the ATP top 10, 36 of them are in this week’s rankings.  A few, such as Massu, Thomas Muster,  and Fernando Gonzalez are retired (or might as well be).  But that still leaves more than 30 “top-tenners” among active players.  Even that doesn’t tell the whole story.

For a fuller perspective, head back a decade to the 2002 end-of-year rankings.  In December of that year, 70 of the men who appeared in the ATP rankings would, at some point in their career, crack the top ten.  If we set aside youngsters like Monaco and Rafael Nadal who were on the way up in late 2002, we find that of the top 100 on December 16, 2002, 47 could write “former top-ten player” on their Wikipedia pages.

Dwell on that for a moment.  Nearly half of the top 100 had this elite status.  You could nearly fill the Paris Masters draw with past, present, and future top-tenners.

Ten years from now, the same will probably be said about the class of 2012.  “Only” 28 of the current top 100 have spent time in the top ten, but for many of the other 72, there’s plenty of time to add to the list.  It seems a given that Milos Raonic, Bernard Tomic, and Kei Nishikori will at some point crack the top 10, while players like Alexandr Dolgopolov, Ryan Harrison, Grigor Dimitrov, Vasek Pospisil, and Cedrik Marcel Stebe are poised to follow them to the top.

Your list may be different than mine, but the details don’t matter.  A year ago, most people wouldn’t have guessed Monaco would crack the top 10.  When Janko Tipsarevic was ranked around #50 on his 26th birthday, no one imagined he’d spend months at #8.  To say that Dimitrov, or Pospisil, or David Goffin is a future top-tenner doesn’t mean he’s going to take over the sport and beat all comers, it just means that he’ll put together a year with a couple of 250 titles and a handful of solid wins against other top players.

Next time someone offers you to bet you that so-and-so won’t ever reach #10 in the world, it’s worth careful consideration.  The top ten is bigger than it sounds.

Three Simple Ways to Improve the ATP Ranking System

Italian translation at settesei.it

Rafael Nadal’s two-year ranking system would favor a few veterans at the expense of everyone else.  My algorithm is too complex for players and fans to use on a weekly basis.  But there is always an undercurrent of dissatisfaction over the current system.

The rankings serve two main purposes, each of which we must keep in mind as we think through a better system:

  • Entertainment. The fans want to know who’s number one.  No system will ever be perfect, but if the ranking system told us that Nadal outranked Djokovic despite losing to him several times in a row, the system would lose credibility.
  • Tournament entry. Rankings determine who gets direct entry into tournaments.  A biased ranking system would keep stronger players out of tournaments while letting in lesser players.

A system that is good for one of these purposes is generally good for the other.  In an ideal world, the rankings would show us who is playing the best right now, carefully defining “right now” to avoid an unnecessary focus on current hot streaks.  Another way to look at is that the rankings should be as predictive as possible.  If underdogs are constantly winning, that doesn’t mean tennis is a sport full of triumphant underdogs, it means we’re ranking players incorrectly!

The current system isn’t that bad.  There are three main problems, however:

  1. Last week is equal to last year.  The winner in Miami this week will gain 1000 points.  Those 1000 points will be counted in his ranking next week, in six months, and in 51 weeks. In 53 weeks, though, he’ll have zero points.  If we’re trying to measure how good he is, a tournament 51 weeks ago isn’t nearly as informative as his tournament last week.  And if we insist on using his result from 51 weeks ago, why not his result from 53 weeks ago?
  2. Surfaces are interchangeable.  Milos Raonic won a slew of matches on indoor courts last spring, which earned him a seed at the French Open.  Now, I love Milos, but did he really deserve a seed at the French, despite virtually no professional experience on clay?  Performance on one surface translates to other surfaces to some extent, but (obviously!) all surfaces are not created equal.
  3. All opponents are equal.  In the Miami third round, Andy Roddick beat Roger Federer … then lost.  He’ll get 90 points. Kei Nishikori beat Lukas Rosol … then lost. These sorts of differences sometimes even out over time, but must we trust that they will?  Roddick’s achievement this week is much more impressive than Nishikori’s, and should be treated as such.

We can fix all of these problems with simple arithmetic, making tweaks to the system that any player or fan can understand.

In these solutions, the exact details don’t matter.  The most important thing is simply to acknowledge that not all matches are equal.

  1. Last week is worth more than last year.  In my system, last week is worth a little bit more than the week before, which is worth a little bit more than the week before that, and so on.  Here’s a simple way to incorporate that into the ATP system: After four months, tournaments are worth only 80% of their original points.  After eight months, tournaments are worth only 60% of their original points.  That way, the drop off is more gradual, and Indian Wells is worth more than, say, the 2011 Rome Masters.  If Nadal still wants two years, this can easily be extended to cover two years of results–after a year, 45%; after 16 months, 30%, after 20 months, 15%.  Now everybody’s happy!
  2. Separate surfaces, separate rankings.  There will always–and should always–be a single most important ranking list, encompassing all surfaces.  But for tournament entry, why not do better?  For example, create a clay list by doubling the point value of all clay tournaments and leaving the others alone.  David Ferrer and Carlos Berlocq will rise; John Isner and Kevin Anderson will fall.  Any tennis fan knows this happens, so tournaments should determine entry this way, as well.  After all, Wimbledon has long used this sort of approach for seeding, if not for direct entry.
  3. Bonus points for beating top players.  The WTA used to do this, and it’s the least straightforward of my suggestions.  It’s so important, though, that a little complexity is worth a lot.  Let’s say 100 points for a win over anyone in the top 3; 75 points for beating anyone ranked 4, 5, or 6; 50 points for a win over anyone else in the top 10, 30 points for beating anyone ranked 11-15, and 10 points for a win over anyone ranked 16-20.  Mega-upsets like those scored lately by Isner, Roddick, and Grigor Dimitrov tell us something important, and the rankings should listen.
This is all stuff you can do on a calculator–nothing is more complex than the rules governing protected rankings or zero-pointers.  Young players will see their rankings rise more quickly once they begin beating the top guys.   All players will get into tournaments (and earn seeds) on surfaces where they have had more success .  And the fans will have a more accurate ranking system both to rely upon and to fuel arguments about which players are really better.

The Fatal Flaw of Nadal’s Two-Year Ranking System

Italian translation at settesei.it

Now that Rafael Nadal has resigned from the ATP player council–apparently because no one took his two-year ranking plan seriously–we’re likely to hear a bit more about this alternate approach.

Presumably, Nadal’s method would count the last 104 weeks (two years) of results instead of the last 52, as is currently the case.  As far as I know, he isn’t pushing for any other adjustments.  As long as that is the case, the rest of the council (and the ATP in general) is right to ignore Nadal’s plan: It would do significant damage to the sport, without much in the way of benefits.  It would drastically slow the rise of young players, but change little for guys at the top.

Ultimately, the question is over the purpose of the ranking system.  If it is to reward past performance, a two-year ranking system may be appropriate.  If it is to rank competitors by their current level of play, treating a tournament 22 months ago the same as last week’s tournament is flat-out wrong.

Consider what the present ranking system tells us.  By equally weighting tournaments over the last 52 weeks (with more points for more important events, of course), a player’s ranking is the average of how good he has been over the last 52 weeks–in other words, it’s a approximation of how good he was 26 weeks ago.  For most players, this is a decent estimate of how good they are right now.  If we go to a two-year system, the rankings would be an estimate of how good players were one full year ago.  Yikes.

The most obvious casualties of such a system are young players (or any players, really) on the way up.  Even with the current system, the rankings take some time to catch up with a rising star like Bernard Tomic or Milos Raonic.  When Raonic had his great run in early 2011, the rankings were still counting a bunch of challenger results from one year earlier.  In a two-year system, Raonic’s more recent results would count for even less.  It would take twice as long for such a player to establish himself.

The clear beneficiaries, of course, are the opposite type of competitor: established players who are declining or injured.  If a player is consistently good, it really doesn’t matter how the ranking system is calculated–just about any way you slice it, Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, and Murray would be the top four.  But the players who benefit are the ones who posted good results between 52 and 104 weeks ago, and haven’t done nearly as well since.  Right now, that means injured players like Robin Soderling, and declining players like Andy Roddick and Fernando Verdasco.

Should Roddick and Verdasco continue to be rewarded for their play in 2010?  To me, anyway, the answer is a clear “no.”  Even with Roddick’s sharp decline, he will probably still earn a seed for the French Open.  Does he deserve more than that?

But what about Soderling?  He hasn’t played since June, and his ranking has fallen to #30.  Unless he returns in the next three months, he’ll fall off the list altogether.  If there is a case for Nadal’s system, this is it.  But the ATP already has two methods in place to protect players like Soderling: protected rankings (PR) and wild cards.  Players injured for a certain length of time are able to use a PR (equal to their ranking when they last played) for entry to a set number of tournaments.  Until recently, Tommy Haas was still using a PR of 20.  Soderling would have a PR that would get him into enough tournaments to rebuild his ranking, assuming he comes back with any semblance of his previous form.

Of course, there’s also the wild card.  When Soderling returns, even if he is unranked, every 250- and 500-level tournament would hand him a wild card without a second thought.  This makes PRs even more valuable than the ATP intended them to be: Haas, for example, has been able to use his PR of 20 for so long because many tournaments gave him wild cards.  He could save the PR for when he needed it.

The only disadvantage to PRs and WCs is that these players aren’t seeded.  But really, after sitting out for a year, does a player deserve safe passage to the third round?  I find it hard to believe that they do.  And if this is really such an important issue, perhaps a player such as Soderling could be granted the lowest seed (e.g. 32, at Indian Wells, Miami, or a slam) two of the times he uses his protected ranking.

To recap: A simple two-year system would retard the rise of young players, forcing them to prove themselves for twice as long as is currently the case.  It wouldn’t affect consistently good players.  It would help players on the decline who probably don’t deserve help.  And top players returning from injury have little problem entering tournaments; Nadal’s approach would just get them seeds.

But Jeff, doesn’t your ranking system use two years of results?

Yes, I was getting to that.  It’s crucial to distinguish between using two years of results (acceptable) and weighting all results equally (unacceptable).

The biggest problem with the ATP ranking system as is–and it would be an even bigger problem with a two-year system like Nadal’s–is that it treats long-ago tournaments as equal to yesterday’s tournaments.  The winner of the 2012 Indian Wells event has 1000 points on his ranking.  The winner of the 2011 Miami even has 1000 points on his ranking.  The winner of the 2011 Indian Wells event has … zero points on his ranking.

How a player performed 18 months ago, or 20 months ago, has some predictive value.  But not nearly as much as the predictive value of their more recent performances.  In slight support of Nadal’s case, this is particularly true of players returning from injury.  My system never removed Juan Martin del Potro from the top 10 or so; using a one-year system, the ATP rankings saw him drop far out of the top 100.

If you are to use two years of results, it is absolutely imperative to differentiate between recent results and older results.  In fact, even a simple approach of this sort would improve the current 52-week system.  My algorithm weights results one year ago about half as heavily as last week’s, and two years ago roughly one-quarter as heavily.  The weighting is not simple, and thus would be inappropriate for the ATP system, which must be easily understood by both players and fans, but it points the way toward simpler solutions that might work.

That’s enough for today.  Check back tomorrow, when I’ll go into more depth about how the current ranking system can be improved.

Hard Court Rankings: 6 March 2012

It’s been a while since I posted new rankings.  To help get us ready for Indian Wells, here are my latest hard court rankings.  They are considerably more predictive the the ATP rankings, by considering two years’ worth of matches, surface, location, age, and weighting recent results more heavily. If this is your first time, click here to read more about the methodology.

As usual, there are plenty of surprises.  Despite Federer’s defeat of Murray last weekend, Murray has overtaken Roger in my rankings–just barely.  My numbers take into account quality of opponent, so my guess is that Murray’s win over Djokovic in the semifinals put him over the top.

Because younger players improve faster, my rankings consider each player’s age.  As usual, you’ll find Tomic and Harrison ranked higher than in the ATP rankings.  The shock, though, is Denis Kudla, #70 in my system.  The ATP rankings have him barely inside the top 200.

On the flip side, these rankings demote several players who have racked up points at lesser events.  Isner is at #20 (in part because my system doesn’t count Davis Cup) and Bogomolov is all the way down at #66.

Here is the current hard-court top 100:

RANK  PLAYER                   PTS  
1     Novak Djokovic          7437  
2     Rafael Nadal            4560  
3     Andy Murray             3778  
4     Roger Federer           3757  
5     Juan Martin del Potro   2919  
6     Jo-Wilfried Tsonga      2663  
7     Tomas Berdych           2476  
8     Gael Monfils            2231  
9     Kei Nishikori           1943  
10    David Ferrer            1833  
11    Mardy Fish              1806  
12    Stanislas Wawrinka      1613  
13    Robin Soderling         1599  
14    Bernard Tomic           1543  
15    Milos Raonic            1486  
16    Marcos Baghdatis        1486  
17    Janko Tipsarevic        1449  
18    Marin Cilic             1424  
19    Richard Gasquet         1406  
20    John Isner              1314  

RANK  PLAYER                   PTS  
21    Florian Mayer           1274  
22    Gilles Simon            1265  
23    Alexander Dolgopolov    1259  
24    Marcel Granollers       1202  
25    Andy Roddick            1195  
26    David Nalbandian        1131  
27    Fernando Verdasco       1108  
28    Philipp Kohlschreiber   1083  
29    Feliciano Lopez         1050  
30    Jurgen Melzer           1019  
31    Viktor Troicki          1004  
32    Ernests Gulbis          1001  
33    Nicolas Almagro          986  
34    Samuel Querrey           982  
35    Juan Monaco              968  
36    Mikhail Youzhny          955  
37    Julien Benneteau         953  
38    Kevin Anderson           910  
39    Nikolay Davydenko        875  
40    Ivan Dodig               857  

RANK  PLAYER                   PTS  
41    Michael Llodra           852  
42    Ivan Ljubicic            817  
43    Mikhail Kukushkin        798  
44    Andreas Seppi            788  
45    Ivo Karlovic             773  
46    Jeremy Chardy            756  
47    Lukas Lacko              741  
48    Ryan Harrison            740  
49    Donald Young             739  
50    Denis Istomin            719  
51    Philipp Petzschner       717  
52    Guillermo Garcia-Lopez   704  
53    Cedrik-Marcel Stebe      691  
54    Grigor Dimitrov          681  
55    Sergey Stakhovsky        669  
56    Santiago Giraldo         661  
57    Adrian Mannarino         654  
58    Andrei Goloubev          648  
59    Radek Stepanek           645  
60    Igor Andreev             645  

RANK  PLAYER                   PTS  
61    Steve Darcis             641  
62    Jurgen Zopp              640  
63    David Goffin             638  
64    Robin Haase              632  
65    Jarkko Nieminen          628  
66    Alex Bogomolov           620  
67    Lukasz Kubot             615  
68    Thiemo de Bakker         605  
69    Thomaz Bellucci          603  
70    Denis Kudla              601  
71    Olivier Rochus           588  
72    Daniel Brands            581  
73    Alejandro Falla          575  
74    Dudi Sela                570  
75    Xavier Malisse           565  
76    Richard Berankis         564  
77    Dmitry Tursunov          558  
78    Igor Sijsling            558  
79    Vasek Pospisil           557  
80    Benoit Paire             548  

RANK  PLAYER                   PTS  
81    Matt Ebden               544  
82    Laurynas Grigelis        523  
83    James Blake              517  
84    Matthias Bachinger       511  
85    Tobias Kamke             510  
86    Marius Copil             510  
87    Benjamin Becker          504  
88    Ryan Sweeting            500  
89    Jesse Levine             498  
90    Roberto Bautista         483  
91    Michael Zverev           480  
92    Flavio Cipolla           480  
93    Fabio Fognini            479  
94    Jesse Huta Galung        478  
95    Michael Berrer           475  
96    Grega Zemlja             470  
97    Yen-Hsun Lu              465  
98    James Ward               460  
99    Nicolas Mahut            452  
100   Ruben Bemelmans          449

Milos Raonic on Defense

One of the things I enjoy about watching up-and-comers on the ATP tour is how fast they can climb the rankings.  With few points to defend, a semifinal showing at an ATP 250 can be worth several ranking places, and a young player can string together several weeks like that.

This time last year, Milos Raonic did that (and much more) in January and February.  He started the season with a ranking of 156.  By the time he got to Indian Wells, he was up to 37.  He amassed nearly 800 points in a six-week span starting in Melbourne qualifying and ending in Memphis.  That’s more than half of his current point total, even after taking the title yesterday in Chennai and returning to his career-high ranking of 25.

In other words, Milos has his work cut out for him if he’d like to stay in the top 30.  At last year’s Australian Open, he beat Michael Llodra and Dr. Mikhail Youzhny en route to the round of 16.  Making it that far will be easier this year, since he’ll be seeded, but he’s still likely to face a top-16 player in the third round.  In San Jose, he won his first title, claiming 250 points thanks mainly to his beating Fernando Verdasco on an indoor hard court.  The next week, he racked up another 300 points for reaching the final in Memphis, this time beating both Verdasco and Mardy Fish.

The main advantage Raonic has this year is his ranking.  He wasn’t seeded at a tour-level event until late March, at the Miami Masters.  He had to defeat seeded players in the second and third rounds in Melbourne, then in the first rounds of Johannesburg, San Jose, and Memphis.  In 2012, it should be much easier going in the early rounds.

At the very least, then, Raonic won’t fall too far.  If all he does is play up to his seeding, he’ll reach the third round in Melbourne, then the quarters or semis in San Jose and Memphis.  That won’t be enough to defend all of his points, but it will keep him on the fringes of the top 32 long enough to build his rankings at the tournaments he missed last year.  Let Milos loose on the North American hard court circuit, and it isn’t difficult to imagine him cracking the top ten.

WTA Hard Court Rankings, pre-US Open

According to my ranking algorithm, Serena Williams is best player headed into the 2011 US Open.  It isn’t even close. Keep in mind that my system is focused specifically on who can beat whom on hard courts, not on a nebulous sense of the “best, most consistent player.” Serena may not be likely to show up at any given tournament, but when she does, she wins.

Thanks to a solid grass-court season and her win in Montreal, Serena is well ahead of the pack.  Kim Clijsters still has a lock on the #2 spot, but she won’t be in New York.  Wozniacki, Azarenka, and Sharapova are very tightly packed in the next three spots, in that order.

Despite playing even less than her sister has, Venus Williams comes in at #14.  Fans of American tennis will find some promise here–my system favors Melanie Oudin (58), Vania King (75), and Sloane Stephens (81), while all are currently outside the WTA top 100.

Here is the full list.  Check back later this weekend for tournament predictions based on these rankings and the full draw.

RANK  PLAYER                        PTS  
1     Serena Williams              8504  
2     Kim Clijsters                6683  
3     Caroline Wozniacki           6307  
4     Victoria Azarenka            6178  
5     Maria Sharapova              6158  
6     Petra Kvitova                5846  
7     Vera Zvonareva               5698  
8     Samantha Stosur              4547  
9     Na Li                        4528  
10    Agnieszka Radwanska          4379  
11    Marion Bartoli               4152  
12    Andrea Petkovic              3862  
13    Dominika Cibulkova           3704  
14    Venus Williams               3589  
15    Sabine Lisicki               3409  
16    Shuai Peng                   2978  
17    Ana Ivanovic                 2918  
18    Daniela Hantuchova           2887  
19    Svetlana Kuznetsova          2841  
20    Jelena Jankovic              2737  

RANK  PLAYER                        PTS  
21    Alisa Kleybanova             2500  
22    Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova     2494  
23    Flavia Pennetta              2475  
24    Roberta Vinci                2253  
25    Yanina Wickmayer             2246  
26    Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez  2212  
27    Nadia Petrova                2209  
28    Francesca Schiavone          2139  
29    Shahar Peer                  2097  
30    Jie Zheng                    2084  
31    Julia Goerges                1812  
32    Lucie Safarova               1746  
33    Galina Voskoboeva            1735  
34    Kaia Kanepi                  1731  
35    Ekaterina Makarova           1727  
36    Maria Kirilenko              1718  
37    Tsvetana Pironkova           1597  
38    Elena Vesnina                1387  
39    Kateryna Bondarenko          1364  
40    Christina McHale             1318  

RANK  PLAYER                        PTS  
41    Petra Cetkovska              1295  
42    Gisela Dulko                 1279  
43    Iveta Benesova               1234  
44    Tamira Paszek                1227  
45    Klara Zakopalova             1195  
46    Dinara Safina                1189  
47    Bethanie Mattek-Sands        1146  
48    Aravane Rezai                1133  
49    Virginie Razzano             1111  
50    Anastasija Sevastova         1098  
51    Jarmila Gajdosova            1092  
52    Sara Errani                  1076  
53    Vera Dushevina               1063  
54    Petra Martic                 1052  
55    Alona Bondarenko              983  
56    Marina Erakovic               965  
57    Bojana Jovanovski             964  
58    Melanie Oudin                 947  
59    Anna Chakvetadze              928  
60    Magdalena Rybarikova          901  

RANK  PLAYER                        PTS  
61    Alize Cornet                  891  
62    Simona Halep                  885  
63    Timea Bacsinszky              863  
64    Polona Hercog                 823  
65    Greta Arn                     823  
66    Aleksandra Wozniak            816  
67    Ksenia Pervak                 810  
68    Romina Oprandi                800  
69    Kimiko Date-Krumm             780  
70    Alexandra Dulgheru            772  
71    Jelena Dokic                  767  
72    Elena Baltacha                754  
73    Barbora Zahlavova Strycova    753  
74    Agnes Szavay                  751  
75    Vania King                    709  
76    Ayumi Morita                  708  
77    Angelique Kerber              707  
78    Johanna Larsson               702  
79    Melinda Czink                 700  
80    Sofia Arvidsson               685  

RANK  PLAYER                        PTS  
81    Sloane Stephens               659  
82    Anabel Medina Garrigues       650  
83    Kirsten Flipkens              637  
84    Monica Niculescu              623  
85    Carla Suarez Navarro          618  
86    Alla Kudryavtseva             618  
87    Lucie Hradecka                607  
88    Yaroslava Shvedova            599  
89    Kristina Barrois              591  
90    Regina Kulikova               590  
91    Anastasia Rodionova           580  
92    Sorana Cirstea                577  
93    Vesna Dolonts                 576  
94    Eleni Daniilidou              563  
95    Urszula Radwanska             557  
96    Olga Govortsova               534  
97    Arantxa Rus                   523  
98    Anastasiya Yakimova           522  
99    Shuai Zhang                   517  
100   Kai-Chen Chang                512

Hard Court Singles Rankings: 22 August 2011

With the U.S. Open a mere seven days away (and qualifying starting tomorrow!), it’s time to update my hard-court singles rankings.  If you’re interested in some of the methodology underlying these rankings, start here.

Here’s the top 101.  For what might be the first time since I started publishing these, Delpo is knocked out of the top four.  Because my system takes into account the last two years, he could take a hit when the 2009 US Open comes off the books.  It’s not as major a shift as in the ATP rankings, because my system has already heavily discounted the 2009 Open because it was so long ago, but given how large a factor those wins play in Delpo’s ranking, it will make a difference.

Also interesting to see how my system reflects the mess that is 6 through 15.  Fish, appropriately, heads the group on hard courts, while Ferrer loses several spots compared to the ATP rankings.  (Remember, these numbers are hard-court specific.)  Melzer and Almagro find themselves way out of the running.

Note also what these numbers do with some younger players — Bernard Tomic is on the cusp of cracking the top 20, and Ryan Harrison is inside the top 50.

RANK  PLAYER                  POINTS  
1     Novak Djokovic            7509  
2     Rafael Nadal              4977  
3     Roger Federer             4154  
4     Andy Murray               3911  
5     Juan Martin del Potro     3207  
6     Mardy Fish                2709  
7     Jo-Wilfried Tsonga        2654  
8     Robin Soderling           2360  
9     Tomas Berdych             2034  
10    Stanislas Wawrinka        1907  
11    Gael Monfils              1842  
12    Marin Cilic               1790  
13    David Ferrer              1601  
14    Andy Roddick              1518  
15    Gilles Simon              1507  
16    Nikolay Davydenko         1422  
17    Marcos Baghdatis          1392  
18    Richard Gasquet           1339  
19    Fernando Verdasco         1321  
20    David Nalbandian          1279  

RANK  PLAYER                  POINTS  
21    Bernard Tomic             1279  
22    Milos Raonic              1267  
23    Ernests Gulbis            1256  
24    Janko Tipsarevic          1159  
25    Viktor Troicki            1143  
26    Mikhail Youzhny           1108  
27    Florian Mayer             1093  
28    Alexander Dolgopolov      1068  
29    Philipp Kohlschreiber     1061  
30    Jurgen Melzer             1045  
31    Samuel Querrey            1044  
32    Nicolas Almagro           1023  
33    Ivan Ljubicic             1011  
34    Kei Nishikori             1005  
35    John Isner                 982  
36    Ivan Dodig                 948  
37    Michael Llodra             921  
38    Feliciano Lopez            903  
39    Radek Stepanek             896  
40    Guillermo Garcia-Lopez     854  

RANK  PLAYER                  POINTS  
41    Kevin Anderson             751  
42    Jeremy Chardy              745  
43    Juan Monaco                745  
44    Dmitry Tursunov            740  
45    Philipp Petzschner         736  
46    Ryan Harrison              736  
47    Julien Benneteau           734  
48    Marcel Granollers          720  
49    Tommy Robredo              716  
50    Adrian Mannarino           709  
51    Robin Haase                664  
52    Alex Bogomolov             662  
53    Xavier Malisse             660  
54    Thomaz Bellucci            651  
55    Lleyton Hewitt             621  
56    Sergey Stakhovsky          613  
57    Ivo Karlovic               607  
58    Grigor Dimitrov            602  
59    Thiemo de Bakker           598  
60    Andrei Goloubev            596  

RANK  PLAYER                  POINTS  
61    Lukasz Kubot               592  
62    Olivier Rochus             586  
63    Donald Young               585  
64    Dudi Sela                  559  
65    Santiago Giraldo           554  
66    Mikhail Kukushkin          543  
67    Andreas Seppi              541  
68    Denis Istomin              541  
69    Igor Andreev               528  
70    Pablo Cuevas               521  
71    Fabio Fognini              512  
72    James Ward                 505  
73    Yen-Hsun Lu                500  
74    James Blake                488  
75    Richard Berankis           477  
76    Matthias Bachinger         474  
77    Albert Montanes            468  
78    Lukas Lacko                466  
79    Benjamin Becker            466  
80    Jarkko Nieminen            463  

RANK  PLAYER                  POINTS  
81    Ryan Sweeting              461  
82    Leonardo Mayer             458  
83    Somdev K. Dev Varman       454  
84    Jerzy Janowicz             444  
85    Daniel Brands              444  
86    Matt Ebden                 440  
87    Michael Zverev             437  
88    Tobias Kamke               429  
89    Evgueni Korolev            426  
90    Blaz Kavcic                421  
91    Michael Berrer             419  
92    Daniel Gimeno              416  
93    Vladimir Ignatik           416  
94    Edouard Roger-Vasselin     412  
95    Frank Dancevic             406  
96    Alejandro Falla            401  
97    Ilia Marchenko             399  
98    Gilles Muller              396  
99    Grega Zemlja               396  
100   Simone Bolelli             387  
101   Wayne Odesnik              386

Welcome To Your 30s, Roger Federer

This week, Roger Federer turned 30.  In some sports, that age can represent peak performance; in tennis, it is often a signal that the end is near.

I’m sure Roger wouldn’t appreciate being treated as an age-grouper, but viewing him that way gives us more evidence of his greatness.  Regardless of whether he returns to the top of the ATP rankings, it would seem that he’ll remain the #1 thirty-something for as long as he wants to keep playing.

Here is the current list of best 30-somethings, based on this Monday’s ATP rankings. The only achievement that exceeds Fed’s domination of the 30-and-over set is Ivan Ljubicic’s standing among 32-year-olds. [Edit: That is, if you ignore Radek Stepanek, who is older and higher-ranked.  Never mind…]

3    Roger Federer       SUI    8/8/81
18   Jurgen Melzer       AUT   5/22/81
22   Juan Ignacio Chela  ARG   8/30/79
27   Radek Stepanek      CZE  11/27/78
30   Nikolay Davydenko   RUS    6/2/81
31   Ivan Ljubicic       CRO   3/19/79
33   Michael Llodra      FRA   5/18/80
47   Albert Montanes     ESP  11/26/80
49   Xavier Malisse      BEL   7/19/80
50   Jarkko Nieminen     FIN   7/23/81
63   Potito Starace      ITA   7/14/81
64   Victor Hanescu      ROU   7/21/81
79   Olivier Rochus      BEL   1/18/81
85   Michael Berrer      GER    7/1/80
86   James Blake         USA  12/28/79
88   Eric Prodon         FRA   6/27/81
91   Ricardo Mello       BRA  12/21/80
98   Diego Junqueira     ARG  12/28/80
100  Michael Russell     USA    5/1/78
103  Marc Gicquel        FRA   3/30/77

Rik De Voest, Man on the Cusp

You don’t have to read much of this site to know that I am particularly interested in the second tier of pros.  Some of that is due to spending countless hours at the U.S. Open qualifying tournament; the rest may be attributable to a general tendency to root for the underdog.  So, I tend to be as familiar with guys in the 140s of the rankings as I am with the men in the 40s.

One of those men is South African Rik De Voest.  If you’ve followed the ATP for long, you’ve doubtless seen his name.  He’s a lock for a wild card at the Johannesburg event, he plays many events on the U.S. challenger circuits, and he occasionally qualifies for other top-level tourneys.  He’s a strong all-around player, though perhaps mentally weak–I’ve seen him play a handful of times, and while he’s rarely blown out, he’s prone to giving up the lead.

The impetus for this mini-post is my discovery that Rik De Voest has never cracked the singles top 100.  He broke into the top 200 almost nine years ago, has not fallen out of the top 300 in that time, and reached a peak of 110 in 2006.  He turned 31 last month, so while he currently sits at 130, moving into double-digits gets more difficult every day.

I suspect that De Voest’s record as a sub-top-100 player is very uncommon.  Each year, many players reach the top 100 with nothing more than a handful of solid showings at challenger events–two of the many current players to fit that mold are Steve Darcis (#95) and Matthias Bachinger (#93).  While the top 100 may be a mental hurdle, the difference between 110 (De Voest’s peak) and 99 is almost meaningless.  In the rankings right now, it’s 17 points–less than the difference between winning and losing in the quarterfinals of many challengers.

Right now, about 80 points stand between the South African and the top 100.  That’s a taller order, but still an achievable one for a player of De Voest’s caliber over the course of a few months.  Depending on which statistical oddity you prefer, you may or may not want to root for him.  If he reaches the top 100, he’ll be one of the oldest players ever to do so.  If he doesn’t, he may well end up with the record for most weeks inside the top 200 (or 150, or 250, or 300) without ascending to the slightly-more-rarefied first page of the ATP singles rankings.

Bernard Tomic and the ATP Top 100: In Perspective

With his quarterfinal showing at Wimbledon, Bernard Tomic will break into the ATP top 100 for the first time on Monday.  He’ll do so with style, jumping from #158 to approximately #70.  (He will be considerably higher in my rankings–before the tournament, I had him just inside the top 50.)

As I’ve written before, a player’s chances of reaching the top of the men’s game have a lot to do with how early he cracks the top 100.  If you’re going to be a top-tenner, odds are you’re flashing some measure of those skills as a teenager.  In fact, to quote myself:

In the last 30 years, only one #1-ranked player (Pat Rafter) hadn’t reached the top 100 as a teenager, and he made it into the top 100 when he was 20.  Almost every eventual top-10 player had broken into the top 100 by age 21.

In that sense, Tomic is well ahead of the curve.  He doesn’t turn 19 until October, making him five months younger than Ryan Harrison, another teenager soon to break into the top 100.  Reaching #70 at such a young age isn’t a guarantee of future success, but it strongly points in that direction.  Again from my earlier post: 11% of players who cracked the top 100 at age 18 went on to become #1, and more than half (61%) eventually reached the top ten.

Tomic’s “comps”

Let’s take a narrower look and examine the 20 players who broke into the top 100 at ages closest to Tomic’s current age of 18.7 years.  It’s an impressive list, including Andy Roddick and Ivan Lendl, along with another 11 top-tenners.  Of these players the only “busts” were Andreas Vinciguerra (peak ranking: 33), Richard Fromberg (peak: 24), and Evgeny Korolev, who may yet improve on his peak ranking of 46.

In this group of 20 players, the average peak ranking is 11, and the median peak ranking is 8.  The average number of weeks in the top 100 is 362 (roughly eight years) and the median number of weeks is 410 (more than nine years).  Even 410 slightly understates a reasonable projection, since a few of these players (Roddick, Gael Monfils, Tommy Robredo, and Mikhail Youzhny) are guaranteed to add to their totals.

What may be most impressive about Tomic’s ranking at such a young age is that he has accomplished it the hard way.  He’s gotten plenty of wild cards–including at the Australian Open, where he reached the third round–but he qualified at Wimbledon, and a substantial chunk of his ranking points come from the challenger level, where he has reached four semifinals in 2011 alone.  His only “cheap” points are from Indian Wells, where he was wildcarded in, then beat Rohan Bopanna in the first round.

Now, Tomic’s ranking ensures that wild cards won’t be an issue, except at a few Masters 1000 tournaments.  If history is any guide, he’ll be a regular feature in the top echelon of the tour for most of this decade.