{"id":1371,"date":"2013-11-03T16:38:45","date_gmt":"2013-11-03T21:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=1371"},"modified":"2013-11-03T16:38:45","modified_gmt":"2013-11-03T21:38:45","slug":"stanislas-wawrinka-and-hanging-with-the-top-ten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/03\/stanislas-wawrinka-and-hanging-with-the-top-ten\/","title":{"rendered":"Stanislas Wawrinka and Hanging With the Top Ten"},"content":{"rendered":"

Only three ATP players this year have won more than five matches<\/a> against top-ten-ranked opponents: Rafael Nadal<\/a> (20), Novak Djokovic<\/a> (18), and Stanislas Wawrinka<\/a> (7). \u00a0It’s a good single-stat representation of Stan’s great year, as the Swiss had only won 18 matches against top-ten opponents in the previous eight seasons, including a painful 2-11 showing<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

Wawrinka’s ability to play at the level of the very best players makes one wonder if he will move even higher in the rankings next year. \u00a0Is it possible that players who amass so many top-ten victories are slated for bigger and better things?<\/p>\n

Certainly, seven top-ten wins in a season is no mean accomplishment. \u00a0Andy Roddick<\/a> finished the 2003 season as World #1 with only six such wins<\/a>, and Nadal ascended to #2 in 2005 with only five top-ten wins<\/a>. \u00a0Since 1991, 25 players have finished a season in the top five while winning fewer matches against top-ten opponents than Wawrinka did this year. \u00a0And of course, with at least three matches against top-flight opponents this week, Stan might not be done.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, tallying a bunch of victories against top-ten opponents doesn’t always predict further success. \u00a0Since 1991, 42 players have won at least seven such matches while finishing outside the top five. \u00a0Of those, only 12 improved their overall winning percentage the next year. \u00a0On average, those players saw their overall winning percentages drop eight percent.<\/p>\n

One particularly bizarre precedent for Stan’s top-ten success is Vince Spadea<\/a>‘s 1999 campaign. \u00a0While he barely broke even<\/a> on the season, winning 33 of 60 matches, eight of those wins<\/a> were against top-ten opponents, including Pete Sampras<\/a>, Andre Agassi<\/a>, and Yevgeny Kafelnikov<\/a> (twice!). \u00a0The next year, he lost his first sixteen matches in a row<\/a> and tallied only three tour-level wins–against anyone.<\/p>\n

There are a few extreme examples in the other direction. \u00a0Sampras went 8-7<\/a> against top-ten opponents in 1991, finishing the year at #6. \u00a0He continued his climb into the tennis stratosphere the following season. \u00a019-year-old Lleyton Hewitt<\/a> won 10 of 16 top-ten matches<\/a> in 2000 en route to a #7 ranking. \u00a0A year later, he was #1 in the world. \u00a0And for a case even closer to home for Wawrinka, a young man named Roger won 10 matches against top-ten opponents<\/a> in 2002, finishing the year at #6. \u00a0It would be a long time before his ranking returned to such a low point.<\/p>\n

Of course, Pete, Lleyton, and Roger were youngsters on their way up. \u00a0No matter how distended the ATP aging curve becomes, it’s safe to assume that Wawrinka is not at an equivalent stage of his career.<\/p>\n

It’s a familiar story with tennis statistics. \u00a0Wawrinka has a great season, so we look for the reason why. \u00a0(Top-ten wins? Improved second-serve win percentage? Better tiebreak win percentage?) It’s easy to find numbers that show us what worked this year, much more difficult to convincingly explain why. \u00a0It’s more difficult still to support a conviction that the player has “turned a corner” and we can expect more of this high-quality play from him next year.<\/p>\n

Top-ten win tallies like Wawrinka’s aren’t any better at picking future winners than tiebreak records like his 17-12 mark are. \u00a0It’s no more than a fun stat and a useful marker of a solid year. \u00a0But don’t fret,\u00a0Stan fans, it doesn’t make a coherent case for a decline, either. \u00a0Stan\u00a0may well be a top-ten mainstay for the next few years–after all, somebody’s got to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Only three ATP players this year have won more than five matches against top-ten-ranked opponents: Rafael Nadal (20), Novak Djokovic (18), and Stanislas Wawrinka (7). \u00a0It’s a good single-stat representation of Stan’s great year, as the Swiss had only won 18 matches against top-ten opponents in the previous eight seasons, including a painful 2-11 showing … Continue reading Stanislas Wawrinka and Hanging With the Top Ten<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-toy-stats"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}