Tennis fans–especially the more old-fashioned among us–tend to agree on some things that players should always do. \u00a0Among them: revere Wimbledon, admit to a net touch, and play Davis Cup.<\/p>\n
The top singles players on the two sides of last weekend’s tie between Serbia and the Czech Republic are good examples of what fans like to see. \u00a0Tomas Berdych<\/a> has played 12 of 14 Davis Cup ties while a member of the top ten, and in that time, the Czech team has never lost a tie because he didn’t show up. \u00a0Novak Djokovic<\/a> hasn’t been quite as reliable, playing singles in 13 of 18 ties since breaking into the top ten, though of the five he didn’t play, Serbia lost only one.<\/p>\n However, plenty of tennis megastars have been even more consistent cogs on their national teams. \u00a0In the years when Goran Ivanisevic<\/a> was in the top ten, his Croatian team played ten ties, and Goran was there for all 10. \u00a0Since 1991, three other players have played at least ten ties while missing only one:\u00a0Yevgeny Kafelnikov<\/a>, Lleyton Hewitt<\/a>, and Michael Stich<\/a>.<\/p>\n Aside from Berdych and Djokovic, today’s top players are not so reliable. \u00a0Roger Federer<\/a> has participated in 14 of 24 ties since he became a top-tenner, and the Swiss side has lost eight of the ten ties he’s missed. \u00a0Andy Murray<\/a> has offered his services for only 5 of 12 as a top ten player, and the Brits have lost four of their seven Murray-less weekend.<\/p>\n Even less of a Davis Cup stalwart than Murray, however, is Rafael Nadal<\/a>. \u00a0Thanks to a combination of injury, fatigue, and a frequent lack of necessity, Rafa has played singles in only 10 of 25 ties since breaking into the top ten.<\/p>\n The table below compares all players who, since 1991, have been in the top ten while their countries played at least ten Davis Cup ties. \u00a0It shows their record when participating (“In W-L”), their team’s success rate when they sat out (“Out W-L”), the percentage of ties in which they took part (“In%”), and the percentage of ties in which either they played or their team won anyway (“AllGood%”).<\/p>\n (I only count someone as participating if he contested at least one singles<\/i> match. \u00a0In a few cases–such as Serbia’s defeat last year of Sweden, in which Djokovic only played doubles–that blurs the line between wins with and without the player.)<\/p>\n Tennis fans–especially the more old-fashioned among us–tend to agree on some things that players should always do. \u00a0Among them: revere Wimbledon, admit to a net touch, and play Davis Cup. The top singles players on the two sides of last weekend’s tie between Serbia and the Czech Republic are good examples of what fans like … Continue reading Berdych, Djokovic, and Stars in Davis Cup<\/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":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-davis-cup"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429","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=1429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Player In W-L Out W-L In% AllGood% \nGoran Ivanisevic 5-5 0-0 100.0% 100.0% \nYevgeny Kafelnikov 13-6 0-1 95.0% 95.0% \nLleyton Hewitt 10-3 0-1 92.9% 92.9% \nMichael Stich 8-2 0-1 90.9% 90.9% \nAndy Roddick 15-5 0-3 87.0% 87.0% \nDavid Nalbandian 11-2 0-2 86.7% 86.7% \nTomas Berdych 9-3 2-0 85.7% 100.0% \nCarlos Moya 8-4 1-1 85.7% 92.9% \nStefan Edberg 8-3 2-0 84.6% 100.0% \nMarcelo Rios 5-3 2-0 80.0% 100.0% \nNovak Djokovic 10-3 4-1 72.2% 94.4% \nNikolay Davydenko 8-3 4-1 68.8% 93.8% \nDavid Ferrer 7-2 3-2 64.3% 85.7% \nMarat Safin 7-0 2-3 58.3% 75.0% \nRoger Federer 10-4 2-8 58.3% 66.7% \nBoris Becker 5-2 5-3 46.7% 80.0% \nAndy Murray 3-2 3-4 41.7% 66.7% \nJim Courier 6-0 6-3 40.0% 80.0% \nRafael Nadal 9-1 10-5 40.0% 80.0% \nJ M Del Potro 1-3 6-1 36.4% 90.9% \nPete Sampras 8-3 16-6 33.3% 81.8% \nAndre Agassi 7-2 14-10 27.3% 69.7% \nMichael Chang 2-1 13-3 15.8% 84.2% <\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"