{"id":2445,"date":"2017-09-13T12:35:02","date_gmt":"2017-09-13T12:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=2445"},"modified":"2017-09-13T12:35:02","modified_gmt":"2017-09-13T12:35:02","slug":"denis-shapovalov-and-fast-atp-starts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/13\/denis-shapovalov-and-fast-atp-starts\/","title":{"rendered":"Denis Shapovalov and Fast ATP Starts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italian translation at settesei.it<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

18-year-old Canadian lefty Denis Shapovalov<\/a> has had one heck of a summer. In Montreal, he defeated Juan Martin del Potro<\/a> and Rafael Nadal<\/a> in back-to-back matches, and at the US Open, he qualified for the main draw, upset Jo Wilfried Tsonga<\/a>, and reached the fourth round in only his second appearance at a major.<\/p>\n

Thanks to those wins and the big stages on which he achieved them, he has cracked the ATP top 60, despite playing fewer than 20 tour-level matches. The Elo rating system, which awards points based on opponent quality, is even more optimistic. By that measure, with his win over Tsonga, Shapovalov improved to 1950–good for 34th on tour<\/a>–before losing about 25 Elo points in his loss to Pablo Carreno Busta<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While an Elo score of 1950 is an arbitrary number–there’s nothing magical about any particular Elo threshold; it’s just a mechanism to compare players to each other–it gives us a way to compare Shapovalov’s hot start with other players who made quick impacts at tour level. Since the early 1980s, only 13 players have reached a 1950 Elo score in fewer matches than the Canadian needed. As usual with early-career accomplishments, there are a few unexpected names in the mix, but overall, it’s very promising company for an 18-year-old:<\/p>\n

Player               Matches   Age  \nLleyton Hewitt             7  16.9  \nJarkko Nieminen            7  20.2  \nJuan Carlos Ferrero       10  19.4  \nDavid Ferrer              12  20.4  \nKenneth Carlsen           12  19.4  \nTommy Haas                13  19.1  \nPeter Lundgren            13  20.7  \nJohn Van Lottum           14  21.8  \nSergi Bruguera            14  18.4  \nJulian Alonso             15  20.0\n\nPlayer               Matches   Age   \nXavier Malisse            16  18.6  \nJan Siemerink             16  20.9  \nIvo Minar                 16  21.2  \nFlorian Mayer             17  20.7  \nCristiano Caratti         17  20.7  \nNick Kyrgios              17  19.3  \nDenis Shapovalov          17  18.4  \nMartin Strelba            17  22.1  \nJay Berger                17  20.2  \nAndy Roddick              18  18.6<\/pre>\n
I identified just over 350 players who, at some point in their careers, peaked with an Elo score of at least 1950. On average, these players needed 75 matches to reach that level (the median is 59), and two active tour-regulars, Gilles Muller<\/a> and Albert Ramos<\/a>, needed almost 300 matches to achieve the threshold.<\/p>\n
Shapovalov’s record so far is equally impressive when we consider it in terms of age. Again, he’s among the top 20 players in modern tennis history: Only 11 players got to 1950 before their 18th birthday. The Canadian is only a few months beyond his. And many of the other ATPers who reached that score at an early age needed much more tour experience. I’ve included the top 30 on this list to show how Shapovalov compares to so many of the game’s greats:<\/p>\n
Player                  Matches   Age  \nAaron Krickstein             25  16.4  \nMichael Chang                32  16.5  \nLleyton Hewitt                7  16.9  \nBoris Becker                 27  17.5  \nMats Wilander                27  17.5  \nGuillermo Perez Roldan       26  17.6  \nAndre Agassi                 46  17.6  \nPat Cash                     66  17.6  \nGoran Ivanisevic             35  17.7  \nAndrei Medvedev              22  17.8  \n\nPlayer                  Matches   Age\nRafael Nadal                 44  17.9  \nSammy Giammalva              21  18.0  \nHorst Skoff                  19  18.1  \nJimmy Arias                  61  18.2  \nKent Carlsson                56  18.3  \nSergi Bruguera               14  18.4  \nDenis Shapovalov             17  18.4  \nAndy Murray                  22  18.4  \nJuan Martin del Potro        31  18.4  \nFabrice Santoro              59  18.5  \n\nPlayer                  Matches   Age\nJohn McEnroe                 28  18.5  \nRoger Federer                40  18.5  \nStefan Edberg                40  18.5  \nAndy Roddick                 18  18.6  \nPete Sampras                 56  18.6  \nThomas Enqvist               28  18.6  \nXavier Malisse               16  18.6  \nNovak Djokovic               33  18.8  \nJim Courier                  51  18.8  \nYannick Noah                 41  18.8<\/pre>\n
There are no guarantees when it comes to tennis prospects, but this is very good company. On average, the 23 other players to reach the 1950 Elo threshold at age 18 improved their Elo ratings to 2100 before age 20, and rose to 2250 at some point in their careers. The first number would be good for 12th on today’s list, and the second would merit 5th place, just behind the Big Four. Nadal and del Potro were the first of Shapovalov’s high-profile victims, and judging from this sharp career trajectory, they won’t be the last.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Italian translation at settesei.it 18-year-old Canadian lefty Denis Shapovalov has had one heck of a summer. In Montreal, he defeated Juan Martin del Potro and Rafael Nadal in back-to-back matches, and at the US Open, he qualified for the main draw, upset Jo Wilfried Tsonga, and reached the fourth round in only his second appearance … Continue reading Denis Shapovalov and Fast ATP Starts<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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":[32,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elo-ratings","category-prospects"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445","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=2445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}