{"id":2973,"date":"2018-09-07T15:27:08","date_gmt":"2018-09-07T15:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=2973"},"modified":"2018-09-07T15:27:08","modified_gmt":"2018-09-07T15:27:08","slug":"juan-martin-del-potros-daunting-semi-final-assignments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2018\/09\/07\/juan-martin-del-potros-daunting-semi-final-assignments\/","title":{"rendered":"Juan Martin del Potro&#8217;s Daunting Semi-final Assignments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a id=\"MSgKmIW4THZDmlRx4z6RBg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.no\/detail\/1026739182\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'MSgKmIW4THZDmlRx4z6RBg',sig:'W0KEofFxItT9-QG4cKoCuu6F48MzC9A7FQajL72F2iA=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1026739182',caption: true ,tld:'no',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/settesei\/2018\/09\/08\/le-semifinali-intimidatorie-di-juan-martin-del-potro\/\"><em>Italian translation at settesei.it<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This afternoon, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=JuanMartinDelPotro\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Juan Martin del Potro<\/a> will take on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=RafaelNadal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rafael Nadal<\/a> for a place in the 2018 US Open championship match. Forgive me if this sounds familiar: It&#8217;s the third time Delpo and Rafa have squared off in Flushing&#8217;s final four. Every time the Argentine has made it this far in New York, it&#8217;s been the King of Clay waiting on the other side of the net.<\/p>\n<p>Del Potro could be forgiven for wondering if he was born in the wrong era. Today is his sixth major semi-final, and his fourth against Rafa. The other two weren&#8217;t cakewalks either. His first appearance in the last four of a grand slam was at the 2009 French Open against <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=RogerFederer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Roger Federer<\/a>, and his best-ever performance at Wimbledon gave him a semi-final meeting with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=NovakDjokovic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Novak Djokovic<\/a>. The only slight positive in all this is that he faced Federer in Paris and Nadal so often in New York. Technically, it could have been worse.<\/p>\n<p>Simply reaching six major semi-finals is an achievement in itself. Since 1977, there have been only 35 players to reach five or more. For each of those players, I calculated the average surface-specific Elo of their opponents, as well as their average chances of winning. Measured by opponent Elo, Delpo has had the fourth most difficult semi-final assignments of any of these players. The table below shows each player&#8217;s number of semi-finals, number of wins, average chance of winning those matches (&#8220;Avg p(W)&#8221;) and the Elo rating of their average opponent (&#8220;Avg Opp Elo&#8221;):<\/p>\n<pre>Player                 SFs  Wins  Avg p(W)  Avg Opp Elo  \nDavid Ferrer             6     1       35%         2202  \nPat Cash                 5     3       22%         2194  \nStan Wawrinka            9     4       35%         2163  \nJuan Martin del Potro    6     ?       35%         2161  \nVitas Gerulaitis         7     2       36%         2146  \nMats Wilander           14    11       48%         2122  \nJo Wilfried Tsonga       6     1       31%         2122  \nMichael Chang            8     4       46%         2121  \nNovak Djokovic          31    22       62%         2115  \nAndy Murray             21    11       52%         2114<\/pre>\n<p>Like Delpo, many of these guys had one frequent foe. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=DavidFerrer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">David Ferrer<\/a> drew Djokovic in three semis. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=PatCash\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pat Cash<\/a> faced <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=IvanLendl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ivan Lendl<\/a> three times in his five chances. Vitas Gerulaitis kept earning meetings with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=BjornBorg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bjorn Borg<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=StanislasWawrinka\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stan Wawrinka<\/a> hasn&#8217;t played more than two semis against any particular opponent, but that doesn&#8217;t mean his draws have been any easier: He&#8217;s faced Djokovic, Federer, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=AndyMurray\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Andy Murray<\/a> twice each.<\/p>\n<p>Djokovic and Murray pop up at the bottom of the top ten largely because of Federer and Nadal. It&#8217;s a tough era, even if you hold a Big Four membership card. Roger and Rafa have had it easier, ranked 24th and 26th in opponent Elo*, in part due to the number of majors they contested before Djokovic and Murray had fully developed&#8211;and because they generally avoided playing each other.<\/p>\n<p><em>* Federer&#8217;s average opponent has had an Elo of 2056, and Nadal&#8217;s has had a 2045 Elo. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=MichaelStich\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Michael Stich<\/a> is the only player on this list whose opponents&#8217; Elos averaged below 2000.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Today&#8217;s match gives Delpo an opportunity to put himself a bit closer to Wawrinka&#8217;s category and surpass the likes of Ferrer and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=JoWilfriedTsonga\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jo Wilfried Tsonga<\/a>, who reached only one major final each. Based on his own Elo and those of his opponents, del Potro has had about a one-in-three chance of winning his semis. The 2018 US Open represents his sixth, meaning we&#8217;d expect two final appearances thus far. Then again, it&#8217;s one thing to run the numbers; it&#8217;s another thing to beat Rafael Nadal in a major semi-final &#8230; twice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images Italian translation at settesei.it This afternoon, Juan Martin del Potro will take on Rafael Nadal for a place in the 2018 US Open championship match. Forgive me if this sounds familiar: It&#8217;s the third time Delpo and Rafa have squared off in Flushing&#8217;s final four. Every time the Argentine has made &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2018\/09\/07\/juan-martin-del-potros-daunting-semi-final-assignments\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Juan Martin del Potro&#8217;s Daunting Semi-final Assignments<\/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":[45,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grand-slams","category-records"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973","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=2973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}