It’s tough to imagine a Master’s series event featuring a higher-quality field than the one assembled in Cincinnati this week. \u00a0With the exception of Robin Soderling, virtually every “name” player is present. \u00a0Just as importantly, almost all of the players awarded wild cards are legitimate competitors at this level. \u00a0The same is true of most of the seven men who qualified.<\/p>\n
For tennis fans, it’s an enjoyable outcome: With the possible exception of Robby Ginepri, everyone present “deserves” to be here. \u00a0The event gave the other three wild cards to Ryan Harrison, Grigor Dimitrov, and James Blake, three men inside the top 85 who excel on hard courts. \u00a0Four of the top seeds in qualifying advanced to the main draw, all of whose current rankings put them right on the cusp of making the cut in the first place.<\/p>\n
All this made me wonder: How does the Cincinnati draw compare to other 56-player Masters fields? \u00a0Is Cinci always this strong?<\/p>\n
I’ve previous looked at the field<\/a> quality<\/a> of ATP 250s, so it was a small step to point the guns at the bigger tourneys. \u00a0Here are all 48- and 56-draw Masters events since 2009, along with the average entry rank and median entry rank of players in the field, sorted by the latter:<\/p>\n There’s not a huge difference in quality–after all, players are required to show up for most of these events–but there is a noticeable differentiation into “haves” and “have-nots.” \u00a0Of course Monte Carlo is near the bottom, as it is not mandatory. \u00a0Rome is required, but it does get skipped. \u00a0Madrid is an interesting case, as this year’s new schedule meant all the best players showed up, while last year, it was near the bottom of the list.<\/p>\n Setting aside Paris, which is near the top of the list because its field has eight fewer players, Cinci appears to consistently offer one of the best Masters fields. \u00a0This makes sense, as even if it weren’t a required stop on the tour, it’s a perfectly scheduled warm-up for the U.S. Open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s tough to imagine a Master’s series event featuring a higher-quality field than the one assembled in Cincinnati this week. \u00a0With the exception of Robin Soderling, virtually every “name” player is present. \u00a0Just as importantly, almost all of the players awarded wild cards are legitimate competitors at this level. \u00a0The same is true of most … Continue reading The High-Quality Cincinnati Draw<\/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":[17,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cincinnati","category-research"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476","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=476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Year Event Field AvgRank MedRank \n2011 Madrid 56 37.7 30.0 \n2010 Paris 48 38.1 30.5 \n2011 CINCINNATI 56 50.1 31.5 \n2010 Shanghai 56 56.5 31.5 \n2009 Paris 48 57.5 31.5 \n2009 Cincinnati 56 38.5 32.0 \n2009 Montreal 56 83.6 32.5 \n2010 Cincinnati 56 38.5 33.5 \n2009 Rome 56 42.0 33.5 \n2009 Shanghai 56 54.8 33.5 \n2011 Rome 56 42.2 34.5 \n2009 Madrid 56 43.6 34.5 \n2011 Montreal 56 50.7 35.5 \n2009 Monte Carlo 56 45.1 36.5 \n2011 Monte Carlo 56 51.9 36.5 \n2010 Rome 56 43.1 38.5 \n2010 Toronto 56 57.7 40.5 \n2010 Madrid 56 59.5 43.0 \n2010 Monte Carlo 56 50.6 43.5<\/pre>\n