Every time the big four fills up all four spots in the semifinals, we hear the same trivia–how rarely the top four seeds all reach the semifinals; how often this particular group of four has done it, and so on. \u00a0There’s no doubt that the current big four has dominated men’s tennis in a way that has rarely been seen before.<\/p>\n
Words like “domination” aren’t very easy to quantify, which is why commentators fall back on those few bits of trivia. \u00a0We can take a closer look to determine whether the current big four stands out as much as we think it does.<\/p>\n
Won-loss record<\/strong><\/p>\n Last year, the big four played 251 tour-level matches (not counting Davis Cup) against everybody else. \u00a0They won 228 of them, for a winning percentage of 90.8%. \u00a0My database goes back to 1991, and there hasn’t been a year in that time frame where the top four players did any better.<\/p>\n (For today’s purposes, each year’s top four are defined as the four men at the top of the year-end rankings. \u00a0All numbers exclude Davis Cup and go back to 1991.)<\/p>\n In fact, four of the five best W-L records have come since 2004. \u00a02008 and 2009, when the current top four was already reigning, are ranked 3rd and 4th. \u00a0(The second best season for the top four, by this measure, was 2005, when Andy Roddick<\/a> and Lleyton Hewitt<\/a> complemented Roger Federer<\/a> and Rafael Nadal<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Slam performance<\/strong><\/p>\n What really matters are the majors, right? \u00a0Last year, the big four played 82 matches against everybody else at the slams, and won 80 of them, for a jaw-dropping 97.6% winning percentage. \u00a0You might guess that it, as well, is the best in the last 20 years.<\/p>\n In fact, the second and third best top-four slam performances came in 2007 and 2008–each one including Federer, Nadal, and Novak Djokovic<\/a>. \u00a0(In 2007, Nikolay Davydenko<\/a> was the year-end number four.) \u00a0Both of those years, the top four lost only four grand slam matches to others.<\/p>\n Masters performance<\/strong><\/p>\n The majors give us a small (though important) sample; the masters series offers more tournaments with similar high-quality fields. \u00a0Largely due to Andy Murray<\/a>‘s dreadful March, this is where the 2011 foursome falters a bit. Their record against everybody else of 90-13 is “only” third-best of the last twenty years.<\/p>\n But wait–the top masters series record was in 2009, of course with the same top four. \u00a0And the second-best masters series record was in 2005, when Federer and Nadal ruled the world.<\/p>\n Beating the rest of the top 10<\/strong><\/p>\n It’s no shock when the top four cruise through the early rounds of tournaments. \u00a0What makes the current top four special is the way they regularly shut everyone else out of the last rounds, defeating excellent players such as Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Tomas Berdych<\/a>, and Juan Martin Del Potro<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last year, the top four went 34-12 (73.9%) against the rest of the year-end top 10. \u00a0That’s fourth-best of the last twenty years. \u00a0The standout season, once again, was 2005, when Federer, Nadal, Roddick, and Hewitt went 30-4 (!) against the next six guys in the rankings. \u00a0In both 2004 and 2006, the top four won exactly three-quarters of their matches against five through ten, just beating out last year’s top four.<\/p>\n To put these numbers in perspective, it is by no means a foregone conclusion that the top four beat up on the next six. \u00a0In 1991, the top four of Edberg, Courier, Becker, and Stich actually posted a losing<\/em>\u00a0record against guys ranked five through ten. \u00a0In both 1996 and 2000, the record was an even .500.<\/p>\n The bigger picture<\/strong><\/p>\n Of course, there’s more to domination than performance in a single year. \u00a0Much of the current big four’s reputation stems from their longevity atop the rankings, and looking at single years ignores that.<\/p>\n But as we’ve seen, there’s no need to look at more than one season. \u00a0The big four was, in 2011, one of the most dominating quartets of the last 20 years by several measures, and according to two such measures, they were the most successful top four in recent memory.<\/p>\n Why? (In brief)<\/strong><\/p>\n Here are three theories that might explain why the big four has so distanced itself from the pack:<\/p>\n The first two are possible. \u00a0Certainly, Federer and Nadal are historically good, and Djokovic’s 2011 season was astounding. \u00a0I doubt the rest of the pack is to blame–they seem plenty good to me, even if few of them are that good very much of the time.<\/p>\n I’m tempted by the third theory. \u00a0As recently as 2003, there was almost always one clay-court specialist in the year-end top four–Juan Carlos Ferrero<\/a>, Gustavo Kuerten, Sergei Bruguera. \u00a0At the same time, guys like Pete Sampras, Pat Rafter, and Goran Ivanisevic rarely made a dent on clay.<\/p>\n Thus, no matter how many slams Sampras won, or how many clay titles Kuerten took, the top four just weren’t dominant year round. \u00a0The idea that the same four players would reach the quarters, or even semis of every slam was borderline ridiculous. \u00a0Now, it’s almost expected.<\/p>\n Of course, we can argue about the causes of this as well. \u00a0Are the top four successful on all surfaces because the surfaces are more uniform? \u00a0Because they are historically good? \u00a0Because the game (or its equipment) has changed in such a way to make surface differences less meaningful?\u00a0That’s a subject for another day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every time the big four fills up all four spots in the semifinals, we hear the same trivia–how rarely the top four seeds all reach the semifinals; how often this particular group of four has done it, and so on. \u00a0There’s no doubt that the current big four has dominated men’s tennis in a way … Continue reading Top Four Domination<\/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":[96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","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\/645","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=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n