After months of clay and grass tournaments, the best players on tour are finally competing on hard courts. \u00a0For many, Cincinnati is the extent of their North American hard court preparation leading up to the US Open. \u00a0No matter who wins this week, we’ll be tempted to anoint him the favorite in New York. \u00a0Should we?<\/p>\n
Traditionally, Cincinnati features one of the strongest draws<\/a> of the ATP season. \u00a0As the only tournament scheduled two weeks before the US Open, there are no alternatives for players preparing for the slam, and it still allows a week off. \u00a0This year’s draw, missing three top 10 players due to injury, is an aberration.<\/p>\n It’s no surprise, then, that the list of winners in Cincinnati is particularly impressive. \u00a019 of the last 20 champions have career peak rankings of 1 or 2. \u00a0(The black sheep in the group is Thomas Enqvist<\/a>, who “only” reached #4.) \u00a0Not only do the best in the world show up to play, they show up to win.<\/p>\n More than some warmups<\/a>, Cincinnati seems to tell us who is in form. \u00a0Let’s see if tells us who is going to win the Open.<\/p>\n Since 1991, there have been four seasons when the same man lifted the trophy in Cincinnati and New York: Pat Rafter in 1998, Andy Roddick<\/a> in 2003, and Roger Federer<\/a> in 2005 and 2007. \u00a0Five more times, the Cincinnati winner reached the US Open final. \u00a0Not counting 1999, when Pete Sampras<\/a> didn’t compete in Flushing, the Cincinnati champion has failed to reach the US Open round of 16 only twice in the last 21 years.<\/p>\n So, the Cincinnati winner has won the US Open about 20% of the time, and reached the final another 25%. \u00a0Sounds good, though\u00a0not as good as we’d expect<\/a> from the top seed. \u00a0On the other hand, Cincinnati winners aren’t always the top seed in New York, so we can’t expect them to perform at that level.<\/p>\n In fact, the Cincinnati winner has been the top seed in Flushing only six times. \u00a0On average, the Cinci champion has been seeded 4th in New York. \u00a0Compared to the performance we’d expect from a #4 seed, a 20% shot at winning the tournament, along with a nearly 1-in-2 chance of reaching the final, is extremely good.<\/p>\n Since 1991, #4 seeds at the US Open haven’t performed nearly so well during the final weekend as have Cincinnati champions. \u00a0Both groups have a roughly 6-in-10 chance of reaching the semis (#4 seeds: 57.1%, Cinci winners: 60%), but the #4 seeds have won only half of their semifinals, for a 28.5% chance of reaching the final, compared to the 45% of Cincinnati titlists.<\/p>\n The biggest difference is where it matters most: the final itself. \u00a0Cincinnati winners go on to win almost half of their US Open finals, winning 4 titles in 20 attempts, as we’ve seen. \u00a0But #4 seeds have won only 2 titles. \u00a0It’s not a huge sample, but if we expand our view to consider all four slams since 1991, the performance of #4 seeds stays about the same.<\/p>\n Much to my surprise, it seems that Cincinnati results\u00a0do<\/em> have something to say about the final rounds in Flushing. \u00a0This week’s winner isn’t exactly a lock to triumph in New York, but his performance in Ohio will tell us to expect that much more from him at the US Open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After months of clay and grass tournaments, the best players on tour are finally competing on hard courts. \u00a0For many, Cincinnati is the extent of their North American hard court preparation leading up to the US Open. \u00a0No matter who wins this week, we’ll be tempted to anoint him the favorite in New York. \u00a0Should … Continue reading Does Cincinnati Matter in Flushing?<\/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":[17,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cincinnati","category-u-s-open"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867","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=867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}