{"id":879,"date":"2012-08-23T13:16:07","date_gmt":"2012-08-23T17:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=879"},"modified":"2012-08-23T13:16:07","modified_gmt":"2012-08-23T17:16:07","slug":"the-slam-no-one-misses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/23\/the-slam-no-one-misses\/","title":{"rendered":"The Slam No One Misses"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

By now you’ve heard: Rafael Nadal<\/a> will miss the US Open<\/a>. \u00a0It’s hardly a surprise, as Rafa hasn’t played a match since Wimbledon, and his knee has kept him off the tour for long periods in the past.<\/p>\n

What is remarkable is the rarity of a top player missing the Open. \u00a0Despite its position near the end of the ATP schedule, after eight months of grueling tennis in which every player picks up his share of nagging injuries, New York gets a better turnout from top-10 players than any of the other three slams.<\/p>\n

In fact, Nadal is only the third top-three player since 1991 to skip Flushing. \u00a0In 1999, #1-ranked Pete Sampras<\/a> couldn’t play, and in 2004, it was #3-ranked Guillermo Coria<\/a> who stayed home. \u00a0In the tournament’s last 21 editions, a top-ten<\/em> player has missed the event only ten times.<\/p>\n

It’s interesting to speculate as to why top players manage to show up in Flushing at a rate unmatched elsewhere. \u00a0Surely the event doesn’t have more cachet than Wimbledon. \u00a0Certainly the multiple shifts of surface throughout the spring and summer test every player’s mental and physical stamina. \u00a0Perhaps the longish break between Wimbledon and the Open allows players to take time off if they need it. \u00a0Most men play Canada and Cincinnati, but as we’ve seen this year, plenty of guys are willing to miss either one, meaning that only a serious injury keeps one out of the New York draw.<\/p>\n

Defying conventional wisdom even further, the slam with the second-best turnout among top players is the French, not Wimbledon. \u00a0Since 1991, only 13 top-tenners have missed Roland Garros, and three of those were Boris Becker<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wimbledon may be synonymous with the sport of tennis, but it is a distant third, with 25 top-tenners missing from the last 22 draws. \u00a0Here the no-shows are more logical: Alex Corretja<\/a> three times, Marcelo Rios<\/a> twice, Sergi Bruguera<\/a> four times. \u00a0In the late 1990s, some guys simply didn’t consider the All-England Club a must.<\/p>\n

Australia is a bit further back in fourth, with 29 top-tenners who didn’t play. \u00a0Melbourne does seem to have the least cachet of the four big events, but the tide may be turning. \u00a0Since 2006, only one top-ten player, Nikolay Davydenko<\/a> in 2009, failed to make an appearance.<\/p>\n

It may seem that absences from Grand Slams are random, driven by accidents such as major injuries that can happen at any time. \u00a0Any single absence surely does look that way. \u00a0There are larger forces at work, however–the value associated with certain tournaments, the demands of the schedule leading to physical breakdowns at some times and not others–that are not random. \u00a0In one more way, Rafael Nadal is proving himself a unique player, missing the most unmissable slam on the ATP calendar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Italian translation at settesei.it By now you’ve heard: Rafael Nadal will miss the US Open. \u00a0It’s hardly a surprise, as Rafa hasn’t played a match since Wimbledon, and his knee has kept him off the tour for long periods in the past. What is remarkable is the rarity of a top player missing the Open. … Continue reading The Slam No One Misses<\/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":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","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\/879","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=879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}