{"id":998,"date":"2012-10-31T11:11:20","date_gmt":"2012-10-31T15:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=998"},"modified":"2012-10-31T11:11:20","modified_gmt":"2012-10-31T15:11:20","slug":"the-most-familiar-faces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2012\/10\/31\/the-most-familiar-faces\/","title":{"rendered":"The Most Familiar Faces"},"content":{"rendered":"

In last week’s Basel final, Roger Federer<\/a> and Juan Martin Del Potro<\/a> faced off for the seventh time this year<\/a>, and the 16th time overall<\/a>. \u00a0Seven times in one year is an awful lot, about 10% of Delpo’s matches. \u00a0It’s even more remarkable because only two of those contests have been finals — in order to meet so many times, the draws of several tournaments had to complement their consistently strong play.<\/p>\n

Making matters even more extreme is that there is a better-than-50% chance that Federer and Del Potro will meet in London next week, bringing the total to 8. \u00a0And there’s a slim chance–if they are drawn in the same group, then play again in the final–that the sum will reach 9.<\/p>\n

So, what’s the record? \u00a0Seven is already pretty good, right?<\/p>\n

Single year head-to-heads<\/strong><\/p>\n

In fact, as with so many other records, Federer is #1 in the last 30 years. \u00a0He holds the record with Jo Wilfried Tsonga<\/a>, against whom he played eight times last year<\/a>. \u00a0(In the entire professional era, the mark belongs to Ilie Nastase<\/a> and Tom Gorman<\/a>, who played at least nine times in 1972<\/a>. \u00a0I’ve excluded years before 1980 because a variety of factors caused the top players to meet much more frequently than they do these days.)<\/p>\n

As long as Fed and Delpo are at seven, they will be tied with four other pairs: John McEnroe<\/a> and Ivan Lendl<\/a> in 1984, Jim Courier<\/a> and Michael Chang<\/a> in 1995, Novak Djokovic<\/a> and Rafael Nadal<\/a> in 2007, and Novak\/Rafa again in 2009. \u00a0Another 11 pairs met six times in a single year, including Nadal and Djokovic in 2008 and 2011. \u00a0(Along with, weirdly, Rajeev Ram<\/a> and Donald Young<\/a> in 2007. \u00a0Must be the wild cards<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

All-time head-to-heads<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since Djokovic and Nadal show up at the top of the single-year list no more than four times, it stands to reason that they must be near the top of the all-time list, as well. \u00a0Indeed, they are.<\/p>\n

In fact, assuming Nadal returns to health in anywhere near his historical form, this current pair of stars will almost undoubtedly take over the all-time lead next year. \u00a0They could hold it for a very long time.<\/p>\n

Player 1       Player 2        H2Hs    W-L  \nIvan Lendl     John McEnroe      35  20-15  \nIvan Lendl     Jimmy Connors     34  22-12  \nPete Sampras   Andre Agassi      34  20-14  \nJohn McEnroe   Jimmy Connors     34  20-14  \nRafael Nadal   Novak Djokovic    33  19-14  \nBoris Becker   Stefan Edberg     32  22-10  \nRoger Federer  Novak Djokovic    28  16-12  \nRafael Nadal   Roger Federer     28  18-10  \nStefan Edberg  Ivan Lendl        26  14-12  \nRoger Federer  Lleyton Hewitt    26   18-8<\/pre>\n
This is one record that, for all of his dominance, Federer will probably never co-hold. \u00a0To find yourself on this list, you not only need to rank among the all-time greats, you need a very-near-contemporary who ranks just as high.<\/p>\n
(If you’re interested in head-to-head records, I hope you’re already using the Head-to-Head Matrix<\/a> on TennisAbstract.com<\/a>. \u00a0It’s updated every week, and shows the career H2H records of every matchup within the current top 15. \u00a0Each H2H record is linked directly to a listing of the relevant matches.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In last week’s Basel final, Roger Federer and Juan Martin Del Potro faced off for the seventh time this year, and the 16th time overall. \u00a0Seven times in one year is an awful lot, about 10% of Delpo’s matches. \u00a0It’s even more remarkable because only two of those contests have been finals — in order … Continue reading The Most Familiar Faces<\/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":[51,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-head-to-heads","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\/998","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=998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}