ok, let's leave that at that. But I didn't get your response to my point about h2h being double counting if the 2 players in consideration are the most likely ones to win the event
Well, I thought it was obvious that I disagreed. I do agree that one shouldn't put too much stock in individual H2Hs, but when you're comparing 2 players with comparable achievements I definitely think the H2H is a valid metric to consider, especially when one is so dominant against the other (which, again, doesn't always show up in the ranking points).
I'd like to elaborate on this more because it's not too different from the oft-misunderstood Fedal H2H, but for time constraints I'll save that discussion for another time.
not sure why you think I went anywhere near the success at net% numbers. I only mentioned ..
"even players outside of the top 20 many a times pass from well behind the baseline with ease .... that was much rarer earlier. and many of these are NOT the fault of the net-rusher."
that is an observation made from watching tennis from the different eras.
the success at net %s are not going to change that much as players these days come in mostly on the easier volleys ..
Big game can be successful even now, but its just considerably tougher and riskier.
I brought up the net %s simply because that's the best way to measure success at the net. And I can buy that the big game is tougher today, but not by that much.
Again let's return to the Fedal example. I focus on this one because it's generally and (rightly) agreed that Nadal is one of the best passers ever, and also because it's often claimed that this makes it a virtual suicide strategy, especially for Fed, to attack the net against him.
But that second claim simply doesn't hold up to scrutiny. As you know Nadal has often struggled precisely against players who like to attack, and more on point Fed's success rate at the net against Rafa is actually quite good (hat tip to krosero):
2005 French SF -- 4 sets -- FED. -- 36 of 59 – 61% -- NAD. -- 12 of 20 -- 60%
2006 Rome final -- 5 sets -- FED. -- 64 of 84 -- 76%
2006 French final -- 4 sets -- FED. -- 30 of 41 -- 73% -- NAD. -- 10 of 16 -- 63%
2006 Wimbledon final -- 4 sets -- FED. -- 21 of 33 -- 64% -- NAD. -- 12 of 18 -- 67%
2006 Masters Cup SF -- 2 sets -- FED. -- 17 of 21 -- 81%
2007 French final -- 4 sets -- FED. -- 21 of 34 -- 62% -- NAD. -- 7 of 11 -- 64%
2007 Wimbledon final -- 5 sets -- FED. -- 30 of 51 -- 59% -- NAD. -- 18 of 26 -- 69%
2007 Masters Cup SF -- 2 sets -- FED. -- 10 of 17 -- 59% -- NAD. -- 4 of 7 -- 57%
2008 French final -- 3 sets -- FED. -- 18 of 42 -- 43% -- NAD. -- 2 of 6 -- 33%
2008 Wimbledon final -- 5 sets -- FED. -- 42 of 75 -- 56% -- NAD. -- 22 of 31 -- 71%
2009 Australian final -- 5 sets -- FED. -- 43 of 60 -- 72% -- NAD. -- 15 of 26 -- 58%
2009 Madrid final -- 2 sets -- FED. -- 10 of 18 -- 56% -- NAD. -- 1 of 2 -- 50%
2010 Madrid final -- 2 sets -- FED. -- 10 of 20 -- 50% -- NAD. -- 5 of 11 -- 45%
2010 Masters Cup final -- 3 sets -- FED. -- 13 of 19 -- 68% -- NAD. -- 5 of 6 -- 83%
2011 Miami SF -- 2 sets -- FED. -- 7 of 15 -- 47% -- NAD. -- 1 of 3 -- 33%
2011 Madrid SF -- 3 sets -- FED. -- 22 of 34 -- 65% -- NAD. -- 5 of 11 -- 45%
2011 French final -- 4 sets -- FED. -- 30 of 41 -- 73% -- NAD. -- 10 of 18 -- 56%
2011 Masters Cup RR -- 2 sets -- FED. -- 4 of 8 -- 50% -- NAD. -- 1 of 2 -- 50%
2012 Australian SF -- 4 sets -- FED. -- 35 of 57 -- 61% -- NAD. -- 5 of 15 -- 33%
2012 Indian Wells SF -- 2 sets -- FED. -- 12 of 13 -- 92% -- NAD. -- 3 of 4 -- 75%
2013 Rome final -- 2 sets -- FED. -- 9 of 19 -- 47% -- NAD. -- 4 of 5 -- 80%
As you can see Fed generally wins over 50% of his net points against Rafa, and even 60+% isn't rare. That's a pretty darn good % by any historical standards! (Not sure if this was a sign of the times, but in a recent discussion this poster tried to tell me that those %s in the 50s were actually poor, when a Mac or Edberg wouldn't be much worse off with such numbers. In fact my guess is that their averages were about the same.)
OK, but the comparison doesn't hold because Fed comes in off easy approaches, right? Fair enough, so let's throw out extreme cases like '06 Rome (arguably Fed's best match ever on clay) and '12 IW with only 13 approaches. But then how do you explain such "normal" performances like his winning 36 out of 59 approaches at '05 RG--61% on clay(!)--or 42/75 for 56% at '08 Wim, or 43/60 for a whopping 72% at the '09 AO? The # of approaches here isn't too far off what a Becker or Pete used to average off clay, and again the %s are good by anyone's standard.
Granted this doesn't prove that Fed came in with similarly difficult approaches, but does that really matter? I mean, how can one argue that the likes of Mac, Edberg, Becker, Pete and Rafter, generally considered more natural net players than Fed, cannot at least match this and more? Maybe they'd do even better than Fed himself managed with easier forays to the net!
I don't know if I've told you this before, but the more I learn and study tennis history the more I'm convinced that the game has changed remarkably little, as shown by these S&V/net/attacking/big game examples.
yeah, but its not people listening to the players , is it ? Many watch it . Many do get the difference, especially when the change is significant.
see wimbledon 2002 vs 2001
see AO 2013 vs AO 12
see talks about paris 10 being significantly faster than in other years.
see reports about AO 2000 being quite fast.
I absolutely agree that one needs to be careful while taking these statements/observations into account.
Taking all factors into consideration , I don't think you can realistically say the conditions haven't slowed down by a non-negligible margin and attribute that much of the blame to coaching/prevailing mindset
First of all, let's clear up one thing: the 1st Wimbledon with the new "slow" grass was 2001, not 2002. It's amazing how this rather simple matter has turned into something of a cottage industry, but despite what the naysayers would like to believe the evidence is overwhelming that the grass courts were overhauled in 2000, the year before the Wimbledon we all fondly remember largely due to the classic S&V battles.
Consider the following:
- The official Wimbledon
website says the courts have been played on the new 100% ryegrass "since 2001"--not AFTER 2001--which usually includes the year indicated (2001).
- This Spanish-language article quotes Wimby's former head groundsman Eddie Seaward (Neil Stubley took over this year) as saying that he and his team finished remodeling the grass courts in 2000. Right from the horse's mouth, and lest there be any misunderstanding the article's author states the same himself:
http://tenis.as.com/tenis/2010/06/22/mas_tenis/1277233057_850215.html
(You can see a Google translation
here.)
Now to be fair some of the confusion is understandable, because even the supposedly reputable media often get this wrong. A case in point is this
TIME article (its website now requires a subscription for full articles, hence the link to another thread), which says the new grass was planted in 2001:
http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?p=4281119#post4281119
Apparently this writer was clueless that it takes about a year to prepare the grass courts. (And to digress a little, he also says "an exceptionally rainy two weeks had kept the courts soft," which is rather dubious because 1) I don't remember it being so rainy except near the end of the 2nd week and 2) a damp weather generally makes for slower tennis, though the slippery grass could reward faster play.) Now if a
TIME sportswriter is this ignorant or misleading then it's hard to blame the general public for not knowing better. Still the article makes it clear that the new grass debuted in 2001, and that's one out of at least dozens of similar articles that say as much.
But despite all this evidence there are still too many people who cling to this idea that 2002 was the 1st year with the new grass courts just because 2 baseliners happened to make the final (never mind that a guy like Krajicek made the QF that same year in only his 2nd event after coming back from a year's hiatus) or because Henman threw some sour grapes about "the slowest court I've played on this year" (which, BTW, come almost always after a frustrating loss like his).
And I guarantee you that people calibrate their impressions accordingly when they read stories like this. The Wimbledon example is obviously a rather extreme one, but you can see the same placebo effect in the umpteen conversations about the "slow" surfaces. As I've shown upthread these seemingly clear but perceived differences are usually negligible. Sure there might be an exception here and there, but over time the service/return %s have remained pretty constant.
In short people are most likely fooling themselves when they say they can see these differences just from watching. As we've both agreed one should take everything into account.
