A GOAT list with a difference

[King_olaf_the_hairy]

I stumbled across this about a week ago. Another GOAT list, but done on a very strict, "mathematical" basis. The compiler's rules are as follows:

This website uses statistics and results to rank players. It does not use opinion/bias to rank players.​

​

Tournaments That Factor Into Rankings​

Men's Tennis​

1. ATP Finals (1970-present)​

2. Australian Open (1905-present)​

3. French Open (1925-present)​

4. Olympics (1992-present)​

5. US Open (1881-present)​

6. Wimbledon (1877-present)​

7. World Covered Court Championships (1913-1923)​

8. World Hard Court Championships (1912-1923)​

Women's Tennis​

1. Australian Open (1922-present) (Round of 16 Competitors Only)​

2. French Open (1925-present) (Round of 16 Competitors Only)​

3. Olympics (1992-present) (Round of 16 Competitors Only)​

4. US Open (1922-present) (Round of 16 Competitors Only)​

5. Wimbledon (1922-present) (Round of 16 Competitors Only)​

​

All-Time Player Rankings​

Below is a list of the criteria factored into the All-Time Driver Rankings and the order the criterium is considered.​

1, Top Finish in a Major Tournament​

2. Number of 1st Place Finishes in a Major Tournament.​

3. Number of 2nd Place Finishes in a Major Tournament.​

4. Number of 3rd Place Finishes in a Major Tournament.​

5. Top Finish in a Non-Major Tournament.​

6. Number of professional tournaments played.​

The really interesting thing — for me at least — was how comprehensively this model has been applied. This isn't a Top Ten. Nor a Top 40 or Top 50 like Tennis magazine's. Not even a Top 100 like @SamSpade's, or a Top 128 like Jeff Sackmann's. This is a TOP FIVE THOUSAND. (Actually, their home page claims 5373, but the last 373 don't seem to be ranked.) There's also other related lists like Top Americans by State, Top Players by Nation, by Major Tournament, etc, and a women's list with 1455 ranked players (and similar sub-lists).

However, it is a case of quantity over quality. I actually wonder if the compiler even watches tennis. There's a good few weird outliers at the top, such as Emerson (#5) ahead of Laver and Borg. Pancho Gonzales is at #44, behind all three-slam winners. And Tilden is down at #18, which makes me suspect a goof; Big Bill has ten slams, so he should be ranked #8.

But go deeper. Gaston Gaudio is at #115, while Guillermo Coria is at #210. Nikolay Davydenko and Grigor Dimitrov, who both won the Year-End Championships but who never reached slam finals, are at #263 and #268, behind such luminaries as Algernon Kingscote, Rice Gemmell, and Otto Froitzheim.

There's much fun to be had, though. It's fairly up-to-date for starters; Arthur Fils is already at #1028. Thiago Seyboth Wild is just behind at #1065. Even Dino Prizmic, slam debutant at AO '24, is in there at #1966. So it's a list where, for example, you can follow your favourite young player as he rapidly ascends.

You can also, as I did, play a game of "Who He?", where you see how far down the list you get before you don't even recognize a name. I consider myself reasonably knowledgeable, but even I was tripped up once I ventured outside the top 100. "I have never even heard of that guy" is not something I usually say when perusing a GOAT list.

Finally, it ain't just tennis. The website's homepage has 95 different lists in men's, women's, and team sports; everything from luge to taekwondo and beach volleyball. They all seem to use this same weird model, so you're absolutely guaranteed to discover something that really annoys you. Aleksandr Moskalenko the #1 all-time trampolinist?! Ahead of China's Dong Dong?!?! It's madness I tell you...

The amount of effort required to put this all together is quite impressive, I have to say. It'll have been mostly automated by scraping Wikipedia or wherever. But to do 5000 players you're scraping A LOT of tournament pages, plus sorting the data afterwards. Then it's been done in almost 100 other sports? They claim over 198,000 sportspeople ranked altogether.

Yet the end results seem so askew you wonder if it was worth it...


Anyway, enough preamble. Courtesy of Ainsworth Sports:

THE TOP 5000+ MEN IN TENNIS
THE TOP 1455 WOMEN IN TENNIS


Edit: According to their updates page, they last added tennis data on January 6. Sure enough Jannik Sinner is still at #356; if his AO title is counted I reckon he'd be up to 120-ish.

 

[BorgTheGOAT]

I stumbled across this about a week ago. Another GOAT list, but done on a very strict, "mathematical" basis. The compiler's rules are as follows:

This website uses statistics and results to rank players. It does not use opinion/bias to rank players.​

​

Tournaments That Factor Into Rankings​

Men's Tennis​

1. ATP Finals (1970-present)​

2. Australian Open (1905-present)​

3. French Open (1925-present)​

4. Olympics (1992-present)​

5. US Open (1881-present)​

6. Wimbledon (1877-present)​

7. World Covered Court Championships (1913-1923)​

8. World Hard Court Championships (1912-1923)​

Women's Tennis​

1. Australian Open (1922-present) (Round of 16 Competitors Only)​

2. French Open (1925-present) (Round of 16 Competitors Only)​

3. Olympics (1992-present) (Round of 16 Competitors Only)​

4. US Open (1922-present) (Round of 16 Competitors Only)​

5. Wimbledon (1922-present) (Round of 16 Competitors Only)​

​

All-Time Player Rankings​

Below is a list of the criteria factored into the All-Time Driver Rankings and the order the criterium is considered.​

1, Top Finish in a Major Tournament​

2. Number of 1st Place Finishes in a Major Tournament.​

3. Number of 2nd Place Finishes in a Major Tournament.​

4. Number of 3rd Place Finishes in a Major Tournament.​

5. Top Finish in a Non-Major Tournament.​

6. Number of professional tournaments played.​

The really interesting thing — for me at least — was how comprehensively this model has been applied. This isn't a Top Ten. Nor a Top 40 or Top 50 like Tennis magazine's. Not even a Top 100 like @SamSpade's, or a Top 128 like Jeff Sackmann's. This is a TOP FIVE THOUSAND. (Actually, their home page claims 5373, but the last 373 don't seem to be ranked.) There's also other related lists like Top Americans by State, Top Players by Nation, by Major Tournament, etc, and a women's list with 1455 ranked players (and similar sub-lists).

However, it is a case of quantity over quality. I actually wonder if the compiler even watches tennis. There's a good few weird outliers at the top, such as Emerson (#5) ahead of Laver and Borg. Pancho Gonzales is at #44, behind all three-slam winners. And Tilden is down at #18, which makes me suspect a goof; Big Bill has ten slams, so he should be ranked #8.

But go deeper. Gaston Gaudio is at #115, while Guillermo Coria is at #210. Nikolay Davydenko and Grigor Dimitrov, who both won the Year-End Championships but who never reached slam finals, are at #263 and #268, behind such luminaries as Algernon Kingscote, Rice Gemmell, and Otto Froitzheim.

There's much fun to be had, though. It's fairly up-to-date for starters; Arthur Fils is already at #1028. Thiago Seyboth Wild is just behind at #1065. Even Dino Prizmic, slam debutant at AO '24, is in there at #1966. So it's a list where, for example, you can follow your favourite young player as he rapidly ascends.

You can also, as I did, play a game of "Who He?", where you see how far down the list you get before you don't even recognize a name. I consider myself reasonably knowledgeable, but even I was tripped up once I ventured outside the top 100. "I have never even heard of that guy" is not something I usually say when perusing a GOAT list.

Finally, it ain't just tennis. The website's homepage has 95 different lists in men's, women's, and team sports; everything from luge to taekwondo and beach volleyball. They all seem to use this same weird model, so you're absolutely guaranteed to discover something that really annoys you. Aleksandr Moskalenko the #1 all-time trampolinist?! Ahead of China's Dong Dong?!?! It's madness I tell you...

The amount of effort required to put this all together is quite impressive, I have to say. It'll have been mostly automated by scraping Wikipedia or wherever. But to do 5000 players you're scraping A LOT of tournament pages, plus sorting the data afterwards. Then it's been done in almost 100 other sports? They claim over 198,000 sportspeople ranked altogether.

Yet the end results seem so askew you wonder if it was worth it...


Anyway, enough preamble. Courtesy of Ainsworth Sports:

THE TOP 5000+ MEN IN TENNIS
THE TOP 1455 WOMEN IN TENNIS


Edit: According to their updates page, they last added tennis data on January 6. Sure enough Jannik Sinner is still at #356; if his AO title is counted I reckon he'd be up to 120-ish.

At first glance it looks to me that this list is going more or less strictly by 'slam number above everything' which gives you Emerson with 12 right after Sampras and before Borg and Laver and Pancho with two after guys like Murray. There are very few deviations from that like Murray ahead of Courier or Tilden below 8 time winners but in general at the top ranks it seems to follow this logic.

 

[King_olaf_the_hairy]

At first glance it looks to me that this list is going more or less strictly by 'slam number above everything' which gives you Emerson with 12 right after Sampras and before Borg and Laver and Pancho with two after guys like Murray. There are very few deviations from that like Murray ahead of Courier or Tilden below 8 time winners but in general at the top ranks it seems to follow this logic.

I think the compiler's counting Olympic gold medals as being of equivalent importance to a slam. Murray is listed above 5x winners like Trabert and Sedgman, but below 6x winners like Becker. Likewise Kafelnikov is among the 3x slam winners at #41, and Zverev and Massu are at #83 and #116, among the 1x slam wiinners.

(That would also account for how Serena's ahead of Court at the top of the women's rankings.)

No explanation for Tilden, or Don Budge at #67. Data scraping error?

 

[BorgTheGOAT]

I think the compiler's counting Olympic gold medals as being of equivalent importance to a slam. Murray is listed above 5x winners like Trabert and Sedgman, but below 6x winners like Becker. Likewise Kafelnikov is among the 3x slam winners at #41, and Zverev and Massu are at #83 and #116 among the 1x slam wiinners.

(That would also account for how Serena's ahead of Court at the top of the women's rankings.)

No explanation for Tilden, or Don Budge at #67. Data scraping error?

Good catch. Also explains why Agassi is leading the pack of 8 slammers. Obvious that they must find a way somehow to put Serena ahead of Court. The Tilden and Budge rankings really strike as the odd ones out. One may think that they do not value slams of that era as highly, but then again we have Cochet and Perry appropriately ranked. Budge below Alcaraz is of course a bad joke.

 

[Hard Court]

This is an interesting list. Obviously, it is built in to favor modern players.
- Year-end finals count. Not an event before the 1970s.
- The Australian Open counts. Usually most of the top players did not play it until the 1980s.
- The Olympics count starting in 1992. Note that they don't count in 1924 and before then.
- Notice that the WCT Finals aren't listed.

You are really comparing players who played 6.25 events a year (Olympics are only once every four years) to players that played 3 or 4 a year.

It was nice that they count the World Covered Championships and the World Hard Court Championships.

Obviously no perfect way to do this. The structure of tennis has always been changing.
Maybe designate the top 6 tournaments of each particular year?
Pro Events obviously should not be completely ignored. At the very least, the US Pro, Wembley Pro, and French Pro should count.

We also don't know how much a runner up or a semifinalist gets credit.

Don Budge is an interesting case. you would think his winning 6 Grans Dalms would help his ranking a lot more. Perhaps it's becasue of his short amatuer career. He only played 11 grand Slam events. He would not have got many points as compared to guys who played 15 plus years who got points for being a runner up, semifinalist, etc.

Having said all of this, it still is fun to look at these kind of lists. Occasionally you run a across a name that you aren't that familiar with. Maybe they are underrated by everyone else, maybe not. worth looking into their career.

 

[PDJ]

I like any list that puts Evert over Navratilova
But, the Olympics really does favour players.
Interesting though.

 

[thrust]

Olympics should not count.
Emerson's slams, should not count,
World Hard Court Championships should count for women, as well as they were basically the French Open at that time, being played by top world players at RG.

 

[BauerAlmeida]

Not a huge fan of the list. Emerson too high, as great as he was. Wilander above Becker and Edberg I also disagree among others.

I think the compiler's counting Olympic gold medals as being of equivalent importance to a slam. Murray is listed above 5x winners like Trabert and Sedgman, but below 6x winners like Becker. Likewise Kafelnikov is among the 3x slam winners at #41, and Zverev and Massu are at #83 and #116, among the 1x slam wiinners.

That would explain Massú being above guys like Nalbandian, Corretja or Soderling.

But Zverev should be above Ferrero, Cash or del Potro having a won a Gold should make up for the slam but he won the Masters twice and has more M1000 than them.

 

[MissileBackHand99]

Counting Aussie Opens from the beginning of the 20th century is laughable. Even top players of the time like Brookes and Wilding only played it a few times each. I laugh at the "ATP Finals from 1970 -". The ATP wasn't formed until '73, and the WTC Finals was the much more important Year End Championships for much of the 70s. Another list that just pretends the GS tournaments have always been the ultimate measure of greatness. What about all the great players in the 50s and 60s who turned pro and couldn't play the "Grand Slams"?? Are their Pro Slams being counted?? Lord knows the 70s was a mess with the different tours, Certain Slams barring certain players who signed with other tours or to play World Team Tennis. They can keep this list

 

[EvonneFedererBorgster]

Why are the women shortchanged on the Virginia Slims/Avon, Colgate season ending championships when the men’s are tabulated? When Goolagong won the 1976 VS Championship she made the cover of that weeks Sports Illustrated magazine. It was a very, very big deal and just behind Wimbledon and the USO, above the Colgate.

 

[Pheasant]

These lists are interesting, even though I disagree with a lot of the selections. That's fine. This list is definitely unique! Emerson over Laver is quite interesting. Laver is only 1 year and 9 months younger than Emerson. And yet, he leads that HTH 26-6. Laver crushed Ashe 19-3, Stolle 20-4, Okker 21-3, and Rosewall 24-7.

I found some of the other sports interesting as well:
Hoops:
1. Kareem
2. Jordan
3. Wilt
4. Lebron
5. Bill Russell
6. Bird
7. Shaq
8. Oscar
9. Pettit
10. Kobe

 

[King_olaf_the_hairy]

I found some of the other sports interesting as well:
Hoops:
1. Kareem
2. Jordan
3. Wilt
4. Lebron
5. Bill Russell
6. Bird
7. Shaq
8. Oscar
9. Pettit
10. Kobe

Easily explained by each player's movie career. Airplane! > Space Jam > Conan the Destroyer.

Spoiler: And as for LeBron in a distant fourth...

 

[Hard Court]

Why are the women shortchanged on the Virginia Slims/Avon, Colgate season ending championships when the men’s are tabulated? When Goolagong won the 1976 VS Championship she made the cover of that weeks Sports Illustrated magazine. It was a very, very big deal and just behind Wimbledon and the USO, above the Colgate.

That does seem odd. If they are going to count the Year End Men's Championships, they should have counted the Women's year End as well as well.
You have to wonder how much weight it got in the Men's as compared to the Grand Slams.

Another thing worth is that comparing a women's player from the Pre-Open era to one in the Open Era a little more of an apples-to-apples comparison than a men's player from the Pre-Open era to the Open era.

Still even in the women's side, a Pre-Open player usually had a much shorter career.

 

[CyBorg]

As you have already said, this is a list created by someone who doesn't watch tennis. That is to say, doesn't follow it seriously.

 

[Hard Court]

I never actually said that, maybe someone else did.
It does look like it is mostly the brainless "lets just count the Grand Slam titles" thinking.
There are a few caveats where other tournaments are counted, but we don't know how much they factor in.

 

[Hard Court]

Tennis is one of the most difficult sport to rate players from different areas; at least statistically. Some people think it it is just the Open Era and the Pre-Open era thing. That is obviously part of it, but there is a lot more to it. The constant changing of racquets, surfaces, the constant changing of the organization of tournaments etc. makes it really hard.

 

[King_olaf_the_hairy]

As you have already said, this is a list created by someone who doesn't watch tennis. That is to say, doesn't follow it seriously.

I never actually said that, maybe someone else did.
It does look like it is mostly the brainless "lets just count the Grand Slam titles" thinking.
There are a few caveats where other tournaments are counted, but we don't know how much they factor in.

I did, in the original post. I speculated that someone who created such a comprehensive ranking which had so many obvious errors at the very top (e.g. Emerson) was maybe not even familiar with the sport. The way all slams are given absolutely equal value makes me wonder if he's aware of the amateur/pro schism prior to 1968, for example. The website has 95 different sporting lists available, and I can't believe the compiler closely follows all of them.

On the other hand, the inclusion of the World Hard and Covered Court Championships does imply that they did their research. I mean, half the posters in the GPPD forum probably haven't even heard of those events.