Clayovic Betterer than Federer: Thiem May Be Best

[Meles]

Keeping this simple, but since Thiem played Nadal 4 times this year and got shelled by Djokovic once, I decided to see how he did in points stats versus players on clay outside of the top 5. The numbers warranted comparison with some of the greatest clay court players since 1991. And so we have this stats laden thread which shows Djokovic to currently be the 2nd best clay court player since 1991. Thiem is in the conversation for this last year where he won an impressive 56.1% of points against players outside of the top 5. Points is not a perfect measure, but nor are clay dominance ratios. Players like Federer, Djokovic, later Murray, Nadal 2017, later Wawrinka, Kuerten, Soderling, and Thiem probably over perform their raw points numbers because they have strong serve games. Murray, Wawrinka (not stat friendly), and Soderling are not included because they just have a few peak years around 55.0%. Agassi gets knocked for same reason plus too much tennis on fake clay. Extremes can be seen in Coria and Ferrer; Coria with early success and Ferrer with late success, but huge decline on clay the last few years. If Thiem improves any more he's going to exceed Federer and Djokovic on Clay.

Players ranked in order of (expected) clay greatness.

Peak years for each player bolded. Others can be added very, very easily (just ask).
New:
Clay Elo Ratings for the greats:
Kuerten - 2082 in 1997 peaked at 2428 in 2001
Muster - 2391 in 1995 and 2448 in 1996, no higher than 2200 any other year
Bruguera - 2385 in 1993, 2052 in 1997
Courier - 2151 in 1991, 2339 in 1992, 2329 in 1993 and then steepish decline
Agassi - 2197 in 1991
Chang - 2161 in 1989 and back up to similar number in 1995
Coria - 2344 in 2004
Medvedev - 2268 in 1994 and pretty poor when he made final with Agassi
Corretja and Norman peaked at about 2200 in the year 2000
Berasategui peaked around 2200 in 1994, much lower otherwise
Kafelnikov 2273 in 1996, much lower otherwise
Ferrero rating of 2222 in 2001, peak 2347 in 2003
Costa 2258 in 2002

Nadal long period with 2691 peak in 2013, currently 2519
Borg 2653 in 1980

Djokovic 2566 in 2016
Lendl 2554 in 1988
Federer 2475 in 2009
Murray 2435 in 2016
Ferrer 2381 in 2012
Thiem 2336 in 2017
Wawrinka 2317 in 2015
Soderling 2253 in 2011

http://tennis-strangeforest.rhcloud.com/peakEloRatings

@Gary Duane and @falstaff78 approved (well not really)

The filtering out of top 5 players is of no benefit to Nadal in 2017 and likely players before the Big 4. Thiem clocks in at 53.9% versus the tour in 2017. Hopefully it eliminates the benefits of seeding. Federer being #1 helped him avoid Nadal until finals so this levels playing field for Djokovic and others who did not have this advantage earlier in their careers.

I'd hate to see how weak Kafelnikov comes out in this who was a weak Roland Garros champ in 1996 as Kuerten was in 1997.

 

[Checkmate]

 

[Meles]

@buscemi my opinion of Courier and Bruguera has moved up a notch with this review. One can claim Courier was up against a weak field in 1991, but his and Bruguera's numbers against the field place them above Muster and Kuerten. I really like this filtering out of the top 5 players as it compensates for seeding issues somewhat. This was a huge issue in the 1990s where all the top seeds were not so good on clay so the draws were a mess. I believe this also puts Federer and Djokovic a bit more in perspective too as they often benefitted from easy draws due to their very high rankings and the more ordered state of the clay field in the last decade.

I also like this view because it kind of gets rid of issues with top players against each other which was huge for Courier and Bruguera and even bigger for the Big 3.

Data points of note.
1. Yes, Nadal was having a bad year in 2009.
2. Nadal was having a great year in 2011 which makes Djokovic's wins even more impressive and Federer's upset of Nole at RG all the more outrageous.
3. Kuerten was the earliest adopter of Poly so I have less sympathy for him not coming out roses in yet another stats view on clay.
4. Ferrer had amazing late success from age 28-31 (and of course Muster won at age 28.)

Djokovic's numbers get a paragraph of their own. 2007 clay was very weak which throws all sorts of shade in my mind on the hard court field of early 2007 against which Nole had some phenomenal early success (won 55% of points in early hard court season.) Novak was clearly prime by 2008 on clay and we really see his numbers droop due to likely increasing health/stamina issues in 2009 into 2010 where he craters before dominating in 2011. Djokovic went head to head with peak Nadal in 2011 who even had even higher numbers against players outside the top 5. This puts him above Federer or anyone else since 1991.

Thiem is tracking very nicely with his 2017 and all of his events are ATP 500 clay or above.

 

[Meles]

 

[falstaff78]

Keeping this simple, but since Thiem played Nadal 4 times this year and got shelled by Djokovic once, I decided to see how he did in points stats versus players on clay outside of the top 5. The numbers warranted comparison with some of the greatest clay court players since 1991. And so we have this stats laden thread which shows Djokovic to currently be the 2nd best clay court player since 1991. Thiem is in the conversation for this last year where he won an impressive 56.1% of points against players outside of the top 5. Points is not a perfect measure, but nor are clay dominance ratios. Players like Federer, Djokovic, later Murray, Nadal 2017, later Wawrinka, Kuerten, Soderling, and Thiem probably over perform their raw points numbers because they have strong serve games. Murray, Wawrinka (not stat friendly), and Soderling are not included because they just have a few peak years around 55.0%. Agassi gets knocked for same reason plus too much tennis on fake clay. Extremes can be seen in Coria and Ferrer; Coria with early success and Ferrer with late success, but huge decline on clay the last few years. If Thiem improves any more he's going to exceed Federer and Djokovic on Clay.

Players ranked in order of (expected) clay greatness.

Peak years for each player bolded. @Gary Duane and @falstaff78 approved (well not really)

The filtering out of top 5 players is of no benefit to Nadal in 2017 and likely players before the Big 4. Thiem clocks in at 53.9% versus the tour in 2017. Hopefully it eliminates the benefits of seeding. Federer being #1 helped him avoid Nadal until finals so this levels playing field for Djokovic and others who did not have this advantage earlier in their careers.

I'd hate to see how weak Kafelnikov comes out in this who was a weak Roland Garros champ in 1996 as Kuerten was in 1997.

Awesome chart!

But why do we think performance vs players outside of the top 5 is predictive of ability to win big titles (by beating the top 5)?

 

[NoleFam]

So based on this, Nadal's best years on clay were 2008 and 2012, like most of us agree with, with 2011 and 2007 not far behind. Interesting.

 

[BeatlesFan]

"Thiem may be the best..."

Let's check back in the year 2032 when Thiem has 20 majors.

Not that it's happening.

 

[Meles]

"Thiem may be the best..."

Let's check back in the year 2032 when Thiem has 20 majors.

Not that it's happening.

Two RG titles away from consideration for 2nd best on clay.

 

[NoleFam]

Two RG titles away from consideration for 2nd best on clay.

Thiem is a little bit behind Djokovic based on this and at his age, a 2.0% increase is quite a bit. Even Rafa didn't do that after 24. He's on track with Roger though. I think he will improve though and will win RG at least once and may pass Roger in this stat, but it's a little unlikely he may catch those Djokovic numbers.

 

[helterskelter]

@Meles:

By virtue of what do you say that Thiem is on track to outperform Djokovic? So far, he's only done better than him once, in your table, and that was by 0.3%. I know that 2011 was Djokovic's best year, but to become better than Djokovic, Thiem surely has to do better than Djokovic's 2008, 2011, and 2014, not than his 2012 and 2013. And Thiem's best year to date is still 2.0% behind Djokovic's 2011.

By the way, I agree that overall Djokovic should be regarded as better than Federer on clay, even though Federer's RG record is still probably marginally better:
Wins: 1-1
Runners-Up: Federer 4-3 Djokovic
Semi-Finals: Federer 2-4 Djokovic
Quarter-Finals: Federer 4-3 Djokovic

But with Djokovic up 8-6 in MS events and 13-11 in career titles, I'd give him the nod, overall, especially as he's won all three MS events and beaten Nadal many more times, including once at RG.

 

[-NN-]

Two RG titles away from consideration for 2nd best on clay.

Who are the other best players on clay aged around about 20-27 right now? It might give some insight into how much RG success could be expected of Thiem over the next many years.

 

[BeatlesFan]

Two RG titles away from consideration for 2nd best on clay.

Ya got me there, Meles!!

 

[donquijote]

Useless stats. You won't win anything big unless you can beat 2 from top 5 in the same tournament.
Is Thiem No7? Wins majority of points against players below top 5, big deal. That's what a No7 does.
It only shows Thiem is the best among the young generation.

 

[Meles]

Awesome chart!

But why do we think performance vs players outside of the top 5 is predictive of ability to win big titles (by beating the top 5)?

Thiem beat Djokovic and Nadal on clay this year so he's got that too.

To me the Big 3 hurt their own stats on clay, so this puts them in better perspective. The tour has changed from the 1990's, but how much has clay really changed? The only substantive differences are the following:
1. Poly strings hit clay court focused players earlier than the rest of the tour with Kuerten's early success.
2. The top clay courters in the 1990s were not the highest ranked players. This made the draws at Roland Garros a bit of a mess plus all of the other big events. Poly has "fixed" this anomaly by making most of the players on tour proficient on clay. The clay courters have a lot more competition these days.
3. Many clay courters also had success in the 1990s who perhaps didn't have the game to handle the top hard/grass/carpet players on clay. They were somewhat reliant on other players eliminating these threats. (Thiem is a modern day clay courter and I'd say he's still vulnerable to big, big servers on his favorite surface like Tsonga and others.)

I love to look at stats like this for tracking younger players and their progress. It is pretty reliable and it is hard to find players that have strong points stats without success. Coria would be the worst one in this table and he still was a great, great clay court player.

Can we use this to predict a player's next year using the stats? No, but if we see improvements in their game off clay in the stats we can expect improvement on clay the next season. This was the case with Thiem and Zverev this year. I'd also expect their momentum from clay and grass to translate to hard courts later in the year (generally the improvements are more muted or even nothing on hard courts in the case of Thiem last year.) It is just another tool along with common sense and watching the game.

One thing that is very clear is that Thiem has the goods. He was the 2nd best player on clay in 2017 and his stats made a huge move this year into the range of a Roland Garros champion. He seems likely to marginally improve over the next few years, but even if he doesn't make any move in the numbers he's the top contender and will likely be unstoppable in the next few years except for all but Nadal. Only Coria has soared so high and not won Roland Garros.

Let me know if you have any players (like Coria) that might throw cold water on this approach. For me eliminating the top 5 players eliminates inequitable draws and factors like the 800 lb Gorilla in the room named Nadal. How else can we evaluate Ferrer, Thiem, Federer, and Djokovic versus those who did not have to deal with Nadal?

 

[Meles]

Useless stats. You won't win anything big unless you can beat 2 from top 5 in the same tournament.
Is Thiem No7? Wins majority of points against players below top 5, big deal. That's what a No7 does.
It only shows Thiem is the best among the young generation.

Basically you are talking about slam stamina and it is not a given that a player having great stats for the first year will translate into those big titles. Djokovic splashed on hard courts in early 2007 and then snagged Auz Open in 2008. Murray had amazing hard court stats in 2009, but then fell back (but that's Murray's story of his career.) Coria had crazy stats on clay in 2003, but didn't score the big win until Hamburg when he had a workable draw. Coria made SF at RG. The next year he was oh so close to the RG title. It takes time for most. Even Federer had excellent hard court stats in 2003 and went down in all the big hard court events until the end of the year (poor results in majors.)

Oh yes, Thiem is a solid #3 in the ATP race and will have a shot at a top 4 seed by the time 2018 Auz Open rolls around. He also beat Djokovic and Nadal on clay. And if your #7 the current obstacle course is 3 top 5 players. For Thiem to win RG in 2017 he would have had to beat Djokovic, Nadal, and Wawrinka. One could probably make a strong case that even the top 4 players would have a hard time doing this. Such is the hegemony of the big 4 these days.

 

[tennisaddict]

In an era without Rafa and with old Novak, even Coric and Pouille may win couple of FO and have great stats. Would that mean they are better than Fed and Novak ?

@Meles once again cannot see the forest for the trees.

 

[Meles]

Thiem is a little bit behind Djokovic based on this and at his age, a 2.0% increase is quite a bit. Even Rafa didn't do that after 24. He's on track with Roger though. I think he will improve though and will win RG at least once and may pass Roger in this stat, but it's a little unlikely he may catch those Djokovic numbers.

The stats can't predict this. Thiem may stay in the 55-56% range for years to come easily enough or have injury. The one thing I see for all these players is the big bump earlier in their career. Nole was 2008 on clay. Rafa 2005. Federer actually boosted in 2003 (probably Poly helped him quite a bit to boot.) Every player has that big bump and Thiem has had his in 2017. Federer's peak in these numbers was 2.5% over his bump year. Nole 1.1%. Nadal 2.1%. Ferrer 1.9%. I'd say Thiem could make it over 58% and rival Djokovic, but he could also fall like Coria, Bruguera, Courier, and Ferrero. Looking at these numbers I'd say for sure that Novak's clay career was stunted in 2009 and 2010 due to his devastating health/stamina issues. 2010 is just a statistical pit of despair for him. Did the 4 hour showdown between him and Rafa in Madrid 2009 ruin him? Didn't seem to do Rafa any good.

 

[Meles]

In an era without Rafa and with old Novak, even Coric and Pouille may win couple of FO and have great stats. Would that mean they are better than Fed and Novak ?

@Meles once again cannot see the forest for the trees.

Ding dong this eliminates the top 5. Coric and Pouille are nothing burgers right now in these stats. Pouille just got to 51.9%. They aren't on the radar. Zverev is another story given his age and improvement (51.2% to 52.8% by this metric).

In a weak year on clay like 96 or 97, Zverev might have won RG with the game he had on display and the right draw just like Rome.

 

[metsman]

Keeping this simple, but since Thiem played Nadal 4 times this year and got shelled by Djokovic once, I decided to see how he did in points stats versus players on clay outside of the top 5. The numbers warranted comparison with some of the greatest clay court players since 1991. And so we have this stats laden thread which shows Djokovic to currently be the 2nd best clay court player since 1991. Thiem is in the conversation for this last year where he won an impressive 56.1% of points against players outside of the top 5. Points is not a perfect measure, but nor are clay dominance ratios. Players like Federer, Djokovic, later Murray, Nadal 2017, later Wawrinka, Kuerten, Soderling, and Thiem probably over perform their raw points numbers because they have strong serve games. Murray, Wawrinka (not stat friendly), and Soderling are not included because they just have a few peak years around 55.0%. Agassi gets knocked for same reason plus too much tennis on fake clay. Extremes can be seen in Coria and Ferrer; Coria with early success and Ferrer with late success, but huge decline on clay the last few years. If Thiem improves any more he's going to exceed Federer and Djokovic on Clay.

Players ranked in order of (expected) clay greatness.

Peak years for each player bolded. Others can be added very, very easily (just ask). @Gary Duane and @falstaff78 approved (well not really)

The filtering out of top 5 players is of no benefit to Nadal in 2017 and likely players before the Big 4. Thiem clocks in at 53.9% versus the tour in 2017. Hopefully it eliminates the benefits of seeding. Federer being #1 helped him avoid Nadal until finals so this levels playing field for Djokovic and others who did not have this advantage earlier in their careers.

I'd hate to see how weak Kafelnikov comes out in this who was a weak Roland Garros champ in 1996 as Kuerten was in 1997.

excellent analysis. After all, tennis has always been about how well you do against the mugs outside of the top 5, and what better to measure small 15 match samples than with percentages of points won!

 

[Meles]

Who are the other best players on clay aged around about 20-27 right now? It might give some insight into how much RG success could be expected of Thiem over the next many years.

I'd say Goffin would be the other one to watch. Schwartzman comes to mind and he might be on more of a Ferrer type path with a big bump next year possible. Goffin is the only one that comes to mind:
1. LOL. Goffin was a challenger vulture in 2014 and pumped up to 56.1%, but its been 51.7%, 52.7%, and now a very nice 54.3% versus 6 and above in 2017.

We already know off clay Goffin is a thorn in Thiem's side. I doubt he'd take him at RG this year, but he did the deed at Monte Carlo. Goffin could have a Ferrer like career and still do a lot of damage. This year might have been his bump basically, partially damaged at RG.

Goffin lost to Cilic this year who bizarrely (and forebodingly for grass) had great stats on clay at a late age. Cilic is at 55.8% by this metric and his best before that was 54.0% in 2009 when he was quite young. Otherwise he's been 53% or less. Cilic did not have a bad defeat on clay until his retirement against Anderson at RG. Ferrer had a prime run starting at age 28 so Marin is one to watch I suppose. Most big guys have issues with movement later in their, but he seems to have survived that fate. Marin is actually returning better and better on clay the last few years. He's a threat by this analysis. Good new for Marin fans.

 

[abmk]

@Meles

yeah, Kuerten never hit 55%, ferrer hit it in 4 years.

Kuerten won 0 RGs and ferrer won 3 of them, no ?

Oh wait

Why do you bother spending time on these kind of useless stats ?

works on stats that actually are indicative of something significant, will ya ?

 

[Meles]

excellent analysis. After all, tennis has always been about how well you do against the mugs outside of the top 5, and what better to measure small 15 match samples than with percentages of points won!

I'm just putting out the numbers. Ignore them if you wish. Most Federistas are quite accomplished at imagining their own realities.

Thiem retired Fed from clay, why care?

 

[Meles]

@Meles

yeah, Kuerten never hit 55%, ferrer hit it in 4 years.

Kuerten won 0 RGs and ferrer won 3 of them, no ?

Oh wait

Why do you bother spending time on these kind of useless stats ?

works on stats that actually are indicative of something significant, will ya ?

I rate Kuerten above Ferrer of course in the list silly.

There is the big difference between pre and post Poly game on clay. Filtering out top 5 for Kuerten does not bump his numbers and I say so. In comparison Thiem was 53.9% this year and basically peak Kuerten is 55%. I put the older players in because the data is available. As discussed this as more about filtering for the Big 3.

I guess you subscribe to the theory that Kuerten beating Fed in 2004 makes him a much betterer player on clay?

 

[Checkmate]

Thiem retired Fed from clay, why care?

That Insult!

 

[abmk]

I rate Kuerten above Ferrer of course in the list silly.

There is the big difference between pre and post Poly game on clay. Filtering out top 5 for Kuerten does not bump his numbers and I say so. In comparison Thiem was 53.9% this year and basically peak Kuerten is 55%. I put the older players in because the data is available. As discussed this as more about filtering for the Big 3.

I guess you subscribe to the theory that Kuerten beating Fed in 2004 makes him a much betterer player on clay?

why are you talking about Thiem ? I don't care about him.
I was comparing Ferrer and Kuerten.

And of course someone ignorant about tennis in the late 90s/early 2000s would say the last statement.

Kuerten beating at RG:

a) Muster, Bruguera, Kafelnikov, Medvedev in 97 ( of course your genius highness calls 97 a weak year )
b) Ferrero, Norman, Kafelnikov in 00
c) Ferrero, Corretja, Kafelnikov in 01

along with winning 6 CC masters is what makes him a better player on clay than federer ( actually better than anyone else in the open era minus borg/nadal for peak play)

 

[Meles]

@Meles:

By virtue of what do you say that Thiem is on track to outperform Djokovic? So far, he's only done better than him once, in your table, and that was by 0.3%. I know that 2011 was Djokovic's best year, but to become better than Djokovic, Thiem surely has to do better than Djokovic's 2008, 2011, and 2014, not than his 2012 and 2013. And Thiem's best year to date is still 2.0% behind Djokovic's 2011.

By the way, I agree that overall Djokovic should be regarded as better than Federer on clay, even though Federer's RG record is still probably marginally better:
Wins: 1-1
Runners-Up: Federer 4-3 Djokovic
Semi-Finals: Federer 2-4 Djokovic
Quarter-Finals: Federer 4-3 Djokovic

But with Djokovic up 8-6 in MS events and 13-11 in career titles, I'd give him the nod, overall, especially as he's won all three MS events and beaten Nadal many more times, including once at RG.

The title shows my initial motivation to be Thiem and is something to catch interest. Nobody seems to be all that concerned about Djokovic rating above Federer, but oh yes now I know why the Federistas are in here dismissing data once again.

I responded above that Djoko's 2009 looks like a clay anomaly of sorts (that 4 hour clash with Rafa probably did him in.) 2010 is a black hole on clay for Nole.

As far as Thiem goes I really have no idea. He's made a big bump in 2017 for sure and it's not rocket science that after this year he's a big time RG contender ongoing without looking at these stats. We'll just have to see how he does the rest of this year and then the period early next year after off-season training. You could see clearly at Brisbane and Auz that Thiem was serving better and physically stronger. This did translate on the clay. That's the best we can do to anticipate 2018 clay is watch the early season. Thiem will not make another big jump like this ever again. He could crash out like Coria or keep building like Fed for years and get up around 58% for some of his best years. I suspect he'll be more of the latter. Another factor is a bit of false precision with these numbers. Thiem has played about 30 clay matches the last three years so the data is pretty trustworthy. I really like filtering out some of the top players. It eliminates vulturing, bad draws, top seed favoritism (heh, Rafa doesn't have to play Rafa). For me it gives an interesting window.

I must say what Cilic did on clay this year was alarming (he shouldn't be improving his return game at his age.) What a mess with his previous drug suspension. Was he juicing? He wasn't getting much out of in the stats. It is very weird as his stats have been nothing for years and now on clay and grass he's crazy go nuts.

 

[adil1972]

One throne (nadal) removed from federer path, 2 thrones (murray/djokovic) remain in federer path to 8th wimbledon

 

[Surion]

Two RG titles away from consideration for 2nd best on clay.

Yea, and he won't even win one.

 

[Meles]

why are you talking about Thiem ? I don't care about him.
I was comparing Ferrer and Kuerten.

And of course someone ignorant about tennis in the late 90s/early 2000s would say the last statement.

Kuerten beating at RG:

a) Muster, Bruguera, Kafelnikov, Medvedev in 97 ( of course your genius highness calls 97 a weak year )
b) Ferrero, Norman, Kafelnikov in 00
c) Ferrero, Corretja, Kafelnikov in 01

along with winning 6 CC masters is what makes him a better player on clay than federer ( actually better than anyone else in the open era minus borg/nadal for peak play)

As I stated it wasn't really designed for the pre-big4 period. And of course I don't think that it does work for Kuerten or why would I put Ferrer at the bottom. If you count all matches which is essentially what is happening with Guga, Ferrer has two years at 55.0%. Any statistic fails with Kuerten, just like Sampras.

Those are all wonderful names and wins. Kafelnikov a bit of a joke on clay statistically. Muster in 1997 was not so strong. Beating fellow clay courters off their game is the easy part for a clay court specialist.

Back to Kuerten. He did not really pile on the statistics until his last two RG wins. Pump him up in 1997 all you want, but stats for him very much not at his peak and similar to 98 and 99. Kuerten's bump in clay level was 2000. 1997 was a weak year because there was not a dominant player.

Laugh all you want at Ferrer, but he was an excellent player on clay. I suspect his success is an example of how the game has changed with much of it being well past his speed prime at age 23 and 24. Ferrer's return and stamina on clay were first rate.

 

[Meles]

Yea, and he won't even win one.

Such an intelligent prediction.

 

[abmk]

As I stated it wasn't really designed for the pre-big4 period. And of course I don't think that it does work for Kuerten or why would I put Ferrer at the bottom. If you count all matches which is essentially what is happening with Guga, Ferrer has two years at 55.0%. Any statistic fails with Kuerten, just like Sampras.

Those are all wonderful names and wins. Kafelnikov a bit of a joke on clay statistically. Muster in 1997 was not so strong. Beating fellow clay courters off their game is the easy part for a clay court specialist.

Back to Kuerten. He did not really pile on the statistics until his last two RG wins. Pump him up in 1997 all you want, but stats for him very much not at his peak and similar to 98 and 99. Kuerten's bump in clay level was 2000. 1997 was a weak year because there was not a dominant player.

Laugh all you want at Ferrer, but he was an excellent player on clay. I suspect his success is an example of how the game has changed with much of it being well past his speed prime at age 23 and 24. Ferrer's return and stamina on clay were first rate.

if its not designed for the pre-big4 period, why did you mention the stats for Courier, Bruguera, Kuerten, Ferrero etc?

I was talking about Kuerten's run in RG 97 alone. That's a draw from hell ( possibly the toughest in the open era save maybe wilander's in RG 82 ).Kuerten was unseeded and won RG - it was his first title. for a player at that stage of his career, how the hell is beating Muster easy ? ( they did go 5 sets, you know ?)
Of course Kuerten's clay court season as a whole was not good.

ferrer was a fine claycourter, but clearly below everyone else on the list. Just 1 RG final and 2 masters final on clay.

 

[Surion]

Such an intelligent prediction.

Let's talk again in ten years

 

[Meles]

if its not designed for the pre-big4 period, why did you mention the stats for Courier, Bruguera, Kuerten, Ferrero etc?

I was talking about Kuerten's run in RG 97 alone. That's a draw from hell ( possibly the toughest in the open era save maybe wilander's in RG 82 ).Kuerten was unseeded and won RG - it was his first title. for a player at that stage of his career, how the hell is beating Muster easy ? ( they did go 5 sets, you know ?)
Of course Kuerten's clay court season as a whole was not good.

ferrer was a fine claycourter, but clearly below everyone else on the list. Just 1 RG final and 2 masters final on clay.

Just to have them out to see the patterns of greatness over the player's careers.

It was a great win in 1997 and he had his strings. Muster won 50.4% of his clay court points in 1997 and his biggest clay run was a QF at St. Poelton. Kafelnikov was equally bad. Medvedev was good that year. Bruguera was good, but nowhere near great.

Despite the title count its just hard for me to revere Kuerten given his difficult paths to his titles were so troubled. 2001 was fairly dominant but Guga had to save match point against a qualifier with a 26 point rally. 2000 was a ridiculous run and a great victory over Norman for whom I was cheering. Guga had all of the advantages, but at best solid competition with Norman the other heavy in 2000 and Ferrero in 2001. 1997 he had his strings (which took over clay court tennis pretty quickly), but still these periods are an advantage for the successful new adapters.

Kuerten had many of the advantages of the new Poly string game that dominates all of the tour today. In my mind he should be held to the similar standards to the current players. Clearly his whole game was not developed with Poly in mind, but its hard to rate him over Fed and Djokovic in my mind. Especially Djokovic. Is it fair to put Courier and Bruguera narrowly ahead of him? I do for this exercise because they were more dominant and for 1993 they both clashed in a big final.

 

[abmk]

Just to have them out to see the patterns of greatness over the player's careers.

It was a great win in 1997 and he had his strings. Muster won 50.4% of his clay court points in 1997 and his biggest clay run was a QF at St. Poelton. Kafelnikov was equally bad. Medvedev was good that year. Bruguera was good, but nowhere near great.

Despite the title count its just hard for me to revere Kuerten given his difficult paths to his titles were so troubled. 2001 was fairly dominant but Guga had to save match point against a qualifier with a 26 point rally. 2000 was a ridiculous run and a great victory over Norman for whom I was cheering. Guga had all of the advantages, but at best solid competition with Norman the other heavy in 2000 and Ferrero in 2001. 1997 he had his strings (which took over clay court tennis pretty quickly), but still these periods are an advantage for the successful new adapters.

Kuerten had many of the advantages of the new Poly string game that dominates all of the tour today. In my mind he should be held to the similar standards to the current players. Clearly his whole game was not developed with Poly in mind, but its hard to rate him over Fed and Djokovic in my mind. Especially Djokovic. Is it fair to put Courier and Bruguera narrowly ahead of him? I do for this exercise because they were more dominant and for 1993 they both clashed in a big final.

ferrero was there in 2000 as well and kuerten won in 5 sets.

Its just not possible to be dominant given his draws. not even nadal or borg would've managed that.
Kafelnikov just played better at the FO than in other CC tournaments.

Muster did dip on clay in 97, but still a formidable opponent esp for someone ranked 66.

When a fed fan in me rates Kuerten better than fed on clay and you don't , you know there's something wrong with you.

oh and he's definitely better than djokovic.

Its Kuerten > federer > djokovic IMO , no doubt.

Djokovic doesn't even have any epic wins vs in-form opponents at RG. federer atleast has 2 -- djoko in 11 and delpo in 09.

Kuerten as I pointed out has more.

 

[Meles]

ferrero was there in 2000 as well and kuerten won in 5 sets.

Its just not possible to be dominant given his draws. not even nadal or borg would've managed that.
Kafelnikov just played better at the FO than in other CC tournaments.

Muster did dip on clay in 97, but still a formidable opponent esp for someone ranked 66.

When a fed fan in me rates Kuerten better than fed on clay and you don't , you know there's something wrong with you.

oh and he's definitely better than djokovic.

Its Kuerten > federer > djokovic IMO , no doubt.

Djokovic doesn't even have any epic wins vs in-form opponents at RG. federer atleast has 2 -- djoko in 11 and delpo in 09.

Kuerten as I pointed out has more.

There were quite a few name clay court specialists in the 1990s and I really think that Poly has changed clay forever. For me Kuerten and Courier too were pioneers of the modern power clay court game which features high points won on first serves. Wawrinka is just a huge server on clay and that is what made Murray competitive the last few years (Elbow/Hipray screwed right now.) I'd love to see Fed play again, but if he wins Wimby2017 I've got a feeling he'll steer clear. If Nadal if having a bad year next year I could see him playing again. Who on earth is going to stop Fed winning the US Open this year? He'll be the clear favorite if he bags Wimby.

Would you say Kuerten's greatness was that he was the clay warrior who could win a bunch of 5 set matches against tough opponents and still come through? Muster had that stamina. I'm very guilty of ignoring clay for much of the 1990s because none of the top players were winning on clay. I saw the finals at RG for sure all those years and probably Norman more and Kafelnikov.

It seemed like for most of the top 1990's clay courters RG was a 5 set graveyard where some long matches would really hurt one's chances, plus the high seeds were still very dangerous and the draw a mess for the top clay courters. In the Big 4 era Nadal is a stamina beast, Wawrinka now, Federer too with his efficient game, and Djokovic finally got there after 2010. Only Nadal has a clay courter's game. Your 90's type clay courter is an endangered species unable to withstand these grinders. Thiem's style is definitely a throwback and he still has stamina issues in my mind. (young Ruud is another.) Ferrer's somewhat flatter more hard court style has served him very well on clay plus his ability to handle big servers with his excellent return game.

Please let me know of any players you think should be added to this table. For me this is very much about studying the progress of the better clay court players.

 

[Deleted member 688153]

Nice, OP.

Could you add Borg? Or aren't the numbers available that far back?
I really just want to see if he cracks 60% or goes above Rafa at any point.

 

[Meles]

Nice, OP.

Could you add Borg? Or aren't the numbers available that far back?
I really just want to see if he cracks 60% or goes above Rafa at any point.

Points stats only go back to 1991. @Gary Duane has a way of back estimating points from games that's probably within 0.25%.

Any other requests for post 1991? It's a shame we don't have early Muster numbers. I'm not sure if there is an easy games source before 1991.

 

[abmk]

There were quite a few name clay court specialists in the 1990s and I really think that Poly has changed clay forever. For me Kuerten and Courier too were pioneers of the modern power clay court game which features high points won on first serves. Wawrinka is just a huge server on clay and that is what made Murray competitive the last few years (Elbow/Hipray screwed right now.) I'd love to see Fed play again, but if he wins Wimby2017 I've got a feeling he'll steer clear. If Nadal if having a bad year next year I could see him playing again. Who on earth is going to stop Fed winning the US Open this year? He'll be the clear favorite if he bags Wimby.

Would you say Kuerten's greatness was that he was the clay warrior who could win a bunch of 5 set matches against tough opponents and still come through? Muster had that stamina. I'm very guilty of ignoring clay for much of the 1990s because none of the top players were winning on clay. I saw the finals at RG for sure all those years and probably Norman more and Kafelnikov.

It seemed like for most of the top 1990's clay courters RG was a 5 set graveyard where some long matches would really hurt one's chances, plus the high seeds were still very dangerous and the draw a mess for the top clay courters. In the Big 4 era Nadal is a stamina beast, Wawrinka now, Federer too with his efficient game, and Djokovic finally got there after 2010. Only Nadal has a clay courter's game. Your 90's type clay courter is an endangered species unable to withstand these grinders. Thiem's style is definitely a throwback and he still has stamina issues in my mind. (young Ruud is another.) Ferrer's somewhat flatter more hard court style has served him very well on clay plus his ability to handle big servers with his excellent return game.

Please let me know of any players you think should be added to this table. For me this is very much about studying the progress of the better clay court players.

the problem in the 90s was not about long 5-setters, but rather that the CCers had a short prime period on clay (injuries/burn out)

Courier (91-94), Bruguera(93-97 -- affected by injuries in 95,96 still), Muster (95-96) etc.

Kuerten's greatness was being able to overcome tough draws ( not necessarily in 5 sets), plus high peak level.

I really don't think the above list helps (esp. if you are excluding top 5). Make 2 lists -- including top 5 and excluding top 5.
Throw in the titles won& finals in Masters/at RG in those years. Then you have something credible.

 

[KINGROGER]

Fed is better than Djokovic on clay but Djokovic has better stats on clay due to 1. More wins over Nadal and 2. 14-16 period where he could rack up easy masters wins over declined Nadal and Clayray.

 

[Meles]

the problem in the 90s was not about long 5-setters, but rather that the CCers had a short prime period on clay (injuries/burn out)

Courier (91-94), Bruguera(93-97 -- affected by injuries in 95,96 still), Muster (95-96) etc.

Kuerten's greatness was being able to overcome tough draws ( not necessarily in 5 sets), plus high peak level.

I really don't think the above list helps (esp. if you are excluding top 5). Make 2 lists -- including top 5 and excluding top 5.
Throw in the titles won& finals in Masters/at RG in those years. Then you have something credible.

Good idea. Something to do in some of the dead time before Roger's Cup. Though Washington has all the NextGen stars with Thiem at the lead, plus Delpo and Monfils.

I've got a secret theory that Poly was a bit rough to change too for many and on clay they went Poly quickly after Kuerten. I believe Fed's triumphs forced any regular tour holdovers to change. A suspicious amount of injuries during that period in my mind. Blake complained about it. Adapterer continues to amaze to this day like some kind of T-Rex that should have been extinct long ago, but now has come back to savage the NextGen.

I'll need to work on a way to present the list. The current view lets you get some insight, but hard to work in other career highlights with it. I'd like to have tournament wins, Masters equivalent via single letter, plus maybe italics if finalist and round at RG. It would be good to have the two numbers together and maybe I exclude top 10 to hopefully get a better picture of 1990s. Hard to get all this into the views. The ideal would be where you could click on the number for the year and get the details to show up.... You've got me wanting to make website, but it's hard to get the hits like TTW. I've done something on an unrelated site where you could click the number and it would pull up a picture which would be an image of the data.

Spoilers here almost work, but way too cumbersome:

Spoiler: 55.1%/56.7%

Kuerten
Rolland Garros
Monte Carlo W
Rome F
Hamburg 1R

We have code option that might work....

 

[Meles]

Fed is better than Djokovic on clay but Djokovic has better stats on clay due to 1. More wins over Nadal and 2. 14-16 period where he could rack up easy masters wins over declined Nadal and Clayray.

Aagh, but this just shows points stats and excludes matches with top 5 players. The nice thing about filtering out the top players is the overall field strength probably does not go up and down wildly (just the very top players.) I may go to filtering out top 10 and showing both numbers with and without top 10. As a Thiem fan I'd sure wish Nadal would stay declined.

 

[Gary Duane]

Points stats only go back to 1991. @Gary Duane has a way of back estimating points from games that's probably within 0.25%.

Any other requests for post 1991? It's a shame we don't have early Muster numbers. I'm not sure if there is an easy games source before 1991.

In general take game%, subtract 50. Divide that number in two. Add it back to 50.

60%

(60-50)/2+50

So basically a guy winning 60% of games wins around 55% of points. It tends to run a little higher, so 55% will usually be 60.5% of so. But this only is predictable over a lot of matches and can vary hugely in one tournament.

So right now Fed is around 62% of games, should be around 55-56% on points, grass...

 

[Meles]

@Gary Duane I've died and gone to heaven:
http://tennis-strangeforest.rhcloud.com/peakEloRatings

http://tennis-strangeforest.rhcloud.com/statsLeaders

@falstaff78 @krosero @buscemi

I swear this wasn't around a year ago. Very, very complete stats back to 1991. Explore!

The killer is the Elo ratings go back to the beginning of the open era and they can be surface specific and they look solid. It looks like these were built in both directions perhaps as usually Elo doesn't work in the beginning years. (Complete guess on my part.) You can run Laver, Rosewall, Gimeno, Nastase, etc. on clay. Way, way cool.

 

[falstaff78]

@Gary Duane I've died and gone to heaven:
http://tennis-strangeforest.rhcloud.com/peakEloRatings

http://tennis-strangeforest.rhcloud.com/statsLeaders

@falstaff78 @krosero @buscemi

I swear this wasn't around a year ago. Very, very complete stats back to 1991. Explore!

The killer is the Elo ratings go back to the beginning of the open era and they can be surface specific and they look solid. It looks like these were built in both directions perhaps as usually Elo doesn't work in the beginning years. (Complete guess on my part.) You can run Laver, Rosewall, Gimeno, Nastase, etc. on clay. Way, way cool.

It's a great site. Have been playing with it for a few days.

Guess where they got all their data?

That's right. My boy Jeff Sackmann

 

[Gary Duane]

@Gary Duane I've died and gone to heaven:
http://tennis-strangeforest.rhcloud.com/peakEloRatings

http://tennis-strangeforest.rhcloud.com/statsLeaders

@falstaff78 @krosero @buscemi

I swear this wasn't around a year ago. Very, very complete stats back to 1991. Explore!

The killer is the Elo ratings go back to the beginning of the open era and they can be surface specific and they look solid. It looks like these were built in both directions perhaps as usually Elo doesn't work in the beginning years. (Complete guess on my part.) You can run Laver, Rosewall, Gimeno, Nastase, etc. on clay. Way, way cool.

There are some things here I've checked out.

Fed is #92 on aces per game.

Sampras is #23.

However, my idea does not seem to be there, because I charted average free points per game by subtracting DFs from aces, and when you do that Fed and Sampras are close.

 

[Gary Duane]

Btw: Aces:

My way of calculating is to subtract DFs from aces then divide by all service games. As you can see, Dr. Ivo smokes at least one past every game, on averge. Fed not quite one every two games, Sampras just a wee bit more than once a game. The leaders in this, last time I checked, were Karlovic, Isner and Raonic, and I believe in that order.

I don't think you can find this stat anywhere.

Sampras:
(8713-2949)/10441
0.5520544

Federer
(9994-2463)/16572
0.45444123

Karlovic:
(12,018-2,055)/8443
1.1800308

 

[kOaMaster]

So basically Federer is 5th best clay player all time behind Nadal, Borg, Lendl & Djokovic.

 

[metsman]

Just to have them out to see the patterns of greatness over the player's careers.

It was a great win in 1997 and he had his strings. Muster won 50.4% of his clay court points in 1997 and his biggest clay run was a QF at St. Poelton. Kafelnikov was equally bad. Medvedev was good that year. Bruguera was good, but nowhere near great.

Despite the title count its just hard for me to revere Kuerten given his difficult paths to his titles were so troubled. 2001 was fairly dominant but Guga had to save match point against a qualifier with a 26 point rally. 2000 was a ridiculous run and a great victory over Norman for whom I was cheering. Guga had all of the advantages, but at best solid competition with Norman the other heavy in 2000 and Ferrero in 2001. 1997 he had his strings (which took over clay court tennis pretty quickly), but still these periods are an advantage for the successful new adapters.

Kuerten had many of the advantages of the new Poly string game that dominates all of the tour today. In my mind he should be held to the similar standards to the current players. Clearly his whole game was not developed with Poly in mind, but its hard to rate him over Fed and Djokovic in my mind. Especially Djokovic. Is it fair to put Courier and Bruguera narrowly ahead of him? I do for this exercise because they were more dominant and for 1993 they both clashed in a big final.

Ferrero was up 2 sets to 1 and a break in 2000 (despite it being his first FO and third slam overall) but was garbage in 2001 (had really had performances his last match of 01 and 02, but made up for it with a tremendous 03 run) but you mention it the opposite way. Ferrero would probably be regarded as a top 5-6 clay courter ever had he stayed healthy, the guy was that good on clay.

 

[Gary Duane]

Keeping this simple, but since Thiem played Nadal 4 times this year and got shelled by Djokovic once, I decided to see how he did in points stats versus players on clay outside of the top 5. The numbers warranted comparison with some of the greatest clay court players since 1991. And so we have this stats laden thread which shows Djokovic to currently be the 2nd best clay court player since 1991. Thiem is in the conversation for this last year where he won an impressive 56.1% of points against players outside of the top 5. Points is not a perfect measure, but nor are clay dominance ratios. Players like Federer, Djokovic, later Murray, Nadal 2017, later Wawrinka, Kuerten, Soderling, and Thiem probably over perform their raw points numbers because they have strong serve games. Murray, Wawrinka (not stat friendly), and Soderling are not included because they just have a few peak years around 55.0%. Agassi gets knocked for same reason plus too much tennis on fake clay. Extremes can be seen in Coria and Ferrer; Coria with early success and Ferrer with late success, but huge decline on clay the last few years. If Thiem improves any more he's going to exceed Federer and Djokovic on Clay.

Players ranked in order of (expected) clay greatness.

Peak years for each player bolded. Others can be added very, very easily (just ask).
New:
Clay Elo Ratings for the greats:
Kuerten - 2082 in 1997 peaked at 2428 in 2001
Muster - 2391 in 1995 and 2448 in 1996, no higher than 2200 any other year
Bruguera - 2385 in 1993, 2052 in 1997
Courier - 2151 in 1991, 2339 in 1992, 2329 in 1993 and then steepish decline
Agassi - 2197 in 1991
Chang - 2161 in 1989 and back up to similar number in 1995
Coria - 2344 in 2004
Medvedev - 2268 in 1994 and pretty poor when he made final with Agassi
Corretja and Norman peaked at about 2200 in the year 2000
Berasategui peaked around 2200 in 1994, much lower otherwise
Kafelnikov 2273 in 1996, much lower otherwise
Ferrero rating of 2222 in 2001, peak 2347 in 2003
Costa 2258 in 2002

Nadal long period with 2691 peak in 2013, currently 2519
Borg 2653 in 1980

Djokovic 2566 in 2016
Lendl 2554 in 1988
Federer 2475 in 2009
Murray 2435 in 2016
Ferrer 2381 in 2012
Thiem 2336 in 2017
Wawrinka 2317 in 2015
Soderling 2253 in 2011

http://tennis-strangeforest.rhcloud.com/peakEloRatings

@Gary Duane and @falstaff78 approved (well not really)

The filtering out of top 5 players is of no benefit to Nadal in 2017 and likely players before the Big 4. Thiem clocks in at 53.9% versus the tour in 2017. Hopefully it eliminates the benefits of seeding. Federer being #1 helped him avoid Nadal until finals so this levels playing field for Djokovic and others who did not have this advantage earlier in their careers.

I'd hate to see how weak Kafelnikov comes out in this who was a weak Roland Garros champ in 1996 as Kuerten was in 1997.

Here is my list of the guys who won a higher game% than anyone else on clay, and I compiled this list because it is a way of tracking players all the way through the OE.

All of these guys won more than 55% of their games:

Nadal
Borg
Lendl
Vilas
Djokovic
Connors
Muster
Coria
Courier
Federer
Bruguera
Agassi
Murray
Ferrer
Ferrero
Edberg
Kuerten

Kuerten, at the bottom is 55.35. Thiem is close to breaking into this list.

I don't trust points as much, because there is so much that can go wrong with data, but around 52% of points is at the bottom of this list. Thiem is also about there now. This should go up more and more if he stays healthy.

This, by the way, is where TA goes straight to hell. Vilas on clay is shown as 48.4% of all points won on clay, career. Where they got that from, who knows, but of course it is as wrong as wrong can be.

Borg is listed as 41.6%. He should be the only other player in the OE with a figure of around 56% for points. His game% is barely under Nadal, absolutely insane on clay.

 

[Meles]

There are some things here I've checked out.

Fed is #92 on aces per game.

Sampras is #23.

However, my idea does not seem to be there, because I charted average free points per game by subtracting DFs from aces, and when you do that Fed and Sampras are close.

2016 clay data is wrong so far.