Meles
Bionic Poster
Career lists, so Thiem with one prime year in play should improve. Thiem 58.54% this year on games.
Clayovic Betterer than Federer: Thiem May Be Best
- Thread starter Meles
- Start date
-NN-
G.O.A.T.
Nice find. It draws out some intriguing charts.
http://tennis-strangeforest.rhcloud.com/rankingsChart# Try the GOAT points chart and see where Djokovic overtook Nadal by their formula. Choose the Big Four option in "Quick Picks".
You can pair whatever players you like from 1991 onwards and put their ranking points side by side by age, while compensating for different ranking systems (not sure how accurate but good impression).
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Meles
Bionic Poster
I rate him 7th since 1991 just based on career points with a special DR rating. Just behind Coria. Pretty high considering he played a long time trying to get back. Tied for Laver for Open era peak clay ELO at 19th. Would you rate JCF over Muster, Courier, Djoko, and Fed? Elo shows peak for year.
Yeah ELO goes off of winning sets and JCF's rating higher after 2000. Unfortunately Ultimate Tennis currently only shows annual Elo and not by week like ranking. They have that and games data back to 1968 which is impressive. Do you think he would have been better than Djoko, Fed, Courier, Muster, and Bruguera?
Meles
Bionic Poster
I think so. They've got the games data back to 1968 plus Elo even for surfaces.
The by age thing is very cool. Agassi beats Nadal for youngest ranking and FAA not bad.
Gary Duane
G.O.A.T.
What in heaven's name are you talking about? Whose data? For which players?
metsman
G.O.A.T.
I would put him over Muster and Coria. I think he had a higher peak level and Coria flamed out early due to injuries as well. Muster ruled the mickey mouse tournaments and did well at masters but at the end of the day making 2 semis or better(ferrero made the semis or better every single year of his prime) and only 3 quarters or better just doesn't stack up (yes I know he had some injury issues earlier in his career, but even then in 96 he was the odds on favorite and lost quite comfortably to Stich).
Meles
Bionic Poster
I really think Poly has changed the clay game tremendously. It has made it possible for much more consistent results on clay, but I'm not sure why that is. I'd hold that against JCF and really anyone after Kuerten so Muster pretty high. The whole 90's Clay scene was a bit odd in my mind. Things were pretty normal through the 80's on clay with top players really doing well on the surface. Some of the early Chang and Courier wins were in the wake of Lendl/Wilander, but then clay became this really separate thing at the top. Looking back at these stats it probably really has always been separate, but with some Euro's at the top who could play on all surfaces. I suppose the big S&V fast game of the 90's elsewhere developed some players that did not have games great for clay. Plus the flood of Americans, Russians, and Australians at the top all not used to red clay.
Now we have Poly and Euros at the top of the game who really know clay (Delpo knows clay.) Baseline and clay play have blended to some extent and so we see players getting more consistent results for longer periods of time (just like hard courts.) It just seems easier to do everything including racking up the stats on clay.
I need to look for some 2000 JCF matches and see him at his best. His career numbers have always impressed me and compiling the table in the OP shows me that he was plugging along for quite a while after his game declined watering down his stats.
Any thoughts on why clay has changed so much from the 1990's? (frankly I ignored it then except for RG finals for the most part.)
metsman
G.O.A.T.
Bruguera, Lendl, Borg, Courier, even Agassi had no trouble putting together strong FO results over a multi-year span. Muster doesn't have much of an excuse besides the early career injuries but then even in his prime he only had 1 good result.
Clay was different because I feel there was more on the top layer which made it slower. Add gut to that and it really favored defensive baselining whereas you needed different style to win on other surfaces. Clay plays much faster today, really contributes to the homogenization of the surfaces, in terms of playing style they all play pretty similar. Not saying in terms of speed they all play the same, grass is still much faster, but in terms of the playing style needed to win on them they are not too different. We don't see the adaptations in playing style from all court/baseline/serve volley that Federer displayed a little bit of in say 2003-2004 or Sampras in 93-95. Forget about what Borg did obviously, he actually played 3 distinct styles on grass/clay/carpet and dominated on each, that will forever be one of the most amazing things.
Meles
Bionic Poster
I suspect this is all Poly, but yes the classic defensive clay court game seems doomed to failure these days. Nadal, Thiem, and perhaps Ruud stand out in my mind as heavy hitters like the old days, but they have incredible power on their side which makes it work. Call me crazy, but I actually like the clay game better this way. More of the top players compete well. It's still different, but I find it much more interesting with its better integration into the tour.
It is an odd thing that more players play well on clay now, but we also have more domination on the surface which pumps up the stats. It's almost like with Federer or a bit earlier you just stop comparing.
As a Thiem fan I've become very interested in the nuts and bolts of what makes clay court players great. The game has changed enough that I wonder if these 90's players mean anything when watching the likes of Thiem, Zverev, Ruud and others progress in the rankings?
Meles
Bionic Poster
I reject this because of Nadal eclipsing clay for so long. Ditto for Nole and perhaps even a player like Ferrer.
metsman
G.O.A.T.
I'd like it much more if grass was a little quicker and encouraged more net play. I think the AO/FO/USO speeds are ok.
Thiem has most of the tools required to be a great clay court player, heavy penetrating groundstrokes, good movement around the back of the court, good touch. Those things have been common to most great clay courters. His strategy and game sense still need a lot of work and he just has no plan B which leads to some of those atrocious performances you say against Djokovic at Rome and Nadal at RG. In fact, his standing behind the baseline and disregard for taking the ball early would work much better in the 90's but not as well today. Really Nadal in 06 is like the only guy to have court positioning like that and do well and that was probably his athletic peak. Thiem is a little uncontrolled when he does step in and tries to be aggressive. He has to be more controlled and take the ball earlier more consistently so he can set himself up for easier winners rather than having to take a huge hack from behind the baseline to get a ball by someone. Against Nadal in Rome was the best I've seen in this regard, he has to play like that more often.
Meles
Bionic Poster
@metsman and @Gary Duane what do you think of the "bump/jump" phenomena on clay
-Nadal bumps up from 53.6% to 56.9% in 2005.
-Thiem bumps up from 53.3% to 56.1% in 2017.
-Djoko bumps up to 57.0% in 2008 (start of his clay prime except for his health issues disrupting.)
-Federer bumps to 54.8% in 2003
-Bruguera jumps to 56.9% in 1993
-Courier jumps to 56.4% in 1992
-Kuerten bumps in 2000, but not a big bump. (Maybe he had ranking to play a lot off clay)
-Muster never really bumps, but he had car wreck and we don't have data before age 24, hold on.... Muster in 1987 won 54.2% of his game and then went to 61.8% in 1988. Using Gary's back calculation for points that's probably like 52.0% jumping to 55.5% in 1988. It's a bump.
(SF at Auz in 1989 and then the car wreck.)
-Coria with the biggest bump in 2003
-Ferrero bumps 2001 (metsman objections aside, honestly with Thiem his clay level was great late in 2016 season and 2017 a continuation of sorts)
-Ferrer bumps at age 25 in 2007. (Not sure why his 2008 and 2009 levels much lower, anyone?)
-Agassi..... looking at his games, good lord went from 50% in 1987 to 61.3% on games. 50.0% points to 55.0% in one year
-Chang..... 51.1% in 1988 to 58.4% in 1989 which is 50.5% to 54.0%
Everybody has this big bump. Sometimes you see this on hard courts, but Courier had a steady climb, Nadal, Murray. It's a consistent thing on clay. I'm not sure what this says about the nature of the clay game except that maybe the physical nature of clay and the lesser importance of serve and return makes these kind of jumps possible as a great player starts to dominate off the ground.
Its interesting that Federer had one of the smaller bumps and it was more steady improvement in his clay game for a few years after the bump to take him to his best level. Zverev has not bumped despite some nice escalation of some of his serve stats. I wonder if this is because he's never really dominating off the ground and is more serve reliant. Will Zverev have a big bump in the next year or so? Or will he be like Fed? Interesting as I just checked Soderling and he had no big games bump. Maybe Thiem will be safe on clay.
-Nadal bumps up from 53.6% to 56.9% in 2005.
-Thiem bumps up from 53.3% to 56.1% in 2017.
-Djoko bumps up to 57.0% in 2008 (start of his clay prime except for his health issues disrupting.)
-Federer bumps to 54.8% in 2003
-Bruguera jumps to 56.9% in 1993
-Courier jumps to 56.4% in 1992
-Kuerten bumps in 2000, but not a big bump.
(Maybe he had ranking to play a lot off clay)-Muster never really bumps, but he had car wreck and we don't have data before age 24, hold on.... Muster in 1987 won 54.2% of his game and then went to 61.8% in 1988
. Using Gary's back calculation for points that's probably like 52.0% jumping to 55.5% in 1988. It's a bump.(SF at Auz in 1989 and then the car wreck.
)-Coria with the biggest bump in 2003
-Ferrero bumps 2001 (metsman objections aside, honestly with Thiem his clay level was great late in 2016 season and 2017 a continuation of sorts)
-Ferrer bumps at age 25 in 2007.
(Not sure why his 2008 and 2009 levels much lower, anyone?)-Agassi..... looking at his games, good lord went from 50% in 1987 to 61.3% on games. 50.0% points to 55.0% in one year
-Chang..... 51.1% in 1988 to 58.4% in 1989 which is 50.5% to 54.0%
Everybody has this big bump. Sometimes you see this on hard courts, but Courier had a steady climb, Nadal, Murray. It's a consistent thing on clay. I'm not sure what this says about the nature of the clay game except that maybe the physical nature of clay and the lesser importance of serve and return makes these kind of jumps possible as a great player starts to dominate off the ground.
Its interesting that Federer had one of the smaller bumps and it was more steady improvement in his clay game for a few years after the bump to take him to his best level. Zverev has not bumped despite some nice escalation of some of his serve stats. I wonder if this is because he's never really dominating off the ground and is more serve reliant. Will Zverev have a big bump in the next year or so? Or will he be like Fed? Interesting as I just checked Soderling and he had no big games bump.
Maybe Thiem will be safe on clay.
metsman
G.O.A.T.
Is this so different from other surfaces? Most great players don't just improve linearly for many years, they make a huge jump earlier in their career and don't look back.@metsman and @Gary Duane what do you think of the "bump/jump" phenomena on clay
-Nadal bumps up from 53.6% to 56.9% in 2005.
-Thiem bumps up from 53.3% to 56.1% in 2017.
-Djoko bumps up to 57.0% in 2008 (start of his clay prime except for his health issues disrupting.)
-Federer bumps to 54.8% in 2003
-Bruguera jumps to 56.9% in 1993
-Courier jumps to 56.4% in 1992
-Kuerten bumps in 2000, but not a big bump.
-Muster never really bumps, but he had car wreck and we don't have data before age 24, hold on.... Muster in 1987 won 54.2% of his game and then went to 61.8% in 1988
(SF at Auz in 1989 and then the car wreck.
-Coria with the biggest bump in 2003
-Ferrero bumps 2001 (metsman objections aside, honestly with Thiem his clay level was great late in 2016 season and 2017 a continuation of sorts)
-Ferrer bumps at age 25 in 2007.
-Agassi..... looking at his games, good lord went from 50% in 1987 to 61.3% on games. 50.0% points to 55.0% in one year
-Chang..... 51.1% in 1988 to 58.4% in 1989 which is 50.5% to 54.0%
Everybody has this big bump. Sometimes you see this on hard courts, but Courier had a steady climb, Nadal, Murray. It's a consistent thing on clay. I'm not sure what this says about the nature of the clay game except that maybe the physical nature of clay and the lesser importance of serve and return makes these kind of jumps possible as a great player starts to dominate off the ground.
Its interesting that Federer had one of the smaller bumps and it was more steady improvement in his clay game for a few years after the bump to take him to his best level. Zverev has not bumped despite some nice escalation of some of his serve stats. I wonder if this is because he's never really dominating off the ground and is more serve reliant. Will Zverev have a big bump in the next year or so? Or will he be like Fed? Interesting as I just checked Soderling and he had no big games bump.
Meles
Bionic Poster
It's been a fickle year for Thiem in many ways this year as he's been quite flat or unmotivated in an alarming number of matches. Sometimes he comes out of it and plays well and sometimes not. Hard courts will be interesting for him this year.
Thiem was flat after beating Nadal at Rome and he'd been on a similar schedule so against Djoko in Rome I'm not sure what the dealio was as far as game plan and stuff. He made up for that in spades at RG, but then I have to say Nadal was just too much for him at RG with the huge bounces, etc. I don't think all the strategy in the world was winning that match. I expect will see Thiem pull of some doubles next year and win SFs and finals. He's got a golden opportunity right now to move up into the top 4 and get the draws to win where he'll only have 2 top players to deal with rather than three on clay. FFS he would've had to beat the last three defending RG champions in a row to win 2017.
metsman
G.O.A.T.
I didn't expect him to beat Nadal but I expected him to compete better than he did and just play better instead of just taking the mentality of a first round opponent and swinging for the fences hoping everything hits 2 lines.It's been a fickle year for Thiem in many ways this year as he's been quite flat or unmotivated in an alarming number of matches. Sometimes he comes out of it and plays well and sometimes not. Hard courts will be interesting for him this year.
Thiem was flat after beating Nadal at Rome and he'd been on a similar schedule so against Djoko in Rome I'm not sure what the dealio was as far as game plan and stuff. He made up for that in spades at RG, but then I have to say Nadal was just too much for him at RG with the huge bounces, etc. I don't think all the strategy in the world was winning that match. I expect will see Thiem pull of some doubles next year and win SFs and finals. He's got a golden opportunity right now to move up into the top 4 and get the draws to win where he'll only have 2 top players to deal with rather than three on clay. FFS he would've had to beat the last three defending RG champions in a row to win 2017.
Meles
Bionic Poster
Maybe it's that simple and of course we don't see the jump on a weaker surface so much. Let's look at Delpo... huge jump on clay, but surprisingly no bump on hard courts for games won. I'd look at grass, but not so many data points.
I'd say it's more a clay thing, but it can happen on hard courts too for a legend of the surface (Fed and Djoko). I don't think we'll be seeing a lot of bumps on hard courts. Lets check Agassi on hard courts. Yep. Sampras took two years. I'd say the really ground oriented great returners probably can bump on any surface (Fed makes the grade). Servebots like Delpo, Cilic, and Zverev so far have shown no big jumps on hard courts.
This is very interesting for tracking upcoming players. We can watch players even like Federer in their early years and see talent, but we really don't know until they make that jump. I remember seeing early Federer and even Nadal in 2004 and not being overwhelmed with their game and then bam they were clearly great a year later. (Both had talent for sure.) And yet why am I so certain about Zverev. I guess we do know and I just wasn't paying enough attention to Fedal.
Meles
Bionic Poster
Thiem did this at the end of the Barcelona final and probably for the Rome Djokovic match. I think it is a stamina thing mainly when Thiem starts flailing away. It started with Goffin at Auz.
He may have done that in the third set with Nadal at RG, but really I don't think it was stamina for the first two sets so much. Thiem broke Nadal in the first game of the match and had 15-40 in the next two. Start of 2nd got a 15-40 on Nadal's serve. Rafa really slammed the door on those. I didn't really see a fence swinger for the first set and a half. I suspect Thiem knew that he was not up to grinding with Nadal (wish he'd done more of that still). Physically that was a hard road and strategy. In reality the high bounce just was too much for Thiem. He could not hit through Nadal like Rome as it handcuffed his power a bit. Maybe next year Thiem will handle the high ball a bit better and be able to take Rafa at RG.
Booger
Hall of Fame
Oh I can't wait for those threads. They are coming.
Gary Duane
G.O.A.T.
If we are talking about the same thing I've been examining this for a long time. This "bump" can happen suddenly or a bit more slowly, but basically you go back before any great player has his first peak year, then go back a year or two. You are also dealing with the part of a career that actually brings down a career average, which is why even when players later decline it takes a few years for their yearly stats to drop below the career average.@metsman and @Gary Duane what do you think of the "bump/jump" phenomena on clay
-Nadal bumps up from 53.6% to 56.9% in 2005.
-Thiem bumps up from 53.3% to 56.1% in 2017.
-Djoko bumps up to 57.0% in 2008 (start of his clay prime except for his health issues disrupting.)
-Federer bumps to 54.8% in 2003
-Bruguera jumps to 56.9% in 1993
-Courier jumps to 56.4% in 1992
-Kuerten bumps in 2000, but not a big bump.
-Muster never really bumps, but he had car wreck and we don't have data before age 24, hold on.... Muster in 1987 won 54.2% of his game and then went to 61.8% in 1988
(SF at Auz in 1989 and then the car wreck.
-Coria with the biggest bump in 2003
-Ferrero bumps 2001 (metsman objections aside, honestly with Thiem his clay level was great late in 2016 season and 2017 a continuation of sorts)
-Ferrer bumps at age 25 in 2007.
-Agassi..... looking at his games, good lord went from 50% in 1987 to 61.3% on games. 50.0% points to 55.0% in one year
-Chang..... 51.1% in 1988 to 58.4% in 1989 which is 50.5% to 54.0%
Everybody has this big bump. Sometimes you see this on hard courts, but Courier had a steady climb, Nadal, Murray. It's a consistent thing on clay. I'm not sure what this says about the nature of the clay game except that maybe the physical nature of clay and the lesser importance of serve and return makes these kind of jumps possible as a great player starts to dominate off the ground.
Its interesting that Federer had one of the smaller bumps and it was more steady improvement in his clay game for a few years after the bump to take him to his best level. Zverev has not bumped despite some nice escalation of some of his serve stats. I wonder if this is because he's never really dominating off the ground and is more serve reliant. Will Zverev have a big bump in the next year or so? Or will he be like Fed? Interesting as I just checked Soderling and he had no big games bump.
Today we have several levels:
1. Juniors.
2. Challengers and futures.
3. Breaking into the ATP.
4. Moving up the ATP ladder.
5. Breakthrough year.
This is becoming slower and longer. It is becoming harder and harder to break through, which is part of the delayed careers we now see.
At one time players just suddenly appeared on the pro tour. It doesn't mean that they had instant success, but there was no lower group of tournaments (challengers and such).
Then you go back to around the time of Federer and you see around 50 matches that are below the ATP level.
Jump forward and you see more like 100. You see young players easing into the ATP more slowly, play an ATP match here and there but with lots of challenger/futures in between until finally they start to steadily win on the ATP tour.
Meles
Bionic Poster
Zverev and FAA track close or better than the Big 3 (save Nadal who Agassi tracked with.)
Thiem sticks out like a sore thumb. He's 2 years behind, but a similar climb so far...
Gary Duane
G.O.A.T.
Zverev is an outlier, for sure, but we don't know yet if he has the other half, the ability to take where he is already and build on it to get to an ATG career.
