H2H against the Top Ten

[kiki]

[quote=pc1;6361555]Great information. We should check out Laver in the early years of the Open Do you know Laver´s DC record? he was a great DC supporter.

[urban]

For 1968 Tingay has the ranking: Laver, Ashe, Rosewall, Okker, Roche, Newcombe, Graebner, Ralston, Drysdale, Gonzalez. I have to look at McCauleys book for more results, but at the moment i have 16-7 for Laver.
So Lavers results against top tenners (following Tingay's rankings) on a still incomplete basis:
1968: 16-7 (4-2 in 3 majors)
1969: 35-10 (11-0)
1970: 22-3 (0-0 or 0-1 in 2 majors).

Without much interpretation, it shows imo the specifics of Laver's Grand Slam year 1969. He lost more matches than others, but he played an enormous amount of top tenners, in around 45 matches (35-10) against top tenners. This is a pretty tough schedule, almost double of all comparable numbers. Compare it to Connors' great year 1974, who was 6-1 (3-0), or Vilas 1977 year, 15-6 (3-0) against top tenners.

[krosero]

Originally Posted by urban

For 1968 Tingay has the ranking: Laver, Ashe, Rosewall, Okker, Roche, Newcombe, Graebner, Ralston, Drysdale, Gonzalez. I have to look at McCauleys book for more results, but at the moment i have 16-7 for Laver.
So Lavers results against top tenners (following Tingay's rankings) on a still incomplete basis:
1968: 16-7 (4-2 in 3 majors)
1969: 35-10 (11-0)
1970: 22-3 (0-0 or 0-1 in 2 majors).

Without much interpretation, it shows imo the specifics of Laver's Grand Slam year 1969. He lost more matches than others, but he played an enormous amount of top tenners, in around 45 matches (35-10) against top tenners. This is a pretty tough schedule, almost double of all comparable numbers. Compare it to Connors' great year 1974, who was 6-1 (3-0), or Vilas 1977 year, 15-6 (3-0) against top tenners.

45 meetings with Top Tenners does top everything else in the list. In the 1974-89 period, these are the highest:

1979, Connors: 28 meetings with Top Tenners
1984, Lendl: 27
1977, Connors: 26
1980, Borg and McEnroe: 25 each
1982, Lendl: 25

(And after 1989 the number of meetings that a top player would have against the Top Ten seems not to have changed very much, going by Greg Sharko's list of Top Ten H2H's here: http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/DEU...ark-Bites.aspx)

Laver's 35-10 record is not one of the best, as a percentage. (Though his percentage in 1970 surely is). It does show that of Laver's 16 losses in the year, only 6 were to players outside the Top Ten, which is pretty good.

I've been very curious to know how many Top Ten players Laver defeated in the four majors in '69. When Steve Tignor picked Laver's season as the best of the Open Era, a lot of people objected that he lost too many matches that year. But I always figured that his record against the Top Ten in the four majors must have been something tremendous, given that he was consistently beating the best. 11-0 against the Top Ten in the majors has to be the best mark in the Open Era, given that other champions may have taken plenty of Top Ten scalps at the majors, but I can't think of one who did so and who did not lose at any major.

At any rate it's easily better than any mark in the 1974-89 period, in which the best marks were Borg in '78 and Becker in '89, each with 6-1 records in the Slams.

[urban]

Little correction, Krosero. But following my incomplete stats, it were 45 meetings and a 35-10 record. I have at the moment: Roche 4-5, Newcombe 4-1, Okker 6-0, Rosewall 7-1, Ashe 2-0, Drysdale 2-1, Gonzalez 4-0, Gimeno 3-1, Stolle 3-1. It could be more matches, especially in the case of Stolle and Gimeno, who were part of the NTL group.

[krosero]

I must be falling asleep or something. Yup, 45 meetings not 35, I've gone back and edited my post.

For comparison:

1969, Laver - 45 meetings with Top Ten players, out of 122 matches played (rate of 37%)

1979, Connors - 28 meetings, out of 85 matches played (33%)

1984, Lendl - 27 meetings, out of 78 matches played (35%)

Obviously playing 122 matches helped Laver get 45 Top Ten meetings, but the rate is terrific.

[krosero]

Originally Posted by krosero

Among the names I listed, there were only two instances of a player beating 4 Top Tenners in a single Slam event:

At '82RG Wilander beat Lendl, Gerulaitis, Clerc and Vilas
At '84RG Lendl beat Jarryd, Gomez, Wilander and McEnroe

After '89 there may be others. At '92 USO Edberg d. Sampras, Chang, Lendl and Krajicek (who was seeded 15th, but ended up in the Top Ten by year-end).

[urban]

In the meantime i found some more matches of Laver vs. Rosewall (thanks to Timnz) in 1968, Okker, Gimeno, Stolle and Pilic in 1969-1970. Now at the moment against top ten following Tingay's rankings, i have 17-7 for 1968, 40-11 for 1969, and 25-4 for 1970. Besides: The ITF webside now has some more Laver matches from this period, not all, but more than a couple of years ago. Often they only have data from quarterfinals onwards. Isuppose, they cite here the World of tennis yearbooks, which have similar data.

[krosero]

Originally Posted by urban

In the meantime i found some more matches of Laver vs. Rosewall (thanks to Timnz) in 1968, Okker, Gimeno, Stolle and Pilic in 1969-1970. Now at the moment against top ten following Tingay's rankings, i have 17-7 for 1968, 40-11 for 1969, and 25-4 for 1970. Besides: The ITF webside now has some more Laver matches from this period, not all, but more than a couple of years ago. Often they only have data from quarterfinals onwards. Isuppose, they cite here the World of tennis yearbooks, which have similar data.

Thanks for the updates. We now have Laver with 51 Top Ten matches in '69. That's nearly 42% of his matches.

In the '77 debate we said often that it was relatively easy for the top players to miss/avoid each other for long stretches of the year. It seems that was not true -- or less true -- in '69.

What was Laver's overall win/loss record in '68 and '70?

His Top Ten record in '69 stands out very much from the two surrounding years.

[Moose Malloy]

Among the names I listed, there were only two instances of a player beating 4 Top Tenners in a single Slam event:

At '82RG Wilander beat Lendl, Gerulaitis, Clerc and Vilas
At '84RG Lendl beat Jarryd, Gomez, Wilander and McEnroe

Becker came close at '85 Wimbledon:
8 Jarryd, 10 Curren, 11 Nystrom, 12 Mayotte, 16 Leconte, 31 Anger, 68 Pfister

average rank of those players is 22, that seems incredibly low, sounds like a pretty tough draw in retrospect.

came close in '86 as well:
1 Lendl, 6 Leconte, 9 Mecir, 12 Pernfors

[kiki]

From my hat, I think Nastase in 1972-73 and Becker in 1988-89 had very dominant records against the top guys.Some players are great against the very best and I am sure few come close to Nastase and Becker´s record since 1970.

Of course, Mc Enroe in 1984 was very dominat, so was Lendl about 1986-87.But, even at his prime, Borg had his number called by Connors in 1976-1978 and Mc Enroe in 1979-1981.He was better than both but his margin was lower than Nastase and Becker...as I said, off my hat...is that true?

[krosero]

1995
Sampras: 17-7
Agassi: 13-7
Muster: 8-4

In the Slams: Sampras 6-1, Agassi 4-3, Muster 2-1


1999
(for this year, unlike the others, I used the rankings as they stood when the actual meetings occurred, not the year-end rankings)
Agassi: 12-6
Sampras: 10-3
(Apart from each other: Sampras was 6-2, Agassi 11-2).

In the Slams:
Agassi 5-1 in four Slams
Sampras 2-0 in two Slams