Exactly. Weeks at #1 is a valuable statistic, but consecutive weeks at #1 is even better, because it shows dominance - that is, the extent to which a player separates himself from the rest of the field. The only drawback is that this statistic is only available from the mid 1970's onwards, and some of the rankings from the 70's and early 80's were questionable. But there's no obvious reason why we should accept year end #1 rankings but not weekly ones. The same limitations apply in each case. For example, Justine Henin was ranked #1 at the end of both 2006 and 2007. Some analysts questioned her ranking for 2006, because she won only one major while Mauresmo won two. In 2007 she was called the female Federer as her dominance was compared to his in one of Federer's great years. Yet both 2006 and 2007 are counted equally as years in which she was #1. If anything, the weeks at #1 statistic is to be preferred where available, since it is more fine grained than the year end #1 one.
I really disagree with your analogy. As has been pointed out, tennis does not work on an annual league basis, it has rolling years, and there is no requirement for players to play all events. Therefore in your analogy Team B (actually Player B) could scurry around playing lots of minor events which Player A is not bothering with, just to get enough points. That would give them more points, but would they really be better? Didn't Sampras do something like that one year?
This reasoning is usually put forth to argue weeks at #1 > years at #1 , but it's really a fallacy (or two) of self-contradiction and question-begging. A few (counter)points:
- The assumption here is that the official rankings are a fair and accurate way to assess players' results and achievements, but of course that has been far from the case at certain moments in the past and likely in the future. Connors for one ended 1977 as #1 but many if not most would rank Borg or Vilas higher, especially because the American failed to win a single major that year (though he did win the YEC). And Sampras might have lost his #1 ranking intermittently during his dominance, but if you take a closer look it becomes highly debatable whether those who briefly snatched the top spot deserved it. For example Muster would've almost certainly ranked below Pete under today's system where all but one of the 9 Masters events are mandatory and one can't rack up points by playing minor events instead (though to be fair Muster did defeat Pete en route to his Essen title, on carpet of all surfaces no less). In fact the only guys I do think have a strong case are Agassi before the '95 USO and Rafter after the summer of '98.
There's a reason why fans continue to debate the year-end rankings for all but the most clear-cut cases. If you want to hold up the weeks at #1 as some sort of a gold standard you should apply the same scrutiny to each one of the weekly rankings as we do to the year-end ones, and to my knowledge no one has taken such a thorough look, with good reason.
- The irony that's frankly lost on those who attempt to downgrade the year-end rankings is that they're based on the same 52-week framework that their preferred weekly rankings are. This isn't unlike the other familiar discussion about the calendar Grand Slam: why use an arbitrary ending point for four Slams in a row? The odds should be the same no matter what sequence you achieve it, no? Well, if you put it that way, then why are we focusing on the majors alone? What about other big events? After all they attract pretty much the same field of players, don't they? In fact one could argue they're
more difficult to win than the majors, since their best-of-3 format is more conducive to upsets.
Now the familiar response would be, but the majors are more prestigious. OK, but what about the prestige of the year-end rankings? And why stop at 52 weeks? Why not 100, 150 or even 200 weeks? Or on the flip side of the coin why not use 10, 20 or 30 weeks? Surely they're more "fine grained" than 52 weeks, no?
- Another bit of irony: Sampras entered all those minor events near the end of 1998 precisely because Rios had won enough of them to be ranked No. 1 despite never winning the most important one of them all. And Pete did it to get that year-end No. 1 ranking, most likely he wouldn't have taken such drastic measures earlier in the year.
The value of year-end rankings like many other time-honored institutions didn't establish itself on its own by accident. There's a reason why annual reviews and evaluations tend to take place at the year-end, and the same holds true for tennis.
Also, under the current system, Player A could have a stellar year and end up thousands of points ahead of Player B, then have a very moderate year compared with Player B, yet stagger to year end just ahead. They would have two years as #1 at year end, but were they really the best player two years in a row - no, they weren't
I'd say yes. If I were to take this analogy further I could say nobody cares how far behind you were in a race as long as you finish first.
That is why any one metric alone is flawed and you have to consider the totality of a player's achievements - year by year and over the whole career, IMO.
On this I agree.
Yes, that's exactly what I mean. A few players have GOAT credentials imo like Rosewall (for you BobbyOne) but what I was trying to point out was some players may have something in their resume that may make them super memorable a century from now. Of course it's the combination of all achievements and level of play which puts a player in consideration to be the best of all time.
Some examples are Rosewall's nine majors in a row, Navratilova winning six consecutive majors in the Open Era, Graf winning the Golden Slam, Laver's 200 tournament wins, Tilden never losing a big tournament in his best years, Gonzalez's seven head to head tour victories. Of course these greats have other fantastic achievements to add to these great feats but imo these achievements may make them memorable a century from now.
pc1, I see your point that 200 tournament titles are fantastic under any circumstances, but I must say your argument isn't a strong one. Consider this scenario: Emerson (or whoever else) is on his way to his 12th major title, but instead of stopping there he goes on to win 18 more majors because the Open era never comes about, so he never gets to compete against Laver, Rosewall and other best pros. So now he's got a whopping 30 major titles in his bag. Regardless of the amateur/pro split this is truly an impressive number, and one that his supporters could use to tout him as the GOAT. But is it a rock-solid case? No, because there's that lingering doubt about his career-long amateur status. The vast majority of fans may well consider him the GOAT in this case, but that won't mean much unless they understand that Emerson never got to compete against the very best pros.
Laver's 200 titles as a number aren't so different. Yes, the number shows his dominance and is unlikely to be ever equaled, but I wouldn't use it as
the great achievement by Laver because, as others have pointed out, it's virtually (if not literally) impossible to enter 32 events in a single year today as Rod did in '69. And even if it was it wouldn't make for a useful comparison with today's title hauls, because that'd be like penalizing the current players for not working in sweat shop-like conditions. And I make this analogy deliberately, because the pro tour back then was indeed a virtual sweat shop, with nary a chance to rest between the events.
I think if Laver is remembered at all 100 years from now for one thing it'll be his not one but two Grand Slams (I'd let people decide to use the '62 amateur GS or the '67 pro one), not his 200 tournament wins. The same reason why I think Fed would be remembered for his utter dominance especially at Wimbledon and the USO and Pete for his 6 official years as No. 1 rather than for their Slam totals, since the lack of opportunities to rack up Slam counts in the past makes for an inaccurate if not impossible comparison with their predecessors.
