Best Year on Clay from a Male Open-Era Player

[noeledmonds]

Several Contenders:

Nastase 1973- won 8 clay court titles in the season including the French Open and big events such as Monte Carlo, Rome, Barcelona and Madrid. Recorded impressive victories on clay over great players such as Panatta, a young Borg and Orantes. Lost 2 matches on clay in the season.

Vilas 1977- won 13 clay court titles in the season including the French Open and the US Open (the latter played on green clay). Lost 4 matches on clay (including 2 to Borg). The French Open had a depleted field (with Borg and Connors absent).

Borg 1978- won 4 clay court titles including the French Open and Rome. Went undefeated on red clay and had 2 losses on green clay. Was brutal at the French Open, which he won without losing a set. Lost less games on the way to winning the French Open title than any other male player at any Grand Slam has. Borg dished out 6 bagels (6-0 sets) and 7 breadsticks (6-1 sets) at the French Open. Defeated many great clay courters with ease such as: Vilas, Connors, Panatta and Gerulaitis.

Muster 1995- won 11 clay court titles including the French Open, Monte Carlo, Rome and Barcelona. Defeated the best clay courters on the tour including: Costa, Kafelnikov, Bruguera and Chang. Lost 3 clay court matches.

Nadal 2007- won 5 clay court titles, including the French Open, Monte Carlo, Rome and Barcelona. Lost 1 match during the season in the final of Hamburg to Federer. Defeated any decent clay court competition in the season such as: Federer, Ferrero, Ferrer and Davydenko.


Any thoughts?

 

[A.Davidson]

Certainly all those are big accomplishments, but probably the most impressive amongst them are Vilas '77 and Borg '78, simply because at that time they pretty much outshone everyone else on clay. You can see it just from the stats you posted from those years in the late 1970s.

So, I would say Vilas and Borg. But they both deserve a ton of credit.

 

[anointedone]

Nadal had a better year on clay in 2006 since he didnt lose a match on it.

 

[Zaragoza]

Nadal in 2005 could be considered a better year depending on how you look at it. He lost 2 matches (Andreev in Valencia and Gaudio in Buenos Aires) but he won more titles on clay than any other year: 8 (Costa Do Sauipe, Acapulco, Masters Series Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Masters Series Rome, Roland Garros, Bastad, Stuttgart).

 

[noeledmonds]

Nadal had a better year on clay in 2006 since he didnt lose a match on it.

Nadal in 2005 could be considered a better year depending on how you look at it. He lost 2 matches (Andreev in Valencia and Gaudio in Buenos Aires) but he won more titles on clay than any other year: 8 (Costa Do Sauipe, Acapulco, Masters Series Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Masters Series Rome, Roland Garros, Bastad, Stuttgart).

I agree that you could argue that either of these years were better. However I decided to pick just one year for each player. I picked 2007 because I decided that I thought that reaching and losing in the final of Hamburg was better than not entering Hamburg. Nadal also won Stuttgart in 2007 which he did not enter in 2006. As for 2005, although Nadal won more tournaments, he was less considerably dominant this year in my opinion. So I decided to go for 2007. If you disagree then fair enough, take any one of those years to compare with the other conders' years.

 

[SgtJohn]

Hi everyone,

for these of you interested, here are some stats that I compiled when I worked on the Open Era some time ago (actually this is for 1973-2007, because, at the time at least, the 1968-1972 results were far too incomplete...)

'ATP points' on clay in one year:
(I used a 'normalized' ATP points system, based on today's system, that is, 1000, 700, 450, etc. for the slams, 500, etc. for the 'MS', 250 for the other tournaments. The MS are 3 clay tournaments that I chose for each era. Monte Carlo and Rome were always among them. The third one was at times Forest Hills (early 80s) or others, but most of times Hamburg. This is not a very accurate system, but I thought you might be interested in the list anyway):

1 Vilas '77 4420
2 Muster '95 4215
3 Nastase '73 3595
4 Borg '74 3520
5 Nadal '05 3370
6 Nadal '07 2850
7 Muster '96 2630
8 Borg '75 2620
9 Kuerten '01 2610
10 Wilander '83 2570
11 Wilander '85 2560
12 Wilander '87 2485
13 Lendl '85 2450
14 Lendl '81 2370
15 Lendl '82 2295
16 Nadal '06 2250
17 Kuerten '00 2245
18 Coria '03 2215
19 Ferrero '02 2205
20 Wilander '82 2180
21 Borg '78 2060
22 Borg '79 2025
...(I stop at the 2000 points bar)

Matches won in a season:

Vilas '77 69
Muster '95 65
Nastase '73 54
Nadal '05 50
Borg '74 49
Muster '96 46
Lendl '82 45
Wilander '83 42
Wilander '85 40
Wilander '87 40

Best Win/Loss record (when there are at least 10 wins):

Nadal '06 26-0
Muster '95 65-2
Lendl '85 32-1
Nadal '07 31-1
Borg '77 26-1
Nadal '05 50-2
Borg '79 24-1
Borg '80 22-1
Borg '78 22-1
Wilander '83 42-2
Nastase '73 54-3
Borg '81 17-1
Lendl '86 17-1
Lendl '88 15-1
Connors '76 28-2
Lendl '87 14-1
Vilas '77 69-5



Jonathan

 

[Wuornos]

Hi everyone,

for these of you interested, here are some stats that I compiled when I worked on the Open Era some time ago (actually this is for 1973-2007, because, at the time at least, the 1968-1972 results were far too incomplete...)

'ATP points' on clay in one year:
(I used a 'normalized' ATP points system, based on today's system, that is, 1000, 700, 450, etc. for the slams, 500, etc. for the 'MS', 250 for the other tournaments. The MS are 3 clay tournaments that I chose for each era. Monte Carlo and Rome were always among them. The third one was at times Forest Hills (early 80s) or others, but most of times Hamburg. This is not a very accurate system, but I thought you might be interested in the list anyway):

1 Vilas '77 4420
2 Muster '95 4215
3 Nastase '73 3595
4 Borg '74 3520
5 Nadal '05 3370
6 Nadal '07 2850
7 Muster '96 2630
8 Borg '75 2620
9 Kuerten '01 2610
10 Wilander '83 2570
11 Wilander '85 2560
12 Wilander '87 2485
13 Lendl '85 2450
14 Lendl '81 2370
15 Lendl '82 2295
16 Nadal '06 2250
17 Kuerten '00 2245
18 Coria '03 2215
19 Ferrero '02 2205
20 Wilander '82 2180
21 Borg '78 2060
22 Borg '79 2025
...(I stop at the 2000 points bar)

Matches won in a season:

Vilas '77 69
Muster '95 65
Nastase '73 54
Nadal '05 50
Borg '74 49
Muster '96 46
Lendl '82 45
Wilander '83 42
Wilander '85 40
Wilander '87 40

Best Win/Loss record (when there are at least 10 wins):

Nadal '06 26-0
Muster '95 65-2
Lendl '85 32-1
Nadal '07 31-1
Borg '77 26-1
Nadal '05 50-2
Borg '79 24-1
Borg '80 22-1
Borg '78 22-1
Wilander '83 42-2
Nastase '73 54-3
Borg '81 17-1
Lendl '86 17-1
Lendl '88 15-1
Connors '76 28-2
Lendl '87 14-1
Vilas '77 69-5



Jonathan

I most certainly am interested in this. You're obviously a bit of stats freak like myself.

Personally I would probably go with the first list as being the most indicative of single year success.

I would be very interested in seeing the top 10 standardised total poiints for each year.

Do you have the all this data in a single database?

Regards

Tim

 

[Andres]

My first thought when readed the title was Muster's 1995. Then I realized about the other contenders. Thomas was absolutely brutal in that year. His 95-96 record on clay is 111-5, which rivalizes Nadal's streak.

 

[noeledmonds]

'ATP points' on clay in one year

Thanks for the data SgtJohn. It is interesting to see that Vilas top 2 out of the 3 catergories. However Vilas's winning percentage really does let him down in my opnion. Also Vilas's inability to beat Borg on clay this year means I cannot give accept that his year is best.

I think Muster being 2nd on all 3 lists is the most impressive. To maintain that high a winning percentage while entering so many tournaments is very impressive. Muster also beat all the decent clay court competition this year, normally with ease.

However I do feel that allocating 250 ranking points to all "other tournaments" is too much. Most smaller ATP tournamnets do not recieve 250 tournaments in the ranking system at the moment. Putting more empysis on dominance within tournaments and the competition faced would be a possible progression of the rankings. After all Borg's 1974 and 1975 come out above his 1978-80, while Borg was clearly more dominant in these later years.

 

[SgtJohn]

I most certainly am interested in this. You're obviously a bit of stats freak like myself.

Personally I would probably go with the first list as being the most indicative of single year success.

I would be very interested in seeing the top 10 standardised total poiints for each year.

Do you have the all this data in a single database?

Regards

Tim

Hi Tim,

I have to admit, I am kind of a stats freak too

As I said, I didn't focus on the Open Era for a while, and now my database seems quite dissatisfying.

I made my database from scratch, that's tedious work, that's why it includes only selected players, every year for the best players in this era (Nastase, Connors, Borg, McEnroe, Lendl, Wilander, Edberg, Becker, Agassi, Sampras, Federer), and the best year(s) for the 'second-tier' players (eg 2001-2002 Hewitt, 1977 Vilas, etc.).

[By the way, even if I didn't take part in the conversations (too busy at the time, unfortunately), I was very interested in your proposed ELO and volume-based ratings. I came to the conclusion that to do this you must have a complete database of just every match played. Did you do it all by yourself?!]

The ranking points I give are very (too!) simple: the same as for the current ATP system. I selected 9 Masters-series-like tournaments each year (I think there are old posts from last year where I give some lists). To choose them, my method was to compute a list of tournaments with respect to the number of top-10ers participating. The 9 first non-Slam tournaments were usually the ones I chose, the other factors being 'prestige' (if a tournament has a great field for 20 years, except for one or two in the middle, it's still a 500-points event even in these difficult years (eg Paris 2005-6)), and surface (minimum 2 clay 'Masters-Series' every year).

This system I made last year now seems to me quite flawed in some very significant ways:

1. I don't agree with the 0.7 system of the ATP. I call it this way because the points for the runner-up are 0.7 those for a winner. The point for a semi-finalist (very roughly) 0.7 times those of the runner-up and so on. The flaws of this system have been pointed out many times (most importantly, the points you get for winning the final are the same as to win the semi).
I personally agree much more with a 0.5 system (1000,500,250, etc.). That is the one I now use when I want to compute rankings for some year, but it wasn't used to make the lists I will show you.

2. As noeledmonds pointed out, giving 250 points to every non-Masters Series event is a terrible approximation. This is why Vilas 1977, Connors 1974, etc. are overrated in my ratings: in the past, great players took part in very small tournaments with only a bunch of top-100ers to beat. These small events can't be awarded the same points as today's Dubai or Barcelona.
That is were Tim's volume-based rating can be extremely useful!

3. It relies only on atptennis.com database, so this might still be incomplete for the 70s. Plus I didn't go earlier than 1973, so this doesn't include Laver's 1969, etc.

OK, now that I warned you about the very un-perfect nature of my system, here are some selected stats:


Ranking systems:

#1: 52-weeks (rolling 52-weeks system, with no limit, just the sum of all points amassed)

- Greatest total at any time of the year

1 Lendl 8475 (April 1986)
2 Federer 8360 (November 2006)
3 McEnroe 8311
4 Vilas 7840 (1977)
5 Sampras 7645
6 Agassi 7495
7 Connors 7390

[sorry if I don't give the exact date every time, I could look into the database to find it if someone is interested]

-Greatest end-of-year total

1 Federer '06 8360
2 Vilas '77 7840
3 McEnroe '84 7361
4 Lendl '86 7360
5 Lendl '82 7020


#2: 'Best 14' system (as was used by the ATP in the 90s)

-Any-time-of-year:
1 Federer 7900
2 McEnroe 7550
3 Lendl 7150
4 Borg 6685
5 Sampras 6525

-Year-end
1 Federer '06 7900
2 Lendl '86 7110
3 McEnroe '84 7100
4 Federer '05 6650
5 Federer '04 6425

#3 'Divisor': this is the average number of points won in an event. This boosts the players who:
1: go deep in most events.
2: take part in big event rather than many small ones.

-Best at any time:

1 Federer 523
2 Borg 479
3 Lendl 479
4 McEnroe 418
5 Becker 394

-Year-end:

1 Federer '06 492
2 Lendl '86 460
3 Federer '05 452
4 Borg '80 430
5 Lendl '87 424



Surface ranking:
Best seasons for each surface, using the basic 52-week system:

Carpet:
1 Connors '79 3195
2 Lendl '82 3000
3 Lendl '83 2865

Clay
1 Vilas '77 4420
2 Muster '95 4215
3 Nastase '73 3595

Grass
1 Connors '74 3060
2 Sampras '93 1715
3 Connors '75 1710

Hard

1 Federer '06 5460
2 Federer '04 4370
3 Agassi '95 4125


Career Grand Total (sum of ALL points in a player's career):

1 Connors 73577
2 Lendl 73086
3 Agassi 57198
4 McEnroe 56846
5 Sampras 55446

(Federer is currently around 39000).

Win/Loss record:

McEnroe '84 82-3
Federer '05 81-4
Federer '06 92-5
Connors '74 89-6
Borg '80 65-5
Lendl '86 78-6
Federer '04 74-6,
etc.


Sorry I don't have time to add much more, another time maybe, if some are interested.

Now that I had a look at it again, I'd like to improve this old system. Tim, I'd be very interested to know how you computed the database you use for your ELO and volumbe-based ratings...

Have a nice day,

Jonathan

 

[Moose Malloy]

McEnroe '84 82-3
Federer '05 81-4
Federer '06 92-5
Connors '74 89-6
Borg '80 65-5
Lendl '86 78-6
Federer '04 74-6,

Hi John, according to atptennis, lendl was 74-6 in '86, what were the 4 matches missing? Also according to Total Tennis, Connors was 99-4 in '74?

1 Federer '06 492
2 Lendl '86 460
3 Federer '05 452
4 Borg '80 430
5 Lendl '87 424

I don't understand how Mac in '84 isn't listed under the 'divisor' system, he made the finals in all but one event that year. This system sounds similar the actual ranking used back then, & I believe Mac registered the highest score under that system.

Grass
1 Connors '74 3060
2 Sampras '93 1715
3 Connors '75 1710

Sampras' season in '93 wasn't that special was it? 1r loss in Queens, Win at Wimbledon. While Mac won both Queens & W in '84. Becker won both in '85 as well. Not to mention Fed going undefeated on grass from '03-'06. or Cash in '87- SF in Australia & Queens, W in Wimbledon.

 

[llgc8080]

I love this kind of threads! Thanks!