Games won % - Useful for estimating (peak) level?

Biotic

Biotic

Hall of Fame
Just some numbers (may not be 100% accurate, feel free to correct me). TBs included. Losses included.

Djokovic 2008 USO - GW% = 54,4%
Djokovic 2010 USO - GW% = 57,0%
Djokovic 2013 USO - GW% = 62,4%
Djokovic 2016 AO - GW% = 62,6%
Djokovic 2011 USO - GW% = 65,6%
Djokovic 2011 AO - GW% = 67,4%
Djokovic 2019 AO - GW% =67,5%

Nadal 2006 Wim - GW% = 55.6%
Nadal 2007 Wim - GW% = 58,0%
Nadal 2010 Wim - GW% = 60,0%
Nadal 2011 Wim - GW% = 57,9%

etc...

There is no intention to compare the Big 3. Rather, questioning the usefulness of GW% when comparing the Big 3 to past eras players, something @NonP does quite often. I kinda agree with him that Fed and Djoko are overrated on clay. Both probably fall short of peak Courier, Kuerten, Bruguera. However, numbers above should be used with caution.

Compare Djoko at USO 2008, to 2010 and 2013...What about 2008~2013 lol?

Compare Djoko AO 2016 to USO 2013...
Compare Nadal W 2006 to W 2011...

Competition aside, GW% doesn't account for autopilot/sleepwalk title run, fluctuations and that mythical other gear, no?
 
Like most stats it’s a piece of the puzzle that helps determine a player’s level of play, but it’s not the be all end all. Relying on nothing but numbers is what Lew does/did (which numbers/variables can be manipulated to fit an agenda) and relying on nothing but the eye test is too subjective. It’s a combination of everything that gives you the best insight on level of play.
 
It's good for estimating general performance across a tournament. But taking into account the early rounds against mugs isn't really helpful, and many times a player's level can either fall or rise in the latter rounds where it really matters. Djoker's relatively high GW% in 2013 USO is pretty meaningless considering he got to inflate against a clay courter like Granollers and he ended up playing like crap in the final anyway. On the flip side, Nadal's lower GW% in 2007 WB is also meaningless since he raised his level and played much better in the final, one of his best ever.
 
Texas Tennis Fan said:
Naw. It depends on who you play, their form at the time, conditions, and many other things. Even winning of matches doesn't tell the whole story unless you know the quality of the players.
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Right. There are too many variables at play for a metric like this to be useful over a small sample of matches e.g., one tournament. For that reason, it's not a very precise measurement of peak performance (though it's occasionally a fine proxy, probably).

But those variables (mostly) get smoothed over as the sample gets larger, so metrics like games won % give a pretty good sense of how well a player is performing over time.
 
Turing said:
It's good for estimating general performance across a tournament. But taking into account the early rounds against mugs isn't really helpful, and many times a player's level can either fall or rise in the latter rounds where it really matters. Djoker's relatively high GW% in 2013 USO is pretty meaningless considering he got to inflate against a clay courter like Granollers and he ended up playing like crap in the final anyway. On the flip side, Nadal's lower GW% in 2007 WB is also meaningless since he raised his level and played much better in the final, one of his best ever.
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Able to produce high level =/= produced high level irl
 
Biotic said:
Just some numbers (may not be 100% accurate, feel free to correct me). TBs included. Losses included.

Djokovic 2008 USO - GW% = 54,4%
Djokovic 2010 USO - GW% = 57,0%
Djokovic 2013 USO - GW% = 62,4%
Djokovic 2016 AO - GW% = 62,6%
Djokovic 2011 USO - GW% = 65,6%
Djokovic 2011 AO - GW% = 67,4%
Djokovic 2019 AO - GW% =67,5%

Nadal 2006 Wim - GW% = 55.6%
Nadal 2007 Wim - GW% = 58,0%
Nadal 2010 Wim - GW% = 60,0%
Nadal 2011 Wim - GW% = 57,9%

etc...

There is no intention to compare the Big 3. Rather, questioning the usefulness of GW% when comparing the Big 3 to past eras players, something @NonP does quite often. I kinda agree with him that Fed and Djoko are overrated on clay. Both probably fall short of peak Courier, Kuerten, Bruguera. However, numbers above should be used with caution.

Compare Djoko at USO 2008, to 2010 and 2013...What about 2008~2013 lol?

Compare Djoko AO 2016 to USO 2013...
Compare Nadal W 2006 to W 2011...

Competition aside, GW% doesn't account for autopilot/sleepwalk title run, fluctuations and that mythical other gear, no?
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The short A is yes, but the long A is of course more complicated. As you can see the GW%s are eerily predictive of eventual Slam results, though seasonal %s at least on clay and hard are preferable for this purpose due to the bigger sample size. Also since clay allows a higher margin for error than hard and grass these numbers are especially useful for comparisons pertaining to the slowest surface, which is why I generally focus on CC %s and also how I knew Stan in '17 and Novak last year, to cite just two recent examples, had next to zero chance vs. Rafa in the FO final. As you shift to hard and grass there's an increasingly heightened chance an Ivanisevic, Krajicek, Safin or Delpo catches fire and pulls off a big upset, though even here the player with superior %s usually wins.

The 60% Club is pretty select company and even most Slammers not named Borg, Lendl, Sampras, Agassi, Federer, Nadal or Djokovic manage to get in only once or twice in their career, if at all. Even more exclusive is the 65+% Club, with RG boasting the most members out of the four majors as expected:


You'll notice that multi-Slammers tend to make this roster at least once at their best events, and perhaps also that neither Fedovic, for all their longevity or consistency, has yet to make the grade at RG. Now Novak, who generally bests Fed at this game on clay, just missed out at '16 RG with 64.9%, but he had a rather favorable draw and you can see that the likes of Mecir, Ferrero, Agassi, Ferrer and Franulovic ('70 RU) won a similar % of games despite falling short (FYI Novak's % would stand at 65.5% sans the final vs. Murray). Replace '16 Djokovic with '92 Courier or '93 Bruguera and either of these two probably breaks the even more rarefied 70% ceiling, especially Sergi who had to beat not one but two fellow 60%ers (Pete and Jim - yes Pistol was actually more than decent on dirt back then) and the titanic 5-set final was arguably the best/most tightly contested of the OE.

So I do think Courier and Bruguera plus the 3-time champs beat Fedovic at RG peak for peak. It's easy to say the latter two would approach Borg territory sans Rafa, but the fact of the matter is that neither is a natural dirtballer and in a sense fortunate to be playing alongside the GCOAT who makes them look better than they really are. Statistically speaking they never had more than a puncher's chance vs. prime Rafa, who has yet to finish a CC season with less than 60% in GW (though his 60.7% in '15 is somewhat misleading cuz he played a bunch of makeup events outside the regular CC season). The law of averages holds especially on clay and that's what makes Nadal a virtually unbeatable opponent for all but the very best dirtballers.

P.S. You might dig this:

Men's Season with the most achievement

You invent strange things. That is manifest. Plainly. I do not need to contradict your words because contradiction is unnecessary and superfluous. What you state is conjecture and supposition (or at best unfounded opinion). And everyone herein can witness the motivation behind it. hoodjem...
tt.tennis-warehouse.com tt.tennis-warehouse.com

65.3% for the whole year. '84 Mac is simply peerless here.
 
Biotic said:
Able to produce high level =/= produced high level irl
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But I gave you two real examples. Djoker USO 2013 didn't produce a high level where it mattered most while Nadal did. Both defied their respective GW%.
 
No, 2010 W tells you everything you need to know. Nadal beat nobodies, i.e. weak competition which commiseratively boosted the win %
 
NonP said:
The short A is yes, but the long A is of course more complicated. As you can see the GW%s are eerily predictive of eventual Slam results, though seasonal %s at least on clay and hard are preferable for this purpose due to the bigger sample size. Also since clay allows a higher margin for error than hard and grass these numbers are especially useful for comparisons pertaining to the slowest surface, which is why I generally focus on CC %s and also how I knew Stan in '17 and Novak last year, to cite just two recent examples, had next to zero chance vs. Rafa in the FO final. As you shift to hard and grass there's an increasingly heightened chance an Ivanisevic, Krajicek, Safin or Delpo catches fire and pulls off a big upset, though even here the player with superior %s usually wins.

The 60% Club is pretty select company and even most Slammers not named Borg, Lendl, Sampras, Agassi, Federer, Nadal or Djokovic manage to get in only once or twice in their career, if at all. Even more exclusive is the 65+% Club, with RG boasting the most members out of the four majors as expected:


You'll notice that multi-Slammers tend to make this roster at least once at their best events, and perhaps also that neither Fedovic, for all their longevity or consistency, has yet to make the grade at RG. Now Novak, who generally bests Fed at this game on clay, just missed out at '16 RG with 64.9%, but he had a rather favorable draw and you can see that the likes of Mecir, Ferrero, Agassi, Ferrer and Franulovic ('70 RU) won a similar % of games despite falling short (FYI Novak's % would stand at 65.5% sans the final vs. Murray). Replace '16 Djokovic with '92 Courier or '93 Bruguera and either of these two probably breaks the even more rarefied 70% ceiling, especially Sergi who had to beat not one but two fellow 60%ers (Pete and Jim - yes Pistol was actually more than decent on dirt back then) and the titanic 5-set final was arguably the best/most tightly contested of the OE.

So I do think Courier and Bruguera plus the 3-time champs beat Fedovic at RG peak for peak. It's easy to say the latter two would approach Borg territory sans Rafa, but the fact of the matter is that neither is a natural dirtballer and in a sense fortunate to be playing alongside the GCOAT who makes them look better than they really are. Statistically speaking they never had more than a puncher's chance vs. prime Rafa, who has yet to finish a CC season with less than 60% in GW (though his 60.7% in '15 is somewhat misleading cuz he played a bunch of makeup events outside the regular CC season). The law of averages holds especially on clay and that's what makes Nadal a virtually unbeatable opponent for all but the very best dirtballers.

P.S. You might dig this:

Men's Season with the most achievement

You invent strange things. That is manifest. Plainly. I do not need to contradict your words because contradiction is unnecessary and superfluous. What you state is conjecture and supposition (or at best unfounded opinion). And everyone herein can witness the motivation behind it. hoodjem...
tt.tennis-warehouse.com tt.tennis-warehouse.com

65.3% for the whole year. '84 Mac is simply peerless here.
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Thanks.

I guess it does not work for HC nearly as well as clay.

Most recently AO 2021: Medvedev was on a roll, 20 match win streak (Paris, WTF, ATP cup +AO, no Mickey mouse tournaments). Overall 61,5%, at the AO alone at 64,8% till the finals, while we had Djoko at measly 58,9%.

I bet there is many more of this, starting with 2012 USO (Djoko surely above 65% before the finals) , one just has to dig.

Also, as @Gary Duane pointed out many times, when 2 players are above 60%, all bets are off. 2019 AO, Nadal at 69,6%!!!!! and he got steamrolled in the final like a pedestrian...

Would you say that historically in form claycourters are less likely to fail than others?
 
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NonP said:
The short A is yes, but the long A is of course more complicated. As you can see the GW%s are eerily predictive of eventual Slam results, though seasonal %s at least on clay and hard are preferable for this purpose due to the bigger sample size. Also since clay allows a higher margin for error than hard and grass these numbers are especially useful for comparisons pertaining to the slowest surface, which is why I generally focus on CC %s and also how I knew Stan in '17 and Novak last year, to cite just two recent examples, had next to zero chance vs. Rafa in the FO final. As you shift to hard and grass there's an increasingly heightened chance an Ivanisevic, Krajicek, Safin or Delpo catches fire and pulls off a big upset, though even here the player with superior %s usually wins.

The 60% Club is pretty select company and even most Slammers not named Borg, Lendl, Sampras, Agassi, Federer, Nadal or Djokovic manage to get in only once or twice in their career, if at all. Even more exclusive is the 65+% Club, with RG boasting the most members out of the four majors as expected:


You'll notice that multi-Slammers tend to make this roster at least once at their best events, and perhaps also that neither Fedovic, for all their longevity or consistency, has yet to make the grade at RG. Now Novak, who generally bests Fed at this game on clay, just missed out at '16 RG with 64.9%, but he had a rather favorable draw and you can see that the likes of Mecir, Ferrero, Agassi, Ferrer and Franulovic ('70 RU) won a similar % of games despite falling short (FYI Novak's % would stand at 65.5% sans the final vs. Murray). Replace '16 Djokovic with '92 Courier or '93 Bruguera and either of these two probably breaks the even more rarefied 70% ceiling, especially Sergi who had to beat not one but two fellow 60%ers (Pete and Jim - yes Pistol was actually more than decent on dirt back then) and the titanic 5-set final was arguably the best/most tightly contested of the OE.

So I do think Courier and Bruguera plus the 3-time champs beat Fedovic at RG peak for peak. It's easy to say the latter two would approach Borg territory sans Rafa, but the fact of the matter is that neither is a natural dirtballer and in a sense fortunate to be playing alongside the GCOAT who makes them look better than they really are. Statistically speaking they never had more than a puncher's chance vs. prime Rafa, who has yet to finish a CC season with less than 60% in GW (though his 60.7% in '15 is somewhat misleading cuz he played a bunch of makeup events outside the regular CC season). The law of averages holds especially on clay and that's what makes Nadal a virtually unbeatable opponent for all but the very best dirtballers.

P.S. You might dig this:

Men's Season with the most achievement

You invent strange things. That is manifest. Plainly. I do not need to contradict your words because contradiction is unnecessary and superfluous. What you state is conjecture and supposition (or at best unfounded opinion). And everyone herein can witness the motivation behind it. hoodjem...
tt.tennis-warehouse.com tt.tennis-warehouse.com

65.3% for the whole year. '84 Mac is simply peerless here.
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Didn't know that Mac stat. Thanks. More evidence that he achieved the highest level ever in the history of tennis in 1984.
 
Trouble with games won is it rewards efficacy against weaker opponent's over defeating quality opponent's. Nadal's AO 2019 is a case in point. I think it also favors strong returners over great servers who may coast a bit more e.g. the Sampras effect. Like with any stat it has its uses but needs to be set within context.
 
Biotic said:
Thanks.

I guess it does not work for HC nearly as well as clay.

Most recently AO 2021: Medvedev was on a roll, 20 match win streak (Paris, WTF, ATP cup +AO, no Mickey mouse tournaments). Overall 61,5%, at the AO alone at 64,8% till the finals, while we had Djoko at measly 58,9%.

I bet there is many more of this, starting with 2012 USO (Djoko surely above 65% before the finals) , one just has to dig.

Also, as @Gary Duane pointed out many times, when 2 players are above 60%, all bets are off. 2019 AO, Nadal at 69,6%!!!!! and he got steamrolled in the final like a pedestrian...

Would you say that historically in form claycourters are less likely to fail than others?
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Hence my suggestion to look at the seasonal %s (again grass is something of an exception due to its short seasons). As that linked table shows it's not so rare to see high GW%s at the Slams before the final which normally features the toughest opponents, and if you luck out you end up with an almost historic % a la Novak at '16 RG.

That's also why AO %s are such crapshoots. Obviously there's hardly any warm-up leading up to the big event, so you have to rely on late results from the previous year which may or may not be all that relevant. In fact it's no coincidence that Agassi and Djokovic own the majority of the best OE GW%s Down Under. Of course part of that has to do with the fact that the AO was something of a love child among its GS siblings until the mid-'90s or so, but I say the bigger reason is their relatively streamlined game - that is, its simplicity allows them to reach their A level almost from the get-go while the rest including momentum baseliners like Rafa and Guga need more time to work their way up.

Speaking of who '19 Rafa actually averaged a career-high 91.6% in SGW on HC (excluding the DC and the Laver Cup which like its predecessor WTC is an exo) for an overall 61.4% including TBs - very good, but not nowhere near this crazy 69.6% he was posting at the AO before he got thrashed by Novak. Also while Med won an excellent 27.9% of his RG on hard* for 3rd place last year his 87.3% in SGW meant that his overall 57.6% (516/896 including TBs) was good but not quite dominant enough to dethrone Novak on HC.

And yes, these %s are more revealing with respect to clay. No stats tell us everything and GW% is no exception.

*I've yet to catch a single second of the ATP Cup so can't say whether stats from the event should be excluded as with the LC.

Winners or Errors said:
Didn't know that Mac stat. Thanks. More evidence that he achieved the highest level ever in the history of tennis in 1984.
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Against the whole field I do think ('84) Mac was the BOAT, or at least of the OE. As I've explained before his unconventional game poses such a unique set of challenges I suspect it'd give anyone fits regardless of era/conditions.

That said I'd back Sampras against fellow ATGs for that big match/series to decide xxx's fate. Each of these guys is too complete a player to be undone by whatever matchup issues their lesser rivals struggle with, and I think Pistol's superior power and athleticism would be a hair more effective than Mac's preternatural racquet wizardry in this scenario.
 
NonP said:
In fact it's no coincidence that Agassi and Djokovic own the majority of the best OE GW%s Down Under. Of course part of that has to do with the fact that the AO was something of a love child among its GS siblings until the mid-'90s or so, but I say the bigger reason is their relatively streamlined game - that is, its simplicity allows them to reach their A level almost from the get-go while the rest including momentum baseliners like Rafa and Guga need more time to work their way up.
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Can't agree with this one. Since mid 2000s, AO has given us better tennis than USO, which wouldn't be the case with only the minority playing well. Many winners/RUs/SFs..., not just Djokovic, reached top level at some point in the tournament.

2004 - Federer, Safin, Agassi
2005 - Federer, Safin
2007 - Federer
2009 - Nadal, Federer
2010 - Federer
2012 - Nadal
2013 - Wawrinka

etc.

Djokovic was the best and most consistent. The reason he didn't do as well at the USO is mostly underperforming in the finals, not the other 6 matches. At the AO, he saved the best for the final rounds, including 2021.
 
Biotic said:
Can't agree with this one. Since mid 2000s, AO has given us better tennis than USO, which wouldn't be the case with only the minority playing well. Many winners/RUs/SFs..., not just Djokovic, reached top level at some point in the tournament.

2004 - Federer, Safin, Agassi
2005 - Federer, Safin
2007 - Federer
2009 - Nadal, Federer
2010 - Federer
2012 - Nadal
2013 - Wawrinka

etc.

Djokovic was the best and most consistent. The reason he didn't do as well at the USO is mostly underperforming in the finals, not the other 6 matches. At the AO, he saved the best for the final rounds, including 2021.
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Except consistency and quality are not the same. Players can still play close to their best with little warm-up, it's just that they can't do it as often as Dre and Novak with their relatively workmanlike game. We like to think of "peak" as this steady level maintained by the player, but the truth of the matter is that no player can keep it up for an entire match, let alone an entire tournament or season. I'm sure Pete and even Rafa at their best yield little if any to Dre and Novak at the AO, as we saw from the actual matches between the twosomes, but the latter clearly bests the former in sustained excellence, hence their lopsided career results.

And even as a Djokovic fan I can't agree with the facile explanation that his underperformance in USO finals is what's behind his relatively small title haul at Flushing. As I've said before I've yet to see a single USO outing from Novak that made me think he could've beaten anyone in history. Ditto Dre for that matter, and to me that's reflected by their respective USO records.

Speaking of which I also don't think it a coincidence that the USO hasn't been anyone's pet Slam a la its three siblings. A fuller explanation:

NonP said:
I used to buy into the chestnut about clay being the most physically demanding surface myself, but not anymore. Or at least I no longer buy that the FO is the most grueling of the 4 majors. Yes, as the least serve-friendly surface/major clay/RG demands more baseline rallies, but it's also the least stressful on the lower part of your body which should facilitate longevity and possibly offset the aforementioned stress from all that extra running. And as the slowest surface/Slam it also gives relatively lumbering giants like Gomez, A. Medvedev, Norman, Verkerk and Soderling more time to set up for shots, a luxury missing from the other three Slams.

So what's the correct choice? I say it's the USO, and yes I'm for real. The proof, to paraphrase another chestnut, is already in the pudding: we've got Rafa/Evert as the King/Queen of RG, Novak/Court at the AO, Fed/Pete/Navratilova at Wimbledon and... who at the USO? Guess you could go all the way back to Tilden, but no one among the more recent guys/gals stands out, at least not to the same extent as at the other majors. But how come? DecoTurf, supposedly faster than Rebound Ace/Plexicushion, should be more conducive to attacking tennis which in turn should have led to more consistent dominance, but that's not what we actually have so far. Then maybe it's the higher bounce? Not when you peruse the resumes of such dirtballers as Muster, Moya, Costa, Berasategui, etc. Then what?

The answer, I think, is none other than the USO's physical demands, more precisely its late schedule which places it smack at the end of the long outdoor HC season. By then there's enough wear and tear across the board to make flashes in the pan less likely, while momentum players like Rafa and Guga tend to succeed more than you might expect from their surface-specific records. That I say more than anything is why it's been historically so hard to dominate the USO as much as the other three majors, and also what makes, respectively and arguably, Jimbo's insane consistency, Pistol's record # of finals and Fed's 5-peat at the event their single (mid-term) greatest achievement.

So it's not quite as simple as HC > clay or even the USO > the rest in terms of physical demands, but then reality never is. And that concludes yet another NonP (mini-)dissertation. :cool:
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NonP said:
Except consistency and quality are not the same. Players can still play close to their best with little warm-up, it's just that they can't do it as often as Dre and Novak with their relatively workmanlike game. We like to think of "peak" as this steady level maintained by the player, but the truth of the matter is that no player can keep it up for an entire match, let alone an entire tournament or season. I'm sure Pete and even Rafa at their best yield little if any to Dre and Novak at the AO, as we saw from the actual matches between the twosomes, but the latter clearly bests the former in sustained excellence, hence their lopsided career results.

And even as a Djokovic fan I can't agree with the facile explanation that his underperformance in USO finals is what's behind his relatively small title haul at Flushing. As I've said before I've yet to see a single USO outing from Novak that made me think he could've beaten anyone in history. Ditto Dre for that matter, and to me that's reflected by their respective USO records.

Speaking of which I also don't think it a coincidence that the USO hasn't been anyone's pet Slam a la its three siblings. A fuller explanation:
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Except we didn't. 2012 AO is the equivalent of 2013 RG for the most part, only with no 5 hour SF for Nadal. Both could've easily ended in 4. It's like saying Djokovic rarely reached A level at RG, but when he did, he almost beat Nadal.

We don't know how 2009 Nadal would fare vs the best Djokovic, which 2012 wasn't, and there's the small matter of 2019 AO.

Federer with his 6 AOs doesn't fit that script, too. Even if you take his late 30s, 2017-18 out, Andre's 2003 was also a walk in the park.

If you make 9 finals at AO and win them all, and 8 finals at USO and win only 3, it's safe to say you underperformed in the finals. Yes, he is overall better at the AO for sure, just not 9-3 better imo.
 
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Biotic said:
Except we didn't. 2012 AO is the equivalent of 2013 RG for the most part, only with no 5 hour SF for Nadal. Both could've easily ended in 4. It's like saying Djokovic rarely reached A level at RG, but when he did, he almost beat Nadal.

We don't know how 2009 Nadal would fare vs the best Djokovic, which 2012 wasn't, and there's the small matter of 2019 AO.

Federer with his 6 AOs doesn't fit that script, too. Even if you take his late 30s, 2017-18 out, Andre's 2003 was also a walk in the park.

If you make 9 finals at AO and win them all, and 8 finals at USO and win only 3, it's safe to say you underperformed in the finals. Yes, he is overall better at the AO for sure, just not 9-3 better imo.
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Even if you dismiss the '12 AO final as a one-off many if not most would agree '09 Rafa, as you yourself noted, was up there with prime Novak. That's nothing to sneeze at, no?

Fed is somewhere in between. Obviously we've seen the guy roaring from the get-go as in '07, but we've also seen him struggle as in the previous year. Which makes sense once you realize his game has more moving parts than Novak/Dre.

Dre's '03 draw was weak, yes, but his '95 run was no joke with peak-ish Pistol (yes I know he was emotionally spent) as a tall hurdle to clear. And let's not forget the guy had skipped the AO altogether till that very year. Mind you, I still think Fed would get the better of Dre Down Under more often than not, but there's no doubt the AO would be Agassi's strongest major regardless of era.

You really can't compare AO and USO records like that because, again, the latter event's coming at the end of the year's long (outdoor) grind makes it practically impossible to dominate to the same extent as the other Slams. Besides how many USO finals can you name which you think Novak should've won? '12 is really the only candidate, and even there one could say he did well to push it to the 5th. I suppose you could say in response that Novak should've been up 2 sets to none in the '07 final, but that kind of "choking" is hardly unusual for a rookie vs. a favored veteran (relatively speaking, of course).

Besides one could well add that Pete and Rafa weren't 5-2/4-1 better at the USO vs. the AO. If you reject that view I don't see how you can convincingly make the same (opposite) argument for Novak.
 
NonP said:
Even if you dismiss the '12 AO final as a one-off many if not most would agree '09 Rafa, as you yourself noted, was up there with prime Novak. That's nothing to sneeze at, no?

Fed is somewhere in between. Obviously we've seen the guy roaring from the get-go as in '07, but we've also seen him struggle as in the previous year. Which makes sense once you realize his game has more moving parts than Novak/Dre.

Dre's '03 draw was weak, yes, but his '95 run was no joke with peak-ish Pistol (yes I know he was emotionally spent) as a tall hurdle to clear. And let's not forget the guy had skipped the AO altogether till that very year. Mind you, I still think Fed would get the better of Dre Down Under more often than not, but there's no doubt the AO would be Agassi's strongest major regardless of era.

You really can't compare AO and USO records like that because, again, the latter event's coming at the end of the year's long (outdoor) grind makes it practically impossible to dominate to the same extent as the other Slams. Besides how many USO finals can you name which you think Novak should've won? '12 is really the only candidate, and even there one could say he did well to push it to the 5th. I suppose you could say in response that Novak should've been up 2 sets to none in the '07 final, but that kind of "choking" is hardly unusual for a rookie vs. a favored veteran (relatively speaking, of course).

Besides one could well add that Pete and Rafa weren't 5-2/4-1 better at the USO vs. the AO. If you reject that view I don't see how you can convincingly make the same (opposite) argument for Novak.
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Federer didn't exactly struggle at the AO in his prime except when he was not completely fine physically as in 2006 and 2008.
 
NonP said:
In fact it's no coincidence that Agassi and Djokovic own the majority of the best OE GW%s Down Under. Of course part of that has to do with the fact that the AO was something of a love child among its GS siblings until the mid-'90s or so, but I say the bigger reason is their relatively streamlined game - that is, its simplicity allows them to reach their A level almost from the get-go while the rest including momentum baseliners like Rafa and Guga need more time to work their way up.
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You still don't think this deserves some form of re-evaluation based on 2018 and 2022 Djoko?

Talking about A level relative to his age ofc. What we've seen in the first part of 2018 (after AO) and 2022 seasons is a far cry from what he's capable of. All evidence points to the need for more match play.
 
AnOctorokForDinner said:
Federer didn't exactly struggle at the AO in his prime except when he was not completely fine physically as in 2006 and 2008.
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This is an old one but I meant relative to his usual (prime) form, obviously. Your boy also had a real scare vs. Berdych in '09 or even Andreev in the 1st round of '10. The bottom line is that Fred was just a little more cruise-y at Flushing up to '10 or so.

Biotic said:
You still don't think this deserves some form of re-evaluation based on 2018 and 2022 Djoko?

Talking about A level relative to his age ofc. What we've seen in the first part of 2018 (after AO) and 2022 seasons is a far cry from what he's capable of. All evidence points to the need for more match play.
Click to expand...

You're taking that part a little too literally, LOL. Of course match play matters, hence the "almost." I only meant to say baseliners tend to be better at the jump start than their more aggressive peers.

Also '18 isn't really an outlier when you recall Novak's surgery early in the season. As for this current one, yeah, but I said Novak prolly wasn't beating Bull this time precisely due to his lack of match play and of course his recent results have proven moi right once again. And we shouldn't underestimate the immense international spotlight he would've been under, either.

As those lists of 65% runs show the AO is just the ideal major for Novak and Dre. '85-87 Lendl prolly would've been up there too on HC Melbourne courts, given his insane #s at Flushing in those yrs. Those 3's methodical game may not make purists drool with excitement, but it also allowed them to play the #s game better than almost everyone else on hard (read: except '84 Mac).
 
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