H2H against the Top Ten

K

krosero

Legend
After getting the H2H records of Borg and Vilas against the Top Ten players of '77, I got the same stat for other years; I now have the 1974-89 period covered. All H2H's posted below.

I used the computer rankings of the ATP, as listed here: http://www.tennis28.com/rankings/yearend_topten.html

To compile the H2H's, I used the websites of the ATP, ITF and Davis Cup. If an event is not listed at any of those sites, it is not included in the numbers below.

And I have not included walkovers.


H2H performances against the Top Ten

1974
Connors: 6-1
Newcombe: 9-5
Borg: 10-10

In the Slams: Connors 2-0, Rosewall 3-2, Newk 1-2, Borg 0-0


1975
Ashe: 13-9
Connors: 6-3
Borg: 11-9
Orantes: 10-7

In the Slams: Ashe 2-0, Orantes 2-0, Connors 2-2, Borg 2-2


1976
Connors: 16-4
Borg: 15-7

In the Slams: Connors 2-0, Borg 6-2


1977
Borg: 15-3
Vilas: 15-6
Connors: 17-9

In the Slams: Borg 3-1, Vilas 3-0, Connors 1-2


1978
Borg: 21-2
Connors: 14-3

In the Slams: Borg 6-1, Connors 4-1


1979
Borg: 20-3
McEnroe: 14-9
Connors: 18-10

In the Slams: Borg 3-1, McEnroe 3-0, Connors 1-2


1980
Borg: 20-5
McEnroe: 11-14
Connors: 15-8

In the Slams: Borg 4-1, McEnroe 4-1, Connors 1-2


1981
McEnroe: 10-5
Borg: 6-3
Connors: 7-6
Lendl: 15-9

In the Slams: McEnroe 3-1, Borg 5-2, Connors 1-3, Lendl 3-2


1982
Connors: 7-8
McEnroe: 13-6
Lendl: 17-8

In the Slams: Connors 4-0, McEnroe 1-2, Lendl 2-2, Wilander 4-1


1983
McEnroe: 10-6
Wilander: 10-6
Connors: 5-6
Lendl: 8-9

In the Slams: McEnroe 1-2, Wilander 4-2, Lendl 2-4, Connors 1-1


1984
McEnroe: 20-2
Lendl: 15-12
Wilander: 10-11
Connors: 10-13

In the Slams: McEnroe 5-1, Lendl 7-2, Wilander 1-3, Connors 2-3


1985
Lendl: 18-5
Wilander: 6-11
McEnroe: 11-5

In the Slams: Lendl 4-2, Wilander 3-2, McEnroe 1-3


1986
Lendl: 20-4
Becker: 16-4

In the Slams: Lendl 4-1, Becker 3-1


1987
Lendl: 15-4
Wilander: 10-7
Edberg: 15-9

In the Slams: Lendl 6-2, Wilander 4-3, Edberg 2-2


1988
Wilander: 9-2
Becker: 10-4
Lendl: 8-4
Edberg: 8-7

In the Slams: Wilander 4-0, Becker 1-2, Lendl 3-2, Edberg 1-1


1989
Becker: 14-5
Lendl: 12-6

In the Slams: Becker 6-1, Lendl 2-3
 
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The best records in this 1974-89 period:

1978, Borg: 21-2
1984, McEnroe: 20-2
1979, Borg: 20-3
1986, Lendl: 20-4
1980, Borg: 20-5


The best 3-year runs in this period:

1978-80, Borg: a combined 61-10
1985-87, Lendl: a combined 53-13
 
Best records in the Slams:

1978, Borg: 6-1
1989, Becker: 6-1
1984, McEnroe: 5-1
(No one got a 6-0 or 5-0 record, but two players got 4-0: Connors in ’82 and Wilander in ’88 )


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
 
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Good infos, Krosero. Connors, who avoided the WCT tour for the Riordan circuit, didn't play that many top tenners in 1974 and 75. Later on, he played them many more times.
 
Connors didn´t dare to go WCT until 1975, yet he just entered a few events.

But he had a good H to H record against main WCT player such as Ashe,Smith and Rosewall.Never played Laver and always lost to Newcombe, as far as I can recollect.
 
juan guzman said:
One question Krosero.The matches against top tenners is at the moment of the match or with players who ended top ten and maybe were not in the top 10 when the match was played.

According to ATP
1984 - John McEnroe was 24-2 against top tenners and Lendl 22-4 in 85.

http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/DEUCE-Tennis/DEUCE-US-Open-2011/Shark-Bites.aspx
Click to expand...
I used only that list I linked to, which consists of the year-end rankings. The ATP, on individual player's pages, will show their activity but not the ranking of the defeated player at the time of each match -- not in the earliest years from the 1974-89 period. For those years you have to go with the year-end rankings. In later years the current rank becomes available on the ATP pages, but I continued to use the year-end rankings in order to keep everyone evaluated according to the same method.

As for which method might be better, I'm not sure. A player's ranking reflects his performance in the last 12 months, so the year-end ranking covers his performance throughout whatever year is in question.

That ATP page refers to McEnroe holding the record, but their list is from '84 to the present. I wonder what's happened to the earlier years.

One thing to keep in mind, if the ATP does come out with numbers for the earlier years, is that their database lacks many Davis Cup matches from the 70s. That factor doesn't make a huge difference to my numbers (we're usually talking about 2 or 3 Davis Cup wins, at most, in a year for any single player -- often no wins at all). But it's something to keep in mind. That's why I also used the Davis Cup site, to be sure I got all those matches.

I have no other years for Connors, btw.
 
urban said:
Good infos, Krosero. Connors, who avoided the WCT tour for the Riordan circuit, didn't play that many top tenners in 1974 and 75. Later on, he played them many more times.
Click to expand...
Yes starting in '76 he played a lot of top tenners. By this one measure, '76 and '78 were his most dominant years over his rivals. It's just ironic that he had negative numbers in '82 and '83 (though not in the Slams), when he got back to the top.

I thought that maybe a greater concentration on the majors might result in such numbers. But Connors always seemed to try no matter what the match was. So it's a little strange. In '84 he's back to positive numbers, and no Slams.

By '82 maybe his age was catching up to him, in the sense that he couldn't produce good days as consistently as before (as Martina said once, you need more recovery time between matches the older you get). You think of Connors in '82-83, and you think of him winning Wimbledon and the USO. But you also think about some really one-sided losses that he took to Lendl in Cincinnati, Toronto, Forest Hills. Losses which somehow I don't think would have happened when he was younger.
 
I mentioned that Davis Cup matches don't make a great difference in these stats. But a few stand out.

In 1980 McEnroe had a losing 11-14 record, but that includes two Davis Cup losses -- to Vilas and Clerc.

In '83 McEnroe and Wilander tied each other with 10-6 records. McEnroe again lost to Vilas and Clerc, who both lost to Wilander. So apart from Davis Cup, Mac was 10-4 for the year, Wilander 8-6.

In '89 Becker had two big wins in Davis Cup over Agassi and Edberg. Apart from Davis Cup, he is only barely ahead of Lendl: 12-5 vs 12-6.
 
Great information. We should check out Laver in the early years of the Open Era against the top ten from 1968 to 1970.
 
Interesting that we always think of Connors' great year in 1982 and yet he was less than .500 against the top ten.
 
That exercise with Laver would be an interesting one (not that I'm volunteering to take it on). It would just have to be done with personal rankings, which are necessarily subjective. That's not necessarily a deal-breaker: after all the computer rankings are subjective too. (The computer does not think for itself). But still, do you use rankings composed by the same person, every year? Or do you freely switch between rankings composed by different people?
 
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This is not so easy, because you have to go with one ranking by an expert. For 1970, Tingay has Newcombe, Rosewall, Laver, Roche, Okker, Nastase, Richey, Ashe, Gimeno-Pilic (comb. 9),Ralston-Taylor (comb. 10). Thats 12 people. And one can make arguments for others like Emerson, Gonzalez and others too. Quick check, if one takes the first ten on Tingays list, i have now 22-3 for Laver, but this is not solidified: 3-0 Newcombe, 5-0 Rosewall, 2-2 Roche,3-0 Okker,2-0 Nastase, 2-0 Richey, 2-0 Ashe, 3-0 Gimeno, 0-1 Pilic. It still maybe incomplete. If one takes Ralston and Taylor instead of Gimeno and Pilic, it becomes 23-4 or so. Bud Collins has Smith at 9 instead of Pilic. Would be 23-4 or so for Laver.
 
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krosero said:
That exercise with Laver would be an interesting one (not that I'm volunteering to take it on). It would just have to be done with personal rankings, which are necessarily subjective. That's not necessarily a deal-breaker: after all the computer rankings are subjective too. (The computer does not think for itself). But still, do you use rankings composed by the same person, every year? Or do you freely switch between rankings composed by different people?
Click to expand...

If I were to do it I probably would use Bud Collin's rankings first(also it's in his book) and perhaps some others.
 
Last victory of Connors against a top tenner was in Memphis 1992 against Stich who was number 3 at the time of the match.Truly amazing.
 
Going by Tingays top ten rankings for 1969: Laver, Roche, Newcombe, Okker, Rosewall, Ashe, Drysdale, Gonzalez, Gimeno, Stolle, i have - including one night stands and third place playoffs - uncomplete stats of something like 35-10 for Laver.
 
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.
 
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urban said:
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.
Click to expand...
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/DEUCE-Tennis/DEUCE-US-Open-2011/Shark-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.
 
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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.
 
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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 said:
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
Click to expand...
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).
 
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.
 
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urban said:
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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
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
Click to expand...

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
 
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?
 
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
 
urban said:
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.
Click to expand...

krosero said:
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.
Click to expand...

Thanks to @xFedal for bringing this thread to my attention.

@krosero @urban @timnz:

I have been maintaining a very simple ranking of the best open era careers after the age of 30. Please see table below. One glaring hole is results vs. top 10 for Laver and Rosewall from April 1968- August 1973.

This excellent series of posts above has solved 3/12s of the problem by sharing estimates for Laver for 68, 69 and 70. I would like to make the following two requests:

1. Could I get Tingay's, Collins' or any other historians' assessment for the top 10 in 71, 72 and 73?
This is what I have gleaned from the thread so far:
1968 Tingay: Laver, Ashe, Rosewall, Okker, Roche, Newcombe, Graebner, Ralston, Drysdale, Gonzalez.
1969 Tingay: Laver, Roche, Newcombe, Okker, Rosewall, Ashe, Drysdale, Gonzalez, Gimeno, Stolle
1970 Tingay: Newcombe, Rosewall, Laver, Roche, Okker, Nastase, Richey, Ashe, Gimeno-Pilic (comb. 9),Ralston-Taylor (comb. 10)


2. Could I request you guys to take a look at this list of Laver's and Rosewall's matches from these years, for completeness?
http://www.tennisabstract.com/cgi-b...&f=A1973qq,1972qq,1971qq,1970qq,1969qq,1968qq
http://www.tennisabstract.com/cgi-b...&f=A1973qq,1972qq,1971qq,1970qq,1969qq,1968qq

The goal is to complete the table below. I am happy to do the collation, calculations etc. if someone is able to share the opponents and the list of matches with me. Thanks everyone!

Laver:
1968: 17-7
1969: 40-11
1970: 25-4
1971:
1972:
1973:

Rosewall:
1968:
1969:
1970:
1971:
1972:
1973:


oKadwgX.png
 
Great project, falstaff and I'll help however I can.

The Laver/Rosewall records keep growing and they're really not finished. But I'll tell you what the most updated numbers are.

Open Era, win/loss in all matches:
Rosewall: 587-208
Laver: 614-193

I can get you complete lists of matches though I'm not clear on which years exactly you need.

If you want Rosewall's record from 30 onward we can go back further and I can give you complete lists for his years on the Old Pro Tour (he turned 30 in Nov. '64), though one problem there is that there were hardly more than 10 pros playing altogether. In short, practically every match was against a Top Ten. But I can give you the record at least.

I'll send you a PM as well.
 
krosero said:
Great project, falstaff and I'll help however I can.

The Laver/Rosewall records keep growing and they're really not finished. But I'll tell you what the most updated numbers are.

Open Era, win/loss in all matches:
Rosewall: 587-208
Laver: 614-193

I can get you complete lists of matches though I'm not clear on which years exactly you need.

If you want Rosewall's record from 30 onward we can go back further and I can give you complete lists for his years on the Old Pro Tour (he turned 30 in Nov. '64), though one problem there is that there were hardly more than 10 pros playing altogether. In short, practically every match was against a Top Ten. But I can give you the record at least.

I'll send you a PM as well.
Click to expand...

fantastic! please and thanks!
 
falstaff78 said:
1. Could I get Tingay's, Collins' or any other historians' assessment for the top 10 in 71, 72 and 73?
This is what I have gleaned from the thread so far:
1968 Tingay: Laver, Ashe, Rosewall, Okker, Roche, Newcombe, Graebner, Ralston, Drysdale, Gonzalez.
1969 Tingay: Laver, Roche, Newcombe, Okker, Rosewall, Ashe, Drysdale, Gonzalez, Gimeno, Stolle
1970 Tingay: Newcombe, Rosewall, Laver, Roche, Okker, Nastase, Richey, Ashe, Gimeno-Pilic (comb. 9),Ralston-Taylor (comb. 10)
Click to expand...
I don't have Tingay's rankings beyond '70. I can give you the rankings made by World Tennis.

These are all given in order 1-10, with no ties.

1971
WT, judging the period October 1970-September 1971, voted: Newcombe, Smith, Laver, Rosewall, Kodes, Ashe, Okker, Riessen, Drysdale, Nastase.

1972
WT, judging the period October 1971-September 1972, voted: Smith, Nastase, Rosewall, Laver, Ashe, Newcombe, Richey, Riessen, Orantes, Gimeno.

1973
WT, judging the period October 1972-September 1973, voted: Smith, Nastase, Ashe, Newcombe, Okker, Kodes, Rosewall, Laver, Connors, Gorman.
 
krosero said:
I don't have Tingay's rankings beyond '70. I can give you the rankings made by World Tennis.

These are all given in order 1-10, with no ties.

1971
WT, judging the period October 1970-September 1971, voted: Newcombe, Smith, Laver, Rosewall, Kodes, Ashe, Okker, Riessen, Drysdale, Nastase.

1972
WT, judging the period October 1971-September 1972, voted: Smith, Nastase, Rosewall, Laver, Ashe, Newcombe, Richey, Riessen, Orantes, Gimeno.

1973
WT, judging the period October 1972-September 1973, voted: Smith, Nastase, Ashe, Newcombe, Okker, Kodes, Rosewall, Laver, Connors, Gorman.
Click to expand...

krosero, Tingay covered the whole season. For 1973 he ranked 1 Newcombe, 2 Smith, Nastase.
 
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