How safe is Djokovic's big title haul?

[TripleATeam]

The term 'big title' only came into play in 2016, cooked up by ATP to make ATP tournaments look cooler and help the (resumes of) younger players struggling to break through at the slam level.

In 20 years from now we may not even remember what counted as a big title in 2024, with the number of masters events possibly growing (hello Riyadh) or other tournaments joining the group, and their perceived importance taking a bit of a hit. The tennis scene could go through some radical changes and people might then argue about 'platinum' titles or something. Worse, tennis may not even look the same down the road and a new code of the sport may become more dominant and popular.

The only valid point there is they may add more Big Titles. What counts as one now will remain any title worth 1000 points or more, as that's on the ATP site (which will be cataloged).

Other records may come into existence that surpass this one in the eyes of the public (Grand Slams + ATP Finals or Grand Slams + Davis Cups or anything else), but that won't be breaking the Big Title record. It'd just be a different record.

As for if they add more Masters or more slams, I think we'd enter another era of the Big Title record and would therefore make that record of a new era. If there was only one slam in the 1970s before the ATP introduced the 4 slams in the 1980s, I'm sure we'd have a Single Slam era as well as a Modern Era, each with their own records.

 

[nolefam_2024]

The only valid point there is they may add more Big Titles. What counts as one now will remain any title worth 1000 points or more, as that's on the ATP site (which will be cataloged).

Other records may come into existence that surpass this one in the eyes of the public (Grand Slams + ATP Finals or Grand Slams + Davis Cups or anything else), but that won't be breaking the Big Title record. It'd just be a different record.

As for if they add more Masters or more slams, I think we'd enter another era of the Big Title record and would therefore make that record of a new era. If there was only one slam in the 1970s before the ATP introduced the 4 slams in the 1980s, I'm sure we'd have a Single Slam era as well as a Modern Era, each with their own records.

If they add more big titles then they are also making the tour longer and more injuries.

The calendar is already pretty long. So adding more titles doesn't worry me at all.

What will worry me is if the clay courters start winning fast indoor titles and vice versa. Surface differences.

 

[_phantom]

The only valid point there is they may add more Big Titles. What counts as one now will remain any title worth 1000 points or more, as that's on the ATP site (which will be cataloged).

Other records may come into existence that surpass this one in the eyes of the public (Grand Slams + ATP Finals or Grand Slams + Davis Cups or anything else), but that won't be breaking the Big Title record. It'd just be a different record.

As for if they add more Masters or more slams, I think we'd enter another era of the Big Title record and would therefore make that record of a new era. If there was only one slam in the 1970s before the ATP introduced the 4 slams in the 1980s, I'm sure we'd have a Single Slam era as well as a Modern Era, each with their own records.

I don't know. I've seen this happen in cricket, how a lot of money and greed can suddenly cause a tectonic shift in the perception of what's important and what's not. With Saudi involvement right now, I'm expecting some similar drastic changes. If the "6 King Slam" starts awarding $10 million to the winners, half the tour will likely try to get into similar tournaments instead of fighting out the whole year.

I suppose you, on the other hand, are expecting things to remain more or less the same as they have been for the last 20 years. But a lot of things have changed. Twenty years ago, Nadal would have played Davis cup thinking he was playing in the world cup of tennis and would have happily missed a masters event for that. We hear, before that, players were supposed to prioritize Davis cup over a few slams events too. Now no one seems to care.

And let's not forget the history of AO.

 

[Neptune]

Could big titles potentially be inflated in the future if more Masters or even additional slams are introduced?
In that case, weeks at #1 and year-end #1 rankings would be the real deal, wouldn't they?

 

[nolefam_2024]

Could big titles potentially be inflated in the future if more Masters or even additional slams are introduced?
In that case, weeks at #1 and year-end #1 rankings would be the real deal, wouldn't they?

Even if they inflate, I see no threat.

 

[Neptune]

Even if they inflate, I see no threat.

Really? what if every 500 even 250 upgraded as masters? just saying

 

[nolefam_2024]

Really? what if every 500 even 250 upgraded as masters? just saying

It won't. Only another masters will be added here or there. But do not matter. Nole has record titles at slams, masters and atp finals. He has gone insanely consistent and dominant to win so much.
I don't think fifth grand slam will be added even in remote future. Its going to be four slams.

Now only thing remaining to see is if the guy who will come close to beating Nole, will the new masters be good or bad thing for him?

The masters are becoming 2 weeks long and in fact, the players have very little time left to have training blocks. On top of that, social media duties are heavy for future players. Then there is an issue about impending cold war between the west and China. You already saw in Covid time Shanghai masters got cancelled for 3 years. That is one big title down the drain.

What is going to happen in the future, can you imagine?

Its only going to be uphill battle for the future generations. They have Social Media, Geopolitics and also punishing schedule + reaching physical limit problems. Most likely they will get injured, banned, wait for cancelled tournaments or just lose interest due to short attention span.

 

[bostontennis]

saudi is going to buy atp and wta and rehual the games. maybe in the future there will be 5,6,7 slams a year. so the records may not be safe in the next 10 years.

 

[jmacdaununder2]

The term 'big title' only came into play in 2016, cooked up by ATP to make ATP tournaments look cooler and help the (resumes of) younger players struggling to break through at the slam level.

In 20 years from now we may not even remember what counted as a big title in 2024, with the number of masters events possibly growing (hello Riyadh) or other tournaments joining the group, and their perceived importance taking a bit of a hit. The tennis scene could go through some radical changes and people might then argue about 'platinum' titles or something. Worse, tennis may not even look the same down the road and a new code of the sport may become more dominant and popular.

CYGS was & is the only real holy grail; pros used to ridicule Roy Emerson’s record before Sampras’ mentor decided it was something worth chasing.

 

[jmacdaununder2]

The only valid point there is they may add more Big Titles. What counts as one now will remain any title worth 1000 points or more, as that's on the ATP site (which will be cataloged).

Other records may come into existence that surpass this one in the eyes of the public (Grand Slams + ATP Finals or Grand Slams + Davis Cups or anything else), but that won't be breaking the Big Title record. It'd just be a different record.

As for if they add more Masters or more slams, I think we'd enter another era of the Big Title record and would therefore make that record of a new era. If there was only one slam in the 1970s before the ATP introduced the 4 slams in the 1980s, I'm sure we'd have a Single Slam era as well as a Modern Era, each with their own records.

We did have two different eras: The one where pros didn’t give a rats about total majors & wouldn’t bother flying to Australia for a Mickey Mouse tournament - unless hypothetically they had the other three that counted & we’re looking at the CYGS (why do you think they moved the AO to December at one point) - & this one.

 

[TripleATeam]

We did have two different eras: The one where pros didn’t give a rats about total majors & wouldn’t bother flying to Australia for a Mickey Mouse tournament - unless hypothetically they had the other three that counted & we’re looking at the CYGS (why do you think they moved the AO to December at one point) - & this one.

And that's why I consider Borg's 11 on par with Sampras' 14. Borg had 3 top-level majors to contend on compared to Sampras' 4, so might as well count Borg's 3 YEC titled as a decent proxy for how well he'd do in Australia if it were comparable to today.

Still, not quite what I was saying. The difference between "held, considered a slam, but not readily played" and "not held, introduced as a slam later" is huge. If the ITF made a 5th slam, it would've been the first time since the inception of slams that there weren't 4 of them. AO was still a slam despite its weak draws. A 5th wouldn't have been.

 

[Sudacafan]

I think it's very safe because the Earth will be destroyed before because of the combined effect of climate change and pickleball, especially considering that the Earth Mightiest Warrior will not be around to defend us. Many years of sleeping not well are near.
Sad.

 

[Nole Ivanisevic]

 

[Aussie Darcy]

As safe as possible. Nobody will beat it. You’d need a player to come along destroying the tour winning CYGS and 6+ Masters a season and have insane career longevity like Novak has had which I don’t think will ever happen.

 

[nolefam_2024]

Without fedal existing, Djokovic would have probably won these slams.

USO 2007 maybe 0.5
RG 2008 maybe 0.5
USO 2008 maybe 0.5
USO 2009 maybe 0.5
USO 2010
RG 2011
RG 2012 maybe 0.5
Wimby 2012 maybe 0.5
RG 2013 maybe 0.5
USO 2013
RG 2014 maybe 0.5
RG 2020
RG 2022

And maybe in slams Nole won beating fedal, they took out some of the threats for him. Eg.

Murray was taken out by Rafa in USO 2012.
Delpo Murray were taken out by Rafa in Wimby 2011
Delpo taken out by Rafa in Wimby 2012
Wawrinka taken out by Federer in Wimby 2014
Wawrinka taken out by Federer in USO 2015

And many more such examples can be given.

In the end I am not saying that everything balances out but it won't be a true statement that without fedal Nole would have won 35 slams. He would have probably gained a few more rg but we know he is vulnerable to single handers here. So maybe they would have taken him down.

Also we are removing huge competition if we remove fedal for Djokovic. Every gen has some top players. If you remove them all, then new players will rise to the top. It's logically impossible to have zero top players.

So I don't know if having zero goat candidate competition will automatically convert an atg to cross Nole's big title haul. It's currently at 71 and by end of his career, it can even be at 80. While the second on the list is Nadal at 59. Not even in 60s..

Nole has pushed the records very far ahead and is still capable of pushing further.

 

[nolefam_2024]

 

[askidelsky]

I think it's safe for a while especially because he's still playing at a top level but also can't discount the fact that he was still winning trophies while competing against a field that included Federer, Nadal, and Andy Murray among others

 

[tudwell]

I think it's safe in the sense that by the time anyone gets close enough to matching or beating it, the shape of the tour – and what counts as a "big title" – will probably have changed. Just like the pre-1990 Grand Prix series isn't quite analogous to what would become the Masters (they're the obvious precursor, but not being mandatory or even consistent from one year to the next makes it pretty much impossible to meaningfully compare Grand Prix hauls with Masters hauls). Especially with Saudi trying to get into the game, I think we could see some kind of reshaping earlier than some might have expected. Even if there isn't some drastic overhaul of the tour itself, something like changing slams to best-of-three would pretty much invalidate any subsequent comparisons.

 

[jmacdaununder2]

So 2023 nolefam_2024
Agree there’s not much happening so far this year.

 

[helterskelter]

The only valid point there is they may add more Big Titles. What counts as one now will remain any title worth 1000 points or more, as that's on the ATP site (which will be cataloged).

Other records may come into existence that surpass this one in the eyes of the public (Grand Slams + ATP Finals or Grand Slams + Davis Cups or anything else), but that won't be breaking the Big Title record. It'd just be a different record.

As for if they add more Masters or more slams, I think we'd enter another era of the Big Title record and would therefore make that record of a new era. If there was only one slam in the 1970s before the ATP introduced the 4 slams in the 1980s, I'm sure we'd have a Single Slam era as well as a Modern Era, each with their own records.

I agree with much of this. One thing I would add - perhaps dissent, but I'm not sure - is that it is likely that, in future, many will judge today's players by the standards of the future, which will be unfair to today's players. I think this because we currently sometimes judge past players by the standards of the present in ways that makes them look worse than they actually were. One obvious example is that of course the slam totals of players in the 1970s and 1980s were lower than they are today given that many top players didn't play the Australian Open all that often. A less obvious example is that some lists of records talk about "MS equivalents" even when discussing the era before 1990, and I don't think there really were "MS equivalents" before 1990s. Look at the Wiki page for the 1989 men's tour and you won't see reference to a second tier consisting on nine tournaments. Here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Grand_Prix_(tennis). In the fall, for example, there wasn't that much difference in prestige between Paris Bercy and Stockholm. Even if we say that Stockholm was then the "equivalent" of a 500, the gap in prestige, money, and points between them wasn't as significant as the gap now is between a 1000 and a 500. It just wasn't. So, the "big title" record is really only meaningful for comparing players from 1990 onwards, at best, and in many ways from much later than that.

 

[Lauren_Girl']

He's on 71, which includes most slams, most masters and most YEC.

But how safe is his big title haul going forwards? It is a moving target atm, so more will likely be added to the number before it is all said and done.

The next 3-4 years will tell us exactly if guys like Sinner or Alcaraz have any chance to get close or beat these records.
If they start dominating the tour and winning every Slams and Masters between now and 2028, I'll worry a bit for Djokovic's records.
Will they still be winning big titles at 36 years old?
Will they be able to avoid injuries?
Will other young players join the top and split big titles with them?

No record is 100% safe but Djokovic set the bar very high.
Only a GOAT can do better. And stilll... Djokovic had to deal with Nadal and Federer for most of his career. And covid tyranny.
Whoever wins 70+ big titles in the future won't have to overcome players like Nadal and Federer.
Whoever comes close to 70+ big titles will likely not get stopped by a global pandemic...
I'm not saying the player who beats these records will be asterisked but it just shows how outstanding Djokovic's achievements are. He had every odds against him. 2 of the greatest players of all time fighting him in the same era. And he still beat every important records.

 

[Crocodile]

Put your house on it - it’s safe

 

[TheGoldenEra1990’s]

I doubt it’s ever caught. The big 3 level talent is very rare. Then you have to factor in luck/injuries. I see it lasting at least 100 years or however long tennis lasts. The big 3 set a bar so high it would take Federer type domination of 04-07 but for twice as long. Of course with PEDs/medicine etc. who knows. Sports constantly evolve……, and so do drugs LOL


I don’t think these generations will ever have the drive of the big 3 though. Mentally it’s a different game. Kids are happy today just pocketing money and playing video games. And twatting on social media or whatever kids are into today. They’re not gonna put in the work a guy like djokovic or Nadal did LOL

 

[Razer]

I don't know. I've seen this happen in cricket, how a lot of money and greed can suddenly cause a tectonic shift in the perception of what's important and what's not. With Saudi involvement right now, I'm expecting some similar drastic changes. If the "6 King Slam" starts awarding $10 million to the winners, half the tour will likely try to get into similar tournaments instead of fighting out the whole year.

I suppose you, on the other hand, are expecting things to remain more or less the same as they have been for the last 20 years. But a lot of things have changed. Twenty years ago, Nadal would have played Davis cup thinking he was playing in the world cup of tennis and would have happily missed a masters event for that. We hear, before that, players were supposed to prioritize Davis cup over a few slams events too. Now no one seems to care.

And let's not forget the history of AO.

Absolutely !!!

Money matters

If Saudi Arabia awards 10M to winners of the 6 Kings Slam then players will started preferring that, and of course competition will also ramp up bigtime. They could make the format more competitive as well by making it Best of 5 Sets and some challenges in this new format. Overall this could make it as relevant as Slams, maybe even more. In the end it is all about money....

 

[Poisoned Slice]

Just thinking of what it will take to beat it and you're thinking how amazing this guy will have to be. Once again, broken record, but Djokovic had Federer and Nadal to fight with.

Is somebody going to be so good that he just dominates the tour forever? Will he have a rival to push him for years and years? etc etc etc

It feels about as safe as licking stamps in Iceland.