Is "Career Inflation" Or "Inflated Career" Real?

Neptune

Neptune

Hall of Fame
Some fans keep bring up those concepts so I dig a little bit, what do you think?

Career matches against toughest opponents with elo>=2400
Nole: 65 (36-29, 55.38%)
Rafa: 56 (26-30, 46.43%)
Fed: 42 (17-25, 40.48%)

H2H against other big4 members during his own young peak years:
Nole(11-16): 80(56-24, 70%) Fed 17-9 Rafa 19-7 Murray 20-8
Rafa(08-13): 65(41-24, 63%) Fed 14-4 Nole 16-15 Murray 11-5
Fed(04-09): 44(20-24, 45%) Rafa 7-13 Nole 9-5 Murray 4-6

5D9dRpX.png
 
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TripleATeam

TripleATeam

G.O.A.T.
Sure. There's always going to be easier and weaker eras in tennis, so inflating your stats during weaker times is certain to happen. Whether that devalues a player's achievements is another question and I'd say no.

For instance, Federer's 2006 season would've been just as high level if it happened in 2011 or 2010, but it's unlikely he wins 3 slams in either year since the competition is better. That doesn't mean the 2006 season is any worse, but it does mean that it was inflated compared to what it would be worth in other years. Same goes for Djokovic's recent years.

The idea though is that over a career, you'll see about an average number of strong seasons and weak seasons. You should make the most of both - be competitive in a tough environment and dominate the weak one. That's all you can ask for. You may end up seeing someone dominate a strong field, but if they can do that and can't capitalize on a weak field, then they still shouldn't be on the Big 3's level.
 
Neptune

Neptune

Hall of Fame
TripleATeam said:
Sure. There's always going to be easier and weaker eras in tennis, so inflating your stats during weaker times is certain to happen. Whether that devalues a player's achievements is another question and I'd say no.

For instance, Federer's 2006 season would've been just as high level if it happened in 2011 or 2010, but it's unlikely he wins 3 slams in either year since the competition is better. That doesn't mean the 2006 season is any worse, but it does mean that it was inflated compared to what it would be worth in other years. Same goes for Djokovic's recent years.

The idea though is that over a career, you'll see about an average number of strong seasons and weak seasons. You should make the most of both - be competitive in a tough environment and dominate the weak one. That's all you can ask for. You may end up seeing someone dominate a strong field, but if they can do that and can't capitalize on a weak field, then they still shouldn't be on the Big 3's level.
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And there are stats to look into it.
Post#1 just some of the obvious.
 
ollinger

ollinger

G.O.A.T.
Utterly meaningless hierarchies. PLEASE do some reading on "The Narcissism of Small Differences."
 
Pheasant

Pheasant

Legend
The only thing that the masses will care about are the total numbers.

Example: 1972 Miami Dolphins. Their schedule was weak. But they went 17-0 for the only team ever to have a perfect season. That’s all anybody cares about today. Some people say other teams were better. But they had the last laugh. Perfect season.
 
1

1477aces

Hall of Fame
Pheasant said:
The only thing that the masses will care about are the total numbers.

Example: 1972 Miami Dolphins. Their schedule was weak. But they went 17-0 for the only team ever to have a perfect season. That’s all anybody cares about today. Some people say other teams were better. But they had the last laugh. Perfect season.
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This 100%.
 
1

1477aces

Hall of Fame
How about the 3 generations of useless players between Djokovic and Alcaraz? No multi slam winners between them. That’s why he has won as many slams between ages 31-36 as he did in his whole career before that.
 
Sport

Sport

G.O.A.T.
ELO in tennis isn't real either, if that's your "proof". Neither the ATP nor the ITF officially recognize any ELO metric for tennis, and UTS or Tennis Abstract are non-offical fanmade webpages which have different ELO values depending on what they compute.

Also, there's no Big 4. It is misleading to include Murray in the same category as the Big 3 just to suit Novak.

H2H against other members of the Big 3 is a more reliable metric than H2H against the Big 3 + Murray.
 
daggerman

daggerman

Hall of Fame
There is such a thing as career inflation, but I think the term is usually misapplied. It's correctly applied in cases where, for whatever reason, an athlete avoids having to face the best possible competition for an extended part of their career. You have cases like this when, for example, pro tennis players aren't allowed to compete in Grand Slams and the best remaining amateurs therefore win much more than they otherwise would. Or when an entire race of people is barred from your professional league and it's therefore easier for players in that league to hit home runs. Or when you opt to join a lesser professional league because they'll pay you more money. Or when you purposefully avoid fighting the other top boxers in your weight class to preserve your undefeated record.

On the other hand, "so and so is beating the best players in the world, but I don't think the best players in the world are good right now" does not describe a case of career inflation unless there are legitimate explanations for why the best players aren't good e.g., there's less money at stake than there used to be, or the barrier to entry is much higher than it used to be.
 
mike danny

mike danny

Bionic Poster
It is very real. Even other guys from the Djokodal gen have inflated their careers like Anderson, Delpo, Isner and Cilic.
 
mike danny

mike danny

Bionic Poster
chjtennis said:
No one can stop 36 YO Djokovic and makes him look so good that some people even say he is better than ever in 2023. The sad state of tennis in 2023 cannot be more real. Yes, the idea of inflated record for Big 3 is very much real.
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What makes it real isn't even the Big 3 inflating their records. It's the fringe players from Djokodal's gen doing it too.
 
chjtennis

chjtennis

G.O.A.T.
mike danny said:
What makes it real isn't even the Big 3 inflating their records. It's the fringe players from Djokodal's gen doing it too.
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Indeed. This will be fixed in 2 years when the new Big 3 come to maturity, but they have made us wait a little too long, no doubt.
 
H

helterskelter

G.O.A.T.
mike danny said:
Yes, even Delpo. Maiden masters and career highest ranking
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I see that as just finally staying fit for a year or so. I don't think either of those things are achievements that were by any means beyond him in previous times, he was just constantly off the tour. He won a slam in 2009 and he had been ranked #4. Winning a masters and going up to #3 aren't a big change from that. At any rate, it's a very different case than Anderson!
 
mike danny

mike danny

Bionic Poster
helterskelter said:
I see that as just finally staying fit for a year or so. I don't think either of those things are achievements that were by any means beyond him in previous times, he was just constantly off the tour. He won a slam in 2009 and he had been ranked #4. Winning a masters and going up to #3 aren't a big change from that. At any rate, it's a very different case than Anderson!
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Yes, but he didn’t play any better in 2018 than in years like 2012 and 2013 when he didn’t achieve these things
 
H

helterskelter

G.O.A.T.
mike danny said:
Yes, but he didn’t play any better in 2018 than in years like 2012 and 2013 when he didn’t achieve these things
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He lost two MS finals in 2013, both very narrow losses against Nadal and Djokovic. In 2018, he narrowly defeated Federer in an MS final. I just don't see this as a big difference and think it's splitting hairs, to be honest. Such a minor fluctuation in results can happen without any change in the overall quality of the tour, because there're always very narrow margins.

Treating it as analogous to a player who on his 31st birthday had reached one slam quarter-final and who suddenly reached two slam finals seems wrong to me. Anderson also improved his carer high ranking from 10 to 5 rather than from 4 to 3.

Let me put this differently: if, at the start of 2017, you told someone about Del Potro's results in 2018, I think most would shrug their shoulders and conclude he got a good run of form, stayed more injury-free than usual, and perhaps had a lucky draw or two. I don't think they'd be very surprised. But if you told them about Anderson's results in 2017 and 2018, I think they'd be very surprised. So, I don't see Del Potro's results as being good evidence of there being an inflation era unless you've already decided that there is one. By contrast, I can understand why people say it when they consider Anderson's results.
 
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zvelf

zvelf

Hall of Fame
mike danny said:
It's just ELO that doesn't quite work for tennis.
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Elo (it's named after a person name and not an acronym) does work for tennis. It's not perfect. No rating system is. You can point out problems with it, but Elo is proven to predict match outcomes better than player rankings.

Born_to_slice said:
Stop it.

Probably not but complete nonsense. You a and others here act as if big 3 level tennis and consistency is some standard of decent play.
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That's a lot of it. People got used to the Big 3 as the norm when it was basically the best tennis anyone had ever seen. Of course, there was a drop-off from that. Murray and Wawrinka would have easily been ATGs without the Big 3 blocking them. Even Ferrer might be on 6 majors now (http://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/2019/01/11/the-big-four-and-grand-slam-title-blocks/).

Anyway, this 2020 analysis (http://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/2020/10/12/not-all-twenties-are-created-equal/) shows Djokovic to have the highest level of difficulty in winning his majors over Nadal (second hardest) and Federer (third). That's even while acknowledging that the time period after 2016 is a weak era. As I've been saying all along, any weak competition Djokovic has had is more than made up for by the strong competition he had in 2011-2016.

People think 2015 was somehow weaker just because one person, Nadal, slumped (even while he ended the year ranked #5) and 2016 was weaker because Nadal was subpar and Federer was out with injury after Wimbledon, but 2015-2016 were Murray and Wawrinka's very best years on tour and made up for it.
 
Neptune

Neptune

Hall of Fame
zvelf said:
Elo (it's named after a person name and not an acronym) does work for tennis. It's not perfect. No rating system is. You can point out problems with it, but Elo is proven to predict match outcomes better than player rankings.


That's a lot of it. People got used to the Big 3 as the norm when it was basically the best tennis anyone had ever seen. Of course, there was a drop-off from that. Murray and Wawrinka would have easily been ATGs without the Big 3 blocking them. Even Ferrer might be on 6 majors now (http://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/2019/01/11/the-big-four-and-grand-slam-title-blocks/).

Anyway, this 2020 analysis (http://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/2020/10/12/not-all-twenties-are-created-equal/) shows Djokovic to have the highest level of difficulty in winning his majors over Nadal (second hardest) and Federer (third). That's even while acknowledging that the time period after 2016 is a weak era. As I've been saying all along, any weak competition Djokovic has had is more than made up for by the strong competition he had in 2011-2016.

People think 2015 was somehow weaker just because one person, Nadal, slumped (even while he ended the year ranked #5) and 2016 was weaker because Nadal was subpar and Federer was out with injury after Wimbledon, but 2015-2016 were Murray and Wawrinka's very best years on tour and made up for it.
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This is the real discussion, thanks for the great insight.
 
LuckyR

LuckyR

Legend
The only time careers were inflated is when the Pro game started ie. when half of the best were amateurs and the other half were Pros and they didn't compete against one another.
 
mike danny

mike danny

Bionic Poster
Born_to_slice said:
Stop it.

Probably not but complete nonsense. You a and others here act as if big 3 level tennis and consistency is some standard of decent play.
Click to expand...
Not sure what you mean by this. I just said that the weaker players from the Djokodal gen also inflated their careers, so it's not just Big 3.
 
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