Most bagels dished of all time

money_ball

money_ball

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I scoured all the match scores from the ATP data, and tabulated the players who dished the most bagels of all time. I'm only listing player who have dished at least 40 or more bagels in his career, as from 1877-2017 there have been 2,865 players who have dished out at least one bagel.

Players still active are denoted by (*).

Code: 
Player                  Bagels
------                  ------
Jimmy Connors           195
Guillermo Vilas         146
Ivan Lendl              146
Manuel Orantes          115
Andre Agassi            113
Bjorn Borg              109
Ilie Nastase            99
John McEnroe            98
Ken Rosewall            91
Eddie Dibbs             91
Harold Solomon          90
Rafael Nadal (*)        87
Roger Federer (*)       86
Novak Djokovic (*)      85
Rod Laver               81
David Ferrer (*)        74
Stefan Edberg           72
Michael Chang           71
Jose Higueras           70
Raul Ramirez            66
Thomas Muster           66
Mats Wilander           65
Tomas Smid              65
Roy Emerson             64
Brian Gottfried         64
Jan Kodes               63
Andy Murray (*)         63
Eliot Teltscher         62
Tom Okker               60
Corrado Barazzutti      59
Anders Jarryd           59
Cliff Richey            57
Arthur Ashe             57
Stan Smith              57
Sergi Bruguera          56
Vitas Gerulaitis        56
Balazs Taroczy          54
Aaron Krickstein        54
Wojtek Fibak            54
Joakim Nystrom          52
Marty Riessen           50
Nikolay Davydenko       50
Bob Hewitt              49
Francisco Clavet        49
Lleyton Hewitt          49
Gene Mayer              47
Jim Courier             47
John Alexander          46
Tomas Berdych (*)       46
Boris Becker            46
Zeljko Franulovic       44
Johan Kriek             44
Javier Sanchez          44
Brad Gilbert            44
Roscoe Tanner           44
Mikhail Youzhny (*)     44
Jose-Luis Clerc         42
Victor Pecci Sr.        42
John Newcombe           42
John Bromwich           41
Yannick Noah            41
Andres Gomez            41
Jonas Bjorkman          41
Guillermo Perez-Roldan  40
Tony Roche              40
David Nalbandian        40
Fernando Verdasco (*)   40
Tommy Robredo (*)       40
 
This is a very interesting statistic.

It's surprising that Federer, Nadal and Djokovic are so low down. After 19, 16, and 14 year professional careers, respectively, you would have thought that they had accumulated more than just 80-odd. And good old David Ferrer not too far behind, at all!

It's also a good job for fans of other players that Bjorn Borg didn't really enter the Australian Open, and retired when he did. If he'd played the AO and played on until his early 30s, then I'm pretty sure that his Grand Slam count would be pretty much insurmountable.
 
A few surprises...

#1 Where the hell is Sampras in there? Damn!
#2 Fed/Nadal/Djokovic pretty much have the same stats, I would've expected to see Fed way ahead in that department.
#3 Andre Agassi so high in there. Wow congrats AA! Never thought you were a bagel machine.
 
That McEnroe is that high up is just outstanding. Typically the bagel and the breadstick is easier to bake when you're a lover of the slower court, more comfortable at the baseline. A dyed in the wool serve and volley guy being up so relatively close with those other dudes is outstanding.
 
TheMaestro1990 said:
No Sampras?
Click to expand...

So the list above only has players with 40 or more career bagels dished. Here is the list of players with 30-39 bagels dished.
(*) Denotes Sampras. (His return game is the weakest part of his game.)

Code: 
Player              Bagels
------              ------
Thierry Tulasne     39
Robert Lutz         39
Juan Ignacio Chela  39
Dominik Hrbaty      39
Buster C. Mottram   38
Yevgeny Kafelnikov  38
Radek Stepanek      38
Filippo Volandri    38
Jiri Novak          38
Guillermo Coria     38
Bill Tilden         37
Jarkko Nieminen     37
Magnus Gustafsson   37
Jaime Fillol Sr.    37
Thomas Enqvist      36
Richard Gasquet     36
Fabrice Santoro     36
Brian Fairlie       36
Juan Carlos Ferrero 35
Pete Sampras (*)    35
Alex Corretja       35
Ramesh Krishnan     34
E. Victor Seixas    34
Emilio Sanchez      34
Andrew Pattison     34
Jonas Svensson      34
Fernando Luna       34
Rene Lacoste        33
Cliff Drysdale      33
Frank Parker        33
Kent Carlsson       32
Felix Mantilla      32
Juan Monaco         32
Sandy Mayer         31
Andrei Chesnokov    31
Nicolas Lapentti    31
Dick Stockton       31
Neale Fraser        31
Arnaud Clement      31
Mel Purcell         31
Sebastien Grosjean  31
Miloslav Mecir Sr.  30
Tommy Haas          30
Andres Gimeno       30
Lew Hoad            30
Peter McNamara      30
Richey Reneberg     30
Robin Soderling     30
Guillermo Canas     30
Mark Cox            30
Geoff Masters       30
 
TimHenmanATG said:
This is a very interesting statistic.

It's surprising that Federer, Nadal and Djokovic are so low down. After 19, 16, and 14 year professional careers, respectively, you would have thought that they had accumulated more than just 80-odd. And good old David Ferrer not too far behind, at all!
Click to expand...
I think fields are generally much deeper these days. I think if you could filter this to bagels dished out in the last 2/3 rounds of tournaments it'd be a lot closer. Plus they play less now than guys used to. Up until the mid 80s guys were regularly playing 100+ times a year.
 
TheMaestro1990 said:
No Sampras?
Click to expand...

So the list above only has players with 40 or more career bagels dished. Here is the list of players with 30-39 bagels dished.
(*) Denotes Sampras. (His return game is the weakest part of his game.)

Code: 
Player              Bagels
------              ------
Thierry Tulasne     39
Robert Lutz         39
Juan Ignacio Chela  39
Dominik Hrbaty      39
Buster C. Mottram   38
Yevgeny Kafelnikov  38
Radek Stepanek      38
Filippo Volandri    38
Jiri Novak          38
Guillermo Coria     38
Bill Tilden         37
Jarkko Nieminen     37
Magnus Gustafsson   37
Jaime Fillol Sr.    37
Thomas Enqvist      36
Richard Gasquet     36
Fabrice Santoro     36
Brian Fairlie       36
Juan Carlos Ferrero 35
Pete Sampras (*)    35
Alex Corretja       35
Ramesh Krishnan     34
E. Victor Seixas    34
Emilio Sanchez      34
Andrew Pattison     34
Jonas Svensson      34
Fernando Luna       34
Rene Lacoste        33
Cliff Drysdale      33
Frank Parker        33
Kent Carlsson       32
Felix Mantilla      32
Juan Monaco         32
Sandy Mayer         31
Andrei Chesnokov    31
Nicolas Lapentti    31
Dick Stockton       31
Neale Fraser        31
Arnaud Clement      31
Mel Purcell         31
Sebastien Grosjean  31
Miloslav Mecir Sr.  30
Tommy Haas          30
Andres Gimeno       30
Lew Hoad            30
Peter McNamara      30
Richey Reneberg     30
Robin Soderling     30
Guillermo Canas     30
Mark Cox            30
Geoff Masters       30
 
ibbi said:
I think fields are generally much deeper these days. I think if you could filter this to bagels dished out in the last 2/3 rounds of tournaments it'd be a lot closer. Plus they play less now than guys used to. Up until the mid 80s guys were regularly playing 100+ times a year.
Click to expand...


I agree about the field depth. I take some of these Connors and Lendl stats with a pinch of salt.

It's still really surprising that Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic average only 5-6 bagels per year.
 
Return of serve just as important when it comes to bagels. Easy to think about big servers when you hear the word "bagel" though. All around players higher on this list.
 
ibbi said:
I think fields are generally much deeper these days. I think if you could filter this to bagels dished out in the last 2/3 rounds of tournaments it'd be a lot closer. Plus they play less now than guys used to. Up until the mid 80s guys were regularly playing 100+ times a year.
Click to expand...

Don't really agree about depth, the big four always knock off their share of dummies in the first or second round. Guys like Millman and Groth are able to qualify for majors so i imagine the depth is more or less the same as in the 80's.

Always easy to think our era is the best and Borg would never win a set in todays game.
 
Red Rick said:
It's really not weird Federer isn't much higher than Djoko or Nadal. Nadal has an insane bagel rate on clay. Djokovic has the best return game of the 3.
Click to expand...

True, and Federer has played the most matches of the 3 by far.

However, what's a little surprising (and a testament to Fed's greatesness, I might add) is how many of those bagels are against elite opposition. Take a look at the standings if we're tracking bagels dished out to members of the top 10:

Federer: 26
Connors: 19
Borg: 17
Lendl: 16
Djokovic: 15
Nadal: 9
McEnroe: 8
Dibbs: 7
Becker: 6
Agassi: 6
Vilas: 6
Edberg: 5
Murray: 5
Wilander: 4
Nalbandian: 4
Courier: 4
Davydenko: 4
Sampras: 3
Solomon: 3
Bruguera: 3
Muster: 3
Ramirez: 2
Ferrer: 1
Kuerten: 1
Berdych: 1

And against the top 5

Lendl: 11
Connors: 11
Federer: 9
Borg: 7
Djokovic: 7
Becker: 5
Edberg: 4
Wilander: 4
Nadal: 4
McEnroe: 4
Murray: 3
Dibbs: 3
Ramirez: 2
Vilas: 2
Courier: 2
Agassi: 1
Bruguera: 1
Sampras: 1
Muster: 1
Davydenko: 1
Nalbandian: 1
Ferrer: 1
Kuerten: 1
Berdych: 1

(the list is incomplete due to my laziness + the computer rankings only going back about 43 years...old-timers are getting short-changed here).
 
Last edited:
ibbi said:
That McEnroe is that high up is just outstanding. Typically the bagel and the breadstick is easier to bake when you're a lover of the slower court, more comfortable at the baseline. A dyed in the wool serve and volley guy being up so relatively close with those other dudes is outstanding.
Click to expand...

Actually, despite the surfaces being slower today, the tour-wide hold rate is much, much higher now than in the 70s-90s and bagels are harder to come by. I think most of that can be attributed to the differences in racquet technology.
 
Roddick85 said:
A few surprises...

#1 Where the hell is Sampras in there? Damn!
#2 Fed/Nadal/Djokovic pretty much have the same stats, I would've expected to see Fed way ahead in that department.
#3 Andre Agassi so high in there. Wow congrats AA! Never thought you were a bagel machine.
Click to expand...

From what I've read and seen to a lesser extent seen Pete was the kind of player that would break you once and then rely on his pretty much untouchable serve to win the set without spending any more energy than necessary. The same can be sad about Fed to a large degree, which I think is why he's lower on the list than expected too. And the fact that Pete was a fast court specialist probably also affects his numbers quite a lot(much more difficult to break serve).
 
Roddick85 said:
A few surprises...

#1 Where the hell is Sampras in there? Damn!
#2 Fed/Nadal/Djokovic pretty much have the same stats, I would've expected to see Fed way ahead in that department.
#3 Andre Agassi so high in there. Wow congrats AA! Never thought you were a bagel machine.
Click to expand...

From what I've read and seen to a lesser extent Pete was the kind of player that would break you once and then rely on his pretty much untouchable serve to win the set without spending any more energy than necessary. The same can be sad about Fed to a large extent, which I think is why he's lower on the list than expected too. And the fact that Pete was a fast court specialist probably also affects his numbers quite a lot(much more difficult to break serve).
 
Jaitock1991 said:
From what I've read and seen to a lesser extent seen Pete was the kind of player that would break you once and then rely on his pretty much untouchable serve to win the set without spending any more energy than necessary. The same can be sad about Fed to a large degree, which I think is why he's lower on the list than expected too. And the fact that Pete was a fast court specialist probably also affects his numbers quite a lot(much more difficult to break serve).
Click to expand...
Makes a lot of sense for Sampras. For Federer, I don't know but in his "Fed Express" days of 04-06, I assumed he was collecting the bagels when he was burning the field. Especially with all the year's he's been on tour, I definitely expected him to be well ahead of Djokovic & Nadal in that category which isn't the case at all. I'm glad the OP started this thread, quite an interesting stat. It's funny how one can perceive things but then it doesn't translate into the stats.
 
TimHenmanATG said:
This is a very interesting statistic.

It's surprising that Federer, Nadal and Djokovic are so low down. After 19, 16, and 14 year professional careers, respectively, you would have thought that they had accumulated more than just 80-odd. And good old David Ferrer not too far behind, at all!
Click to expand...
They play in an era where the consistently long-term top players basically cannot play many small tournaments each year like Connors etc did. Connors was playing the equivalent of ten 250 level events a season for the prime of his career where often, aside from him, there weren't any top players present. The big guns now don't come close to racking up those sort of numbers of chump events.
 
Obvious statistical confirmation that there has been plenty of depth in the tournaments Fedalovic have played in relation to the Connors and Agassis of this world.

Such data should help put an end to the useless, ill conceived and endless weak era debates.
 
It's interesting no matter what the stat, the reaction here will be to put down past players as having played in a weak era. For instance anytime Fed or Nadal etc leads a dominance related stat it is used to shown how great they are compared to other past greats. Like the many slam titles Fed won losing only one or 2 sets, or rarely having played 5 setters when he was winning 3 slams a year etc. it's never 'he had weak competition' compared to Borg etc. it's 'look at how great he is, no one could even push him to 5 sets"
this situation is exactly the same, if he led this stat(which lets face it, is a fun stat, but not significant in the big picture) it would be "another stat to prove Fed is the GOAT." Many posters here have talked about his many bagels over the years and even use it to prove how much better he is than Sampras because of it(I'm sure sampras loses sleep over not having had a lot of bagels)

As far as Connors goes, its rather strange the label he gets here from millenials as someone who just played Mickey Mouse events to pad his stats. If that was the case, why didn't he play the AO, like Vilas did to pad his stats? Those years the AO was basically a 250 level event. And since the majority of fans are obssesed with slams today, had he done so he would probably be ranked higher on some GOAT lists here because he would probably have 10 or 12 majors instead of 8. So strange, there really is no way for past greats to ever win in these conversations. As someone who followed his career, he wasn't some work horse who played a ton(like I said skipped AO his entire career and FO many years), had a ton of masters series wins, won 7 majors with great fields(excluding 74 AO), reached semis of USO 12 years in a row(is his longevity there also based on it being a weak event?) and wasn't a surface specialist like Vilas(if Connors was a Mickey Mouse specialist maybe we need to coin a new term for this guy, what animal is smaller than a mouse?)
Yes his 74 campaign could be considered weak relatively, but it was a strange time with the game going through extraordinary change. There was no way to know what the future held. People really thought the majors were in danger of remaining relevant, and many competing tours were emerging. It's hard to say anyone was avoiding other top players back then with such chaos. And he was just a kid, being influenced by others. From 76 on, he played top level events(relevant to the time) year in year out, so I find the accusation of stats padding strange. and the guy played 20 years, stuck around way past his prime to get consistently beaten by guys he was 15 to 20 years older then over and over again. Hell, he kept playing even as he was losing to Lendl 17 times in a row to end his career! I can't imagine anyone he hated more than that guy, to keep puttting yourself out there for what must have been incredibly tough losses over and again takes a lot of guts. Yeah, that Connors, he was scared of playing top players and could only bagel guys in wheelchairs in his prime. Didn't he bagel Borg at Wimbledon when the guy completely owned him and was winning 5 wimbledons in a row? Anyone could do that, right?
 
Last edited:
TheMaestro1990 said:
No Sampras?
Click to expand...
@TheMaestro1990
Not a huge surprise. First Pete Sampras was not a clay player, which is the best surface to win a set 6-0, second his serve was so good, that when he broke his opponent, he would just need to hold to win the set. And as he was much better on faster surfaces, it also means breaking your opponent was more difficult than on slower surfaces.
 
Moose Malloy said:
It's interesting no matter what the stat, the reaction here will be to put down past players as having played in a weak era. For instance anytime Fed or Nadal etc leads a dominance related stat it is used to shown how great they are compared to other past greats. Like the many slam titles Fed won losing only one or 2 sets, or rarely having played 5 setters when he was winning 3 slams a year etc. it's never 'he had weak competition' compared to Borg etc. it's 'look at how great he is, no one could even push him to 5 sets"
this situation is exactly the same, if he led this stat(which lets face it, is a fun stat, but not significant in the big picture) it would be "another stat to prove Fed is the GOAT." Many posters here have talked about his many bagels over the years and even use it to prove how much better he is than Sampras because of it(I'm sure sampras loses sleep over not having had a lot of bagels)

As far as Connors goes, its rather strange the label he gets here from millenials as someone who just played Mickey Mouse events to pad his stats. If that was the case, why didn't he play the AO, like Vilas did to pad his stats? Those years the AO was basically a 250 level event. And since the majority of fans are obssesed with slams today, had he done so he would probably be ranked higher on some GOAT lists here because he would probably have 10 or 12 majors instead of 8. So strange, there really is no way for past greats to ever win in these conversations. As someone who followed his career, he wasn't some work horse who played a ton(like I said skipped AO his entire career and FO many years), had a ton of masters series wins, won 7 majors with great fields(excluding 74 AO), reached semis of USO 12 years in a row(is his longevity there also based on it being a weak event?) and wasn't a surface specialist like Vilas(if Connors was a Mickey Mouse specialist maybe we need to coin a new term for this guy, what animal is smaller than a mouse?)
Yes his 74 campaign could be considered weak relatively, but it was a strange time with the game going through extraordinary change. There was no way to know what the future held. People really thought the majors were in danger of remaining relevant, and many competing tours were emerging. It's hard to say anyone was avoiding other top players back then with such chaos. And he was just a kid, being influenced by others. From 76 on, he played top level events(relevant to the time) year in year out, so I find the accusation of stats padding strange. and the guy played 20 years, stuck around way past his prime to get consistently beaten by guys he was 15 to 20 years older then over and over again. Hell, he kept playing even as he was losing to Lendl 17 times in a row to end his career! I can't imagine anyone he hated more than that guy, to keep puttting yourself out there for what must have been incredibly tough losses over and again takes a lot of guts. Yeah, that Connors, he was scared of playing top players and could only bagel guys in wheelchairs in his prime. Didn't he bagel Borg at Wimbledon when the guy completely owned him and was winning 5 wimbledons in a row? Anyone could do that, right?
Click to expand...
No one is saying the guy is a mug, he's an all time great, but fact remains he played in a lot of tournaments with joke fields, which pad his % and title count, as well as ranking stats as the ranking system in those days rewarded that.
 
Bobby Jr said:
Um, he played sometimes 7 or 8 consecutive equivalent 250 with a couple of 500 events BEFORE Indian Wells alone. It takes Federer and Nadal two years to play that many of those events.
Click to expand...

Could you give an example of that? Indian Wells didn't even exist throughout the majority of Connors' career. I don't think Connors played more than 20 events per year through the majority of his career.
It's beyond strange to hear Connors spoken of like Vilas, who often played 35 events a year.
 
TheFifthSet said:
True, and Federer has played the most matches of the 3 by far.

However, what's a little surprising (and a testament to Fed's greatesness, I might add) is how many of those bagels are against elite opposition. Take a look at the standings if we're tracking bagels dished out to members of the top 10:

Federer: 26
Connors: 19
Borg: 17
Lendl: 16
Djokovic: 15
Nadal: 9
McEnroe: 8
Dibbs: 7
Becker: 6
Agassi: 6
Vilas: 6
Edberg: 5
Murray: 5
Wilander: 4
Nalbandian: 4
Courier: 4
Davydenko: 4
Sampras: 3
Solomon: 3
Bruguera: 3
Muster: 3
Ramirez: 2
Ferrer: 1
Kuerten: 1
Berdych: 1

And against the top 5

Lendl: 11
Connors: 11
Federer: 9
Borg: 7
Djokovic: 7
Becker: 5
Edberg: 4
Wilander: 4
Nadal: 4
McEnroe: 4
Murray: 3
Dibbs: 3
Ramirez: 2
Vilas: 2
Courier: 2
Agassi: 1
Bruguera: 1
Sampras: 1
Muster: 1
Davydenko: 1
Nalbandian: 1
Ferrer: 1
Kuerten: 1
Berdych: 1

(the list is incomplete due to my laziness + the computer rankings only going back about 43 years...old-timers are getting short-changed here).
Click to expand...

This makes more sense. Not because the GOAT is at the top, because it factors in the competition
 
metsman said:
No one is saying the guy is a mug, he's an all time great, but fact remains he played in a lot of tournaments with joke fields, which pad his % and title count, as well as ranking stats as the ranking system in those days rewarded that.
Click to expand...

Like I said, I don't believe that was the case from '76 on. I don't see his career filled with any more joke events than Borg or Mac, so I find it strange that you keep singling him out. he played so far beyond his prime, the fact that his win % remains so high is pretty impressive imo.

As many have stated, no one cared about the ranking system back then. It wasn't even published weekly. It was only for seeding and draw purposes, it wasn't meant to mean anymore than that. The idea that Connors was chasing ranking points like Thomas Muster is beyond comical. I can't believe there was one tennis fan, player or journalist that thought that in the 70s.
I'm sure he gave 2 ****s about the weeks and years he spent at #1. Fine, it bothers you that his name comes up in all these 'modern' ranking records the ATP, but I find it odd to use something he has nothing to do with to put him down.

So what % of his career is attributed to joke fields? He won 109 titles, do you want to subtract 10? 20? Even 89 legit titles sounds pretty good to me. Or 79. He won 1200 career matches, how many should we subtract? 200? 1000
Wins still sounds pretty good to me. And still gives him a pretty high %. How many bagels should we subtract? 50? That leaves him with 150. Not too shabby. I bet he has a pretty high % of bagels in his later career, say from 1982 on. Is that still Mickey Mouse era?

The historical revisionism that goes on here by people that didn't even follow the era they are discussing is very strange to me. I see you try to remedy that with all the posters who don't know much about tennis pre 2010, so
you can see where I'm coming from.
 
Moose Malloy said:
Could you give an example of that? Indian Wells didn't even exist throughout the majority of Connors' career. I don't think Connors played more than 20 events per year through the majority of his career.
Click to expand...
"Equivalent of..."

1974.... This is post Aussie Open which started 24 Dec 1973...
Raonoke, USA
Omaha, USA
Little Rock, USA
Birmingham, USA
Salisbury, USA
Hampton, USA
Salt Lake City, USA
Temple, USA
Washington, USA

This took him up to mid April alone. 9 tournaments on the trot where the average rank of his opponents was probably close to 50.

9 tournaments (7 titles, 1 runner-up, 1 semifinal)
37 matches (35 wins, 2 losses - 1 of which was by walkover because of injury)
Ranking of opponents played in each final: 26, 26, 36, 1, 53, 121, 38, 38 - (average: 48)
15 breadsticks, 3 bagels served.

It would be wrong to say this was reflective of his whole career but to suggest Connors in any way had it hard and didn't massively benefit in these stats from padding out his calendar takes the **** out of the concept of rational debate. He probably played 50+ of these sort of tournaments across his career, the likes of which Federer/Nadal can't and don't generally play.

So Connors didn't play the Aussie Open much? That was about his own priorities. He still travelled to many times late in the year to play Sydney or Perth until he started playing more elsewhere.
 
Bobby Jr said:
"Equivalent of..."

1974.... This is post Aussie Open which started 24 Dec 1973...
Raonoke, USA
Omaha, USA
Little Rock, USA
Birmingham, USA
Salisbury, USA
Hampton, USA
Salt Lake City, USA
Temple, USA
Washington, USA

This took him up to mid April alone. 9 tournaments on the trot where the average rank of his opponents was probably close to 50.

9 tournaments (7 titles, 1 runner-up, 1 semifinal)
37 matches (35 wins, 2 losses - 1 of which was by walkover because of injury)
Ranking of opponents played in each final: 26, 26, 36, 1, 53, 121, 38, 38 - (average: 48)
15 breadsticks, 3 bagels served.

It would be wrong to say this was reflective of his whole career but to suggest Connors in any way had it hard and didn't massively benefit in these stats from padding out his calendar takes the **** out of the concept of rational debate. He probably played 50+ of these sort of tournaments across his career, the likes of which Federer/Nadal can't and don't generally play.
Click to expand...

Interesting that he played so much of this stuff. Wonder what drove him to keep playing them all even after he became a multi-Slam champion? Love of playing, money??

Bobby Jr said:
So Connors didn't play the Aussie Open much? That was about his own priorities. He still travelled to many times late in the year to play Sydney or Perth until he started playing more elsewhere.
Click to expand...

You can bet your bottom dollar he would have played the AO more if Borg had done so! At least he came away with a title (1974) and 1 other final (1975).
 
money_ball said:
So the list above only has players with 40 or more career bagels dished. Here is the list of players with 30-39 bagels dished.
(*) Denotes Sampras. (His return game is the weakest part of his game.)

Code: 
Player              Bagels
------              ------
Thierry Tulasne     39
Robert Lutz         39
Juan Ignacio Chela  39
Dominik Hrbaty      39
Buster C. Mottram   38
Yevgeny Kafelnikov  38
Radek Stepanek      38
Filippo Volandri    38
Jiri Novak          38
Guillermo Coria     38
Bill Tilden         37
Jarkko Nieminen     37
Magnus Gustafsson   37
Jaime Fillol Sr.    37
Thomas Enqvist      36
Richard Gasquet     36
Fabrice Santoro     36
Brian Fairlie       36
Juan Carlos Ferrero 35
Pete Sampras (*)    35
Alex Corretja       35
Ramesh Krishnan     34
E. Victor Seixas    34
Emilio Sanchez      34
Andrew Pattison     34
Jonas Svensson      34
Fernando Luna       34
Rene Lacoste        33
Cliff Drysdale      33
Frank Parker        33
Kent Carlsson       32
Felix Mantilla      32
Juan Monaco         32
Sandy Mayer         31
Andrei Chesnokov    31
Nicolas Lapentti    31
Dick Stockton       31
Neale Fraser        31
Arnaud Clement      31
Mel Purcell         31
Sebastien Grosjean  31
Miloslav Mecir Sr.  30
Tommy Haas          30
Andres Gimeno       30
Lew Hoad            30
Peter McNamara      30
Richey Reneberg     30
Robin Soderling     30
Guillermo Canas     30
Mark Cox            30
Geoff Masters       30
Click to expand...

Thank you for finally providing incontrovertible proof in support of my long-held belief that Radek Stepanek was a superior player to Pete Sampras ;)
 
I can't remember where I saw or heard someone say Sampras was a very economical, almost polite player who did just enough to win each set and match and didn't want to humiliate his opponents. These stats bear that out. Well done whoever that was.
 
TheFifthSet said:
True, and Federer has played the most matches of the 3 by far.

However, what's a little surprising (and a testament to Fed's greatesness, I might add) is how many of those bagels are against elite opposition. Take a look at the standings if we're tracking bagels dished out to members of the top 10:

Federer: 26
Connors: 19
Borg: 17
Lendl: 16
Djokovic: 15
Nadal: 9
McEnroe: 8
Dibbs: 7
Becker: 6
Agassi: 6
Vilas: 6
Edberg: 5
Murray: 5
Wilander: 4
Nalbandian: 4
Courier: 4
Davydenko: 4
Sampras: 3
Solomon: 3
Bruguera: 3
Muster: 3
Ramirez: 2
Ferrer: 1
Kuerten: 1
Berdych: 1

And against the top 5

Lendl: 11
Connors: 11
Federer: 9
Borg: 7
Djokovic: 7
Becker: 5
Edberg: 4
Wilander: 4
Nadal: 4
McEnroe: 4
Murray: 3
Dibbs: 3
Ramirez: 2
Vilas: 2
Courier: 2
Agassi: 1
Bruguera: 1
Sampras: 1
Muster: 1
Davydenko: 1
Nalbandian: 1
Ferrer: 1
Kuerten: 1
Berdych: 1

(the list is incomplete due to my laziness + the computer rankings only going back about 43 years...old-timers are getting short-changed here).
Click to expand...
Great list and nice effort. The most impressive player (at least to me) in this department is Borg, he's among the top players on all the list (against all the opponents, against top 10 and top 5). Truly an amazing player.
 
BeatlesFan said:
You must be kidding. Please educate yourself about the 1980-1997 era before expressing such an opinion. The 2017 field was ridiculously weak compared to every year I referenced above.
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I don’t need to educate myself to say that, for example, the today ATP #100 ranked player is better than the one ranked #100 from the 1990’s.
When data says there’s less bagels today, it just says that the players more likely to be bageled (the lowest possible ranked to enter ATP tournaments) are better. Which is more evident in the era, which may be ending now, of the Big Four, where there is a dominating elite of players.
This is more about reasoning than “educated” research.
 
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It would be interesting to compare how many breadsticks the players score compared to bagels. 6-1 always happens more often than 6-0, but the gap may be much more vast for some players. I noticed that about late Federer. See the difference: in 2006, Federer played 97 matches, scoring 19 bagels and 20 breadsticks; in 2017, Federer played 57 matches, scoring 0 bagels and 18 breadsticks. Still a great "bakery product" rate, but no 6-0 among them, only 6-1. (Funny - Federer actually had triple MP on serve to bagel Sugita in Halle R1, but managed to lose the next five points and get broken. Also had BPs to bagel Youzhny in USO R2, but failed as well. Is it a mental thing or what? lol)
 
Bagels are serious things.
When playing social doubles at my club, no one likes to be bageled because you have to pay 2x for the beers. The beer bets are based on the losing team playing the winner one beer for each set played. A bagel therefore doubles the prize.
 
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yokied said:
I can't remember where I saw or heard someone say Sampras was a very economical, almost polite player who did just enough to win each set and match and didn't want to humiliate his opponents. These stats bear that out. Well done whoever that was.
Click to expand...

Basically every commentator ever said this when Sampras was playing. He would just hold serve and look for one break per set.
 
Sudacafan said:
I don’t need to educate myself to say that, for example, the today ATP #100 ranked player is better than the one ranked #100 from the 1990’s.
When data says there’s less bagels today, it just says that the players more likely to be bageled (the lowest possible ranked to enter ATP tournaments) are better. Which is more evident in the era, which may be ending now, of the Big Four, where there is a dominating elite of players.
This is more about reasoning than “educated” research.
Click to expand...
In absolute terms, absolutely, just watch the final of the French Open between Jim Courier and Sergi Bruguera, now watch a match between Fabio Fognini and Damir Dzumhur, and the latter players objectively play better (both Sergi Bruguera and Jim Courier are greater, cannot deny that).
 
Bobby Jr said:
"Equivalent of..."

1974.... This is post Aussie Open which started 24 Dec 1973...
Raonoke, USA
Omaha, USA
Little Rock, USA
Birmingham, USA
Salisbury, USA
Hampton, USA
Salt Lake City, USA
Temple, USA
Washington, USA

This took him up to mid April alone. 9 tournaments on the trot where the average rank of his opponents was probably close to 50.

9 tournaments (7 titles, 1 runner-up, 1 semifinal)
37 matches (35 wins, 2 losses - 1 of which was by walkover because of injury)
Ranking of opponents played in each final: 26, 26, 36, 1, 53, 121, 38, 38 - (average: 48)
15 breadsticks, 3 bagels served.

It would be wrong to say this was reflective of his whole career but to suggest Connors in any way had it hard and didn't massively benefit in these stats from padding out his calendar takes the **** out of the concept of rational debate. He probably played 50+ of these sort of tournaments across his career, the likes of which Federer/Nadal can't and don't generally play.

So Connors didn't play the Aussie Open much? That was about his own priorities. He still travelled to many times late in the year to play Sydney or Perth until he started playing more elsewhere.
Click to expand...

That 121 ranked player really skews the average, there were only two players with rankings of 48+ in those 9 events. I'd also want to know the highest ranked player he played or was in the draw rather than just the finals opponent.
 
money_ball said:
I scoured all the match scores from the ATP data, and tabulated the players who dished the most bagels of all time. I'm only listing player who have dished at least 40 or more bagels in his career, as from 1877-2017 there have been 2,865 players who have dished out at least one bagel.

Players still active are denoted by (*).

Code: 
Player                  Bagels
------                  ------
Jimmy Connors           195
Guillermo Vilas         146
Ivan Lendl              146
Manuel Orantes          115
Andre Agassi            113
Bjorn Borg              109
Ilie Nastase            99
John McEnroe            98
Ken Rosewall            91
Eddie Dibbs             91
Harold Solomon          90
Rafael Nadal (*)        87
Roger Federer (*)       86
Novak Djokovic (*)      85
Rod Laver               81
David Ferrer (*)        74
Stefan Edberg           72
Michael Chang           71
Jose Higueras           70
Raul Ramirez            66
Thomas Muster           66
Mats Wilander           65
Tomas Smid              65
Roy Emerson             64
Brian Gottfried         64
Jan Kodes               63
Andy Murray (*)         63
Eliot Teltscher         62
Tom Okker               60
Corrado Barazzutti      59
Anders Jarryd           59
Cliff Richey            57
Arthur Ashe             57
Stan Smith              57
Sergi Bruguera          56
Vitas Gerulaitis        56
Balazs Taroczy          54
Aaron Krickstein        54
Wojtek Fibak            54
Joakim Nystrom          52
Marty Riessen           50
Nikolay Davydenko       50
Bob Hewitt              49
Francisco Clavet        49
Lleyton Hewitt          49
Gene Mayer              47
Jim Courier             47
John Alexander          46
Tomas Berdych (*)       46
Boris Becker            46
Zeljko Franulovic       44
Johan Kriek             44
Javier Sanchez          44
Brad Gilbert            44
Roscoe Tanner           44
Mikhail Youzhny (*)     44
Jose-Luis Clerc         42
Victor Pecci Sr.        42
John Newcombe           42
John Bromwich           41
Yannick Noah            41
Andres Gomez            41
Jonas Bjorkman          41
Guillermo Perez-Roldan  40
Tony Roche              40
David Nalbandian        40
Fernando Verdasco (*)   40
Tommy Robredo (*)       40
Click to expand...

I am pretty sure your data for Nadal is outdated. There was a thread on MTF a couple of years ago and Nadal had 85/86 Bagels then. I am quite certain that if that data was correct then he's at 95/96 now.
 
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