Murray stats among (other?) ATG

[Lew II]

I do think Murray should be considered an ATG despite his shortcomings in the most important metric--slam titles, but that Elo rating putting him above Sampras for instance is one good reason why I think it doesn't quite work for tennis.

It does work but there should be an ELO for Slams alone too.

 

[Lew II]

So we can conclude that Murray is the guy who is better than several ATGs at every stat except the most important one.

 

[Bender]

So we can conclude that Murray is the guy who is better than several ATGs at every stat except the most important one.

He's more of an All Time Good than an All Time Great if "Great" = having lots of slams

 

[Wurm]

There is a guy like Ivan Lendl who never, literally never, had a break when it comes to "easy draws" as he had to compete against ATGs during his entire career (as a young player, during his prime/peak, and after), first against Borg and Connors, then came McEnroe, then Boris, Wilander, Edberg, bunch of grass specialists during 80s, Agassi, Sampras...and he still managed to win eight Majors.

I mean, how hard is it to look up Lendl's slam final results? People just don't do these things because it'll ruin their narrative...

Lost (to Borg)
Lost (to Connors)
Lost (to Connors)
Lost (to Wilander)
Won (French vs McEnroe)
Lost (to McEnroe)
Lost (to Wilander)

Now, imagine Lendl's back problems kicked in then (at 25, as was Murray), he had surgery, a year or two of searching for form with a marginally reduced game and then when he got a semblance of it back Wilander was dominating the tour and Borg had returned revitalised and, whilst not quite the same player, playing top 3 level tennis and both able to lolblock a still great but not quite as great Lendl?

Instead, Borg retired young, Wilander did have a dominant year, albeit in 1988 (and Wilander was hardly Novak), but then his career fell off a cliff, McEnroe was never the same after having kids and Connors was past it, meaning Lendl's next few slam finals were:

Won (USO vs McEnroe)
Won (FO vs Pernfors )
Lost (to Becker)
Won (USO vs Mecir )

After 11 slam finals he's only one better than Murray, having had one more slam final than Murray against a non legend.

Incidentally, Lendl played 3 slam finals against Boris and lost them all. He played one against Edberg who retired injured.

By the time Lendl finished competing in slam finals, in 1991, Sampras had won one slam (and would need another 3 years to make another final) and Agassi had yet to win any.

 

[Indigo]

He's not an ATG

 

[RS]

As if Becker didn't lose plenty to fellow ATGs Lendl, Edberg, Sampras, Agassi. But he also beat them, particularly Lendl for his biggest non-grass titles (AO, USO and YEC). Couldn't trust Murray to beat a still-prime Lendl at all, so no comparison...

Not saying Murray beats Lendl i was just saying were the comparsion comes from. I say how Murray does in other eras is speculation.

 

[Phoenix1983]

Thanks for the feedback. Again, the number of Grand Slams is the most relevant all-time great criterion and other criteria are only tie-breakers in case two players are tied in Slams. 7+ Slams is the minimum criterion to be an all-time great. Let us apply the "7 Slams criterion" to Murray. Has Murray won 7 Slams? No. Hence, he is not an ATG.

I would say 6 slams is the minimum level. Becker and Edberg are ATGs for sure.

 

[BHud]

The point is he did just fine and on top of that he got the #1 ranking for a while. What else was he supposed to achieve?


First UK human male person to win a slem since 1700: check


First UK human male person to win WimbelTon since 1700: check


First UK human male person to win multiple slems since 1600: check


Reach the top of the rankings since UK's John Doe pulled it off in 1678: check


The ATG obsession is dumb. Only like 10 guys are legend-like. It's the same in any sport.

Sounds like a UK great to me...

 

[buscemi]

Seems pretty simple to me. Courier leads Murray in Majors (4 vs. 3) and weeks at #1 (58 vs. 41). Maybe some of these secondary stats are enough to place Murray a bit above Courier, maybe they're enough to equalize it, and maybe they're not enough to close Courier's lead. But they're certainly not enough to close the gap on players w/6+ Majors.

 

[AnOctorokForDinner]

I mean, how hard is it to look up Lendl's slam final results? People just don't do these things because it'll ruin their narrative...

Lost (to Borg)
Lost (to Connors)
Lost (to Connors)
Lost (to Wilander)
Won (French vs McEnroe)
Lost (to McEnroe)
Lost (to Wilander)

Now, imagine Lendl's back problems kicked in then (at 25, as was Murray), he had surgery, a year or two of searching for form with a marginally reduced game and then when he got a semblance of it back Wilander was dominating the tour and Borg had returned revitalised and, whilst not quite the same player, playing top 3 level tennis and both able to lolblock a still great but not quite as great Lendl?

Instead, Borg retired young, Wilander did have a dominant year, albeit in 1988 (and Wilander was hardly Novak), but then his career fell off a cliff, McEnroe was never the same after having kids and Connors was past it, meaning Lendl's next few slam finals were:

Won (USO vs McEnroe)
Won (FO vs Pernfors )
Lost (to Becker)
Won (USO vs Mecir )

After 11 slam finals he's only one better than Murray, having had one more slam final than Murray against a non legend.

Incidentally, Lendl played 3 slam finals against Boris and lost them all. He played one against Edberg who retired injured.

By the time Lendl finished competing in slam finals, in 1991, Sampras had won one slam (and would need another 3 years to make another final) and Agassi had yet to win any.

Even harder to look up Lendl's complete slam results and scorelines, hm? Besides 8 wins, Lendl suffered 23 GS losses to eventual winners (31 total); Murray 13 (16 total).

Lendl's wins:
Wilander in 3 + McEnroe in 5, Noah + Connors + McEnroe in 3, Pernfors et al. in 3 (Gomez in 4), Edberg + Mecir in 3, Wilander in 4, Wilander in 4 again, Noah in 4 + Mecir in 3, Edberg in RET.

Not all hard but beat prime Mac and Wilander for 4 of them, and didn't struggle against mugs otherwise when he won.

Lendl's losses to eventual winners:
McEnroe in 4, Borg in 5, Wilander in 5, Connors in 4, Noah in 4, McEnroe in 3, Connors in 4, Wilander in 3, McEnroe in 3, Wilander in 4, Edberg in 5, Becker in 3, Cash in 3, Wilander in 5, Chang in 5, Becker in 5, Becker in 4, Edberg in 3, Sampras in 5, Becker in 4, Edberg in 3, Edberg in 5, Sampras in 3.

8 five-setters, 7 four-setters though only the Becker ones highly competitive.


Murray's wins:
Djokovic in 5, Verdasco in 5 + Djokovic in 3, Tsonga in 5 + Raonic in 3.
The fact that Murray was on the brink against the legendary grasscourter (not) Verdasco puts a proper lid on his level there, notwithstanding the zombievic circus.

Murray's losses to eventual winners:
Nadal in 3, Federer in 3, Federer in 3, Nadal in 3, Djokovic in 3, Nadal in 3, Djokovic in 5, Federer in 4, Djokovic in 4, Nadal in 3, Djokovic in 4, Djokovic in 3, Djokovic in 4.

2012-13 only time he stayed competitive (Djo in 5, Fed in 4, Djo in 4, won two slams over Djo himself). Other than that, two sets taken in 10 such losses (AO 15 and RG 16), neither close.

 

[SonnyT]

If he and Federer exchanged birthdays, he'd have about 10 slams, and Federer would have fewer slams than Djokovic.

 

[BGod]

Problem is Lendl-Wilander-Edberg-Becker were smacked in together with McEnroe prior and Courier after.

For as good as the Big 3 were, Murray was 6 years younger than Fed and won his first Slam after Fed's 17th. There's really a lot less excuse not beating 2 guys for 4 years.

 

[BGod]

If he and Federer exchanged birthdays, he'd have about 10 slams, and Federer would have fewer slams than Djokovic.

So from 2006-2010 he wins 10 Slams you say? How so exactly? And yeah I guess 2008 USO means 2002 against Pete or Andre & 2010 AO is 2004 against Safin. You like him in either of those?

 

[FedeRadi]

Thanks for the feedback. Again, the number of Grand Slams is the most relevant all-time great criterion and other criteria are only tie-breakers in case two players are tied in Slams. 7+ Slams is the minimum criterion to be an all-time great. Let us apply the "7 Slams criterion" to Murray. Has Murray won 7 Slams? No. Hence, he is not an ATG.


It was an elaborated reply, but you didn't reply these four crucial points:

1. You didn't reply why should we rely on an unofficial rating. The ATP rating is official. the ELO rating is unofficial and so not part of tennis. ELO rating is just an invention of some tennis fans that designed the UTS and Tennis Abstract webpages. If ELO isn't official, it isn't part of tennis. Simple as that.
2. You didn't reply why should I prefer the UTS ELO rating over the Tennis Abstract tennis rating, when both pages present ELO rating with different scores.
3. You dind't answer why do you ignore the phenomenon of ELO inflation. Murray has a higher peak ELO than Sampras and it does not mean that his level was superior. It only means that Murray could inflate his ELO with victories against the Big 3, while Sampras could not increase his ELO as much because his victories were against players with lower ELO rating.
4. You didn't have any reply for the fact that, in chess, peak ELO rating is never used as a criterion of greatness. You totally ignored my example of the Levon Aronian vs. Bobby FIscher comparison. Aronian attained a higher peak ELO than Fischer and it doesn't mean he was a stronger or greater player than Fischer. Aronian just benefited from the ELO inflation, as he faced players with higher overall ELO and each victory or draw would allow him to achieve more points than Fischer. Please find an article of opinion stating that Levon Aronian is greater than Bobby Fischer. You won't find it. The chess example totally refutes the utility of ELO for greateness comparisons. Using ELO is a way to unfairly favor modern players over players from the past, as with the phenomenon of ELO inflation, ELO always increases. ELO has never been and will never be a greatness criterion.

Agree to disagree on slam titles count. I think it's the most important stat, but it's not impossible to overcome. We have simply different weights.
IMHO 6+ Slam is a sufficient but unnecessary condition to be an ATG. If you have 6 slams, you're an ATG. If you have less than 6 slams and little else, you aren't. If you have less than 6 slams and ATG level stats in other metrics, I think you can be an ATG.
I don't think a 6(or any other number) slam line in order to be an ATG is a smart criterion: really a player with 6 slam and nothing else is greater than a 5 slam, 3 WTF, 15 Masters, 3 YE#1 player(Extreme example)? Can't work in my view.
Obviously, how good you have to be to overcome the slam deficit depends how big this deficit is. 3 is really huge. But Murray was insanely better than every other player without 6 slam in every other statistics. He overcomes deficit for me.
If I take the ATG line at Agassi level, so he doesn't. It's 8+ slams sufficient condition, and only McEnroe overcome deficit with other stats.

About Elo:
1. I think it's an unofficial good metric to judge player's level. It's a math formula based on wins, not on beautiful backhands or something like that, so it's an unofficial metric based to official data. Nothing wrong to watch at it imo. The formula can be subjective but... (See point 2)
2. Really, never checked, but from my statistical acknowledge different Elo's formula has very similar results. Btw, sooner or later i have to do a comparison.
3. Elo inflation can exist(And can exist deflation), but i think it's not this the case. Elo ratings for top players have up and downs from '70s to nowadays and they have a good correlation with win rates, lesser player has a steady Elo rating. So there's not a generalized increment of ratings, the definition of inflaction.
4. I know almost nothing about chess. From what i checked there is some inflation in FIDE ratings, as I explain in point 3, I don't think this is the case in UTS ratings.