NOT ALL 20'S ARE CREATED EQUAL

D

Daniel Andrade

Hall of Fame
www.tennisabstract.com

Not All Twenties Are Created Equal

The top of the all-time men’s grand slam ranking just got even more crowded. With his 13th Roland Garros title, Rafael Nadal has matched Roger Federer at the top of the list by securing his 2…
www.tennisabstract.com
1. Read it entirely.
2. Discuss/ Disgust

3. I do not agree with the article, but I do love me some hot takes.
 
UnderratedSlam

UnderratedSlam

G.O.A.T.
Nothing in nature is equal, let alone completely equal, otherwise we'd have Utopia centuries ago. All across the board, very little of anything is equal.

(Did I say that or was it Plato? Certainly wasn't Lenin...)

This fictional equality exists only in maths, yet maths doesn't explain reality, it only HELPS explain it. Big difference. (Definitely me, not Plato or Lenin.)

Despite agreeing that Nadal's slams were "more difficult" overall, nevertheless it's too much nit-pickery. It would be too much of a stretch to rate RF's 20 as lower than Rafa's.

It's not a clear-cut issue.
 
D

Daniel Andrade

Hall of Fame
UnderratedSlam said:
Nothing in nature is equal, let alone completely equal, otherwise we'd have Utopia centuries ago. All across the board, very little of anything is equal.

(Did I say that or was it Plato? Certainly wasn't Lenin...)

This fictional equality exists only in maths, yet maths doesn't explain reality, it only HELPS explain it. Big difference. (Definitely me, not Plato or Lenin.)

Despite agreeing that Nadal's slams were "more difficult" overall, nevertheless it's too much nit-pickery. It would be too much of a stretch to rate RF's 20 as lower than Rafa's.

It's not a clear-cut issue.
Click to expand...
Agreed, each player just plays against the field he's given and there's nothing he can do about it.

Interesting to note that according to elo slams from 2017 onwards have been comparatively weak tho.
 
Rabin

Rabin

Professional
"Nadal was lucky that he missed a few dangerous opponents in the early rounds, luckier still that he didn’t have to face Dominic Thiem in the semi-final"

This is why just relying on rankings is such a dumb way of determining whether a player's path to the final/title was easy or hard. Rafa would have thrashed Thiem in the condition he was in and Diego always gives him problems, that was definitely the harder SF for him. There are bad match-ups and opponents that trouble players in spite of their ranking. No one will care how you won your 17/20 or whatever number of slams. Thiem is a USO winner for now and forever, subpar performance in the final or not.
 
D

Daniel Andrade

Hall of Fame
Rabin said:
"Nadal was lucky that he missed a few dangerous opponents in the early rounds, luckier still that he didn’t have to face Dominic Thiem in the semi-final"

This is why just relying on rankings is such a dumb way of determining whether a player's path to the final/title was easy or hard. Rafa would have thrashed Thiem in the condition he was in and Diego always gives him problems, that was definitely the harder SF for him. There are bad match-ups and opponents that trouble players in spite of their ranking. No one will care how you won your 17/20 or whatever number of slams. Thiem is a USO winner for now and forever, subpar performance in the final or not.
Click to expand...
Yes, Thiem definitely played subpar in FO this year IMO.
 
F

FrontHeadlock

Hall of Fame
Daniel Andrade said:
Agreed, each player just plays against the field he's given and there's nothing he can do about it.

Interesting to note that according to elo slams from 2017 onwards have been comparatively weak tho.
Click to expand...

Off the top of my head, I'd presume that's because guys like Ferrer, Berdych, etc finally dropped off and retired, and the new guys comparatively have lower elo ratings.
 
Last edited:
AnOctorokForDinner

AnOctorokForDinner

Talk Tennis Guru
yeah sure, peak Ferrer >> peak Wawrinka, peak Nishikori >> peak Safin etc.

Been said a billion times already: ELO distribution correlates with tour stratification, i.e. negatively correlates with upset percentages, at the top level especially. When top 5/10/20 players are highly consistent at beating lower-ranked players and losing to higher-ranked players, the best elo for each ranking between them is achieved. When there are more upsets, there's more ranking parity on tour, and elo parity as well as bottom players score higher and top players lower. But that's not how competitiveness in tennis actually works. High highs & low lows allow for bigger wins and titles, and more danger to higher-ranked opponents, than medium highs & medium lows of consistency.
 
F

FrontHeadlock

Hall of Fame
AnOctorokForDinner said:
yeah sure, peak Ferrer >> peak Wawrinka, peak Nishikori >> peak Safin etc.

Been said a billion times already: ELO distribution correlates with tour stratification, i.e. negatively correlates with upset percentages, at the top level especially. When top 5/10/20 players are highly consistent at beating lower-ranked players and losing to higher-ranked players, the best elo for each ranking between them is achieved. When there are more upsets, there's more ranking parity on tour, and elo parity as well as bottom players score higher and top players lower. But that's not how competitiveness in tennis actually works. High highs & low lows allow for bigger wins and titles, and more danger to higher-ranked opponents, than medium highs & medium lows of consistency.
Click to expand...

yes, very good post
 
Graf1stClass

Graf1stClass

Professional
Daniel Andrade said:
www.tennisabstract.com

Not All Twenties Are Created Equal

The top of the all-time men’s grand slam ranking just got even more crowded. With his 13th Roland Garros title, Rafael Nadal has matched Roger Federer at the top of the list by securing his 2…
www.tennisabstract.com
1. Read it entirely.
2. Discuss/ Disgust

3. I do not agree with the article, but I do love me some hot takes.
Click to expand...
Well Bonnie, as much as I hate to say it, Nadal is the new GOAT here. It's more or less inarguable......after Slams come the H2H, and we all know how that looks.

The time at #1 is more or less a useless metric and anyone who says Nadal had easy slams needs to look again why Federer spent so many weeks as #1 before his era ended. I still like Federer more as a person, but barely because they're both up in the clouds and no one cares how nice you are if you can win slams. ASV was a jerk but she got fans for her hard digging playstyle winning slams. Wozniacki was hated by people who didn't like her same game because she didn't win a slam even though she was far nicer.

Personality out of the way if Nadal wins one more slam he's undisputable. Where's Federer's gold medal? Yet people compare him to Steffi, "GOAT"? It's ridiculous....too many holes in his resume. Don't say too many French Opens hurts Nadal either...find someone to beat Nadal there. Logic would be then that's the end of Nadal.

Right?
 
B

big ted

Legend
they should take into account that feds GS title distribution is more diverse so its
a greater achievement... for an extreme example if player A wins 8xFO titles and nothing
else, and player B wins 2xFO, 2xAO, 2xW, 2xUSO.. player A should be the greatest clay court
player of all time and only player B has a chance of being the greatest player of all time...
 
MichaelNadal

MichaelNadal

Bionic Poster
NADALalot said:
Nadal won't be on 20 for long....
Click to expand...

tumblr_ponlvlYYuc1y88yipo4_r1_400.gif
 
F

FrontHeadlock

Hall of Fame
big ted said:
they should take into account that feds GS title distribution is more diverse so its
a greater achievement... for an extreme example if player A wins 8xFO titles and nothing
else, and player B wins 2xFO, 2xAO, 2xW, 2xUSO.. player A should be the greatest clay court
player of all time and only player B has a chance of being the greatest player of all time...
Click to expand...

This is not a fair argument, as you are comparing someone with Majors on 1 surface only with someone who has won the Career Grand Slam.

Nadal has the 4th most off-clay Majors of the Open Era, behind only Fed, Djoker and Sampras.

And since the other 3 majors are much more correlative, what tends to make a resume diverse is winning RG. It's why Laver and Borg were so highly regarded.
 
AnOctorokForDinner

AnOctorokForDinner

Talk Tennis Guru
Case in point, Berdych reaching his highest ranking, both ATP and ELO, at 2015 RG following half a year of peak consistency & toothlessness mixed together. From 2014 YEC to 2015 Rome, he went 33-1 against anyone other than Big 5 (lost Doha final to Ferrer) and 1-10 against the Big 5 (Djokovic x3, Federer, Murray, Wawrinka x2, 1-1 vs Nadal), beating a ridiculous Nadal in 2015 AO (VLBJ's wet dream that one, foretold the sheet season alright). The worst thing was the manner of those losses though, either a rout or a single good set followed by a rout / beautiful choke. MC final vs Djokovic was strangely the one respectable loss.
 
F

FrontHeadlock

Hall of Fame
AnOctorokForDinner said:
Case in point, Berdych reaching his highest ranking, both ATP and ELO, at 2015 RG following half a year of peak consistency & toothlessness mixed together. From 2014 YEC to 2015 Rome, he went 33-1 against anyone other than Big 5 (lost Doha final to Ferrer) and 1-10 against the Big 5 (Djokovic x3, Federer, Murray, Wawrinka x2, 1-1 vs Nadal), beating a ridiculous Nadal in 2015 AO (VLBJ's wet dream that one, foretold the sheet season alright). The worst thing was the manner of those losses though, either a rout or a single good set followed by a rout / beautiful choke. MC final vs Djokovic was strangely the one respectable loss.
Click to expand...

Good posting in this thread. Elo is a very flawed metric, especially when comparing across eras. Someone like Murray gets very overrated by Elo.
 
UnderratedSlam

UnderratedSlam

G.O.A.T.
BackhandDTL said:
Yep Frauddal never had to face himself on clay.

PISTOL PETE would have PISTOL WHIPPED the CRAPOLA out of FRAUDDAL at ROLAND GARROS
Click to expand...
EmptyPistolPete woulda run like a bunny, the speed he had running down balls! And never missing a BH.

Pete is FO GOAT, it's just that he got unlucky with 9-10 matches there.

He woulda done it. He got cheated with the surface that's played on only by 10 million people, as opposed to noble grass by a whopping 500 people.
 
B

big ted

Legend
FrontHeadlock said:
Nadal has the 4th most off-clay Majors of the Open Era, behind only Fed, Djoker and Sampras.
Click to expand...

should the "GOAT" be 4th for off clay majors?


FrontHeadlock said:
And since the other 3 majors are much more correlative, what tends to make a resume diverse is winning RG. It's why Laver and Borg were so highly regarded.
Click to expand...

personally i think borg is a little overrated considering he never won the USO but thats just me..
he was obviously a great but not GOAT
 
B

big ted

Legend
am i the only one that thinks hard court is a little more significant than clay for GOAT status?
(asking for a friend lol)
 
D

Daniel Andrade

Hall of Fame
PilotPete said:
Could be, or because everyone else is pathetic.
Click to expand...
The same could be said about any other player. "They are not good, the rest are just pathetic."
So the best way to analyze this is to make a comparison, how good is Nadal vs the field at the FO compared to how good is Federer vs the field at Wimbledon and so on. Also we can look at the quality of the opponents specifically in that surface by looking at how they have played before in other similar tournaments. According to the link the opponents of Federer when he won GS tend to be a little bit less consistent in their results compared to the opponents of Nadal when he won GS.
 
F

FrontHeadlock

Hall of Fame
big ted said:
am i the only one that thinks hard court is a little more significant than clay for GOAT status?
(asking for a friend lol)
Click to expand...

If you are better on hardcourt you already have a built-in advantage because more tournaments are on hardcourt.

Why should you then get a SECOND advantage by wins on hardcourt counting for more?
 
D

Daniel Andrade

Hall of Fame
AnOctorokForDinner said:
yeah sure, peak Ferrer >> peak Wawrinka, peak Nishikori >> peak Safin etc.

Been said a billion times already: ELO distribution correlates with tour stratification, i.e. negatively correlates with upset percentages, at the top level especially. When top 5/10/20 players are highly consistent at beating lower-ranked players and losing to higher-ranked players, the best elo for each ranking between them is achieved. When there are more upsets, there's more ranking parity on tour, and elo parity as well as bottom players score higher and top players lower. But that's not how competitiveness in tennis actually works. High highs & low lows allow for bigger wins and titles, and more danger to higher-ranked opponents, than medium highs & medium lows of consistency.
Click to expand...
Could you translate that in layman's terms? I'm interested and I would appreciate it, thanks.
 
B

big ted

Legend
FrontHeadlock said:
If you are better on hardcourt you already have a built-in advantage because more tournaments are on hardcourt.

Why should you then get a SECOND advantage by wins on hardcourt counting for more?
Click to expand...

more tournaments are on hardcourt because its a more significant surface... ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Razer
  • Poll
What are the time periods for the so called Weak Era, Strong Era & Career Inflation Era respectively ? Did they exist ?
2
Replies
90
Views
2K
Neptune
Neptune
Rovesciarete
Predicting Next Year’s Elo Ratings - Article by Jeff Sackmann
Replies
16
Views
459
Rovesciarete
Rovesciarete
M
Addressing the weak era argument (2019-2023)
Replies
41
Views
1K
DSH
DSH
mtincoronel76
WHO ARE THE 20 BEST CLAY COURT PLAYERS EVER?
2 3 4
Replies
167
Views
7K
Olli Jokinen
Olli Jokinen
Slice&Smash
This Is A Weak Era
2 3
Replies
117
Views
10K
TearTheRoofOff
TearTheRoofOff
Top