TheFifthSet
G.O.A.T.
(Cribbed this from an old PM I sent someone, turning it into its own thread.)
Discovered something i long suspected about Roddick: his widely-panned record against the Top 10 has to at least partially be a function of some freakishly bad luck. Was looking through his match logs on TA and noticed a disproportionate gap between results against lower end of top 10 and ranks 11-15, lots of wins against the latter right before they broke through into the top 10 or were only out of it due to injury or blips in form. Checked the numbers:
Career record against players ranked
7th: 5-7
8th: 1-2
9th: 2-3
10th: 4-4
11th: 11-4 (!!)
12th: 6-1 (!!)
13th: 6-3
14th: 6-4
15th: 1-3
and so on…there’s of course generally a gap between 8th-10th and 11th-13th (duh)…but not usually this big of one. Some of this is down to plain old bad luck.
Rod’s overall record against the top is indeed pretty unsightly, 37-73. But against #’s 11 - #’s 15 it’s 30-15. Against #’s 16 - #’s 20 it’s 28-6, 58-21 altogether.
This might sound like it’s par for the course, but Wawa by comparison is a healthier 63-103 against the top 10 compared with mediocre 52-57 against ranks 11-20. Some others that occupy a similar tier historically:
Hewitt: 65-73 against the Top 10, 53-38 against ranks 11-20.
Murray: 105-96 / 95-53
Rafter: 35-49 / 35-33
Have yet to see a discrepancy as big as Roddick’s.
Point being, yes he underachieved against the top players but it is vastly overblown and mostly due to
a) his best surface having the least representation
b) Fed and
c) the aforementioned wonkiness from ranks 8-10 to ranks 11-13
Discovered something i long suspected about Roddick: his widely-panned record against the Top 10 has to at least partially be a function of some freakishly bad luck. Was looking through his match logs on TA and noticed a disproportionate gap between results against lower end of top 10 and ranks 11-15, lots of wins against the latter right before they broke through into the top 10 or were only out of it due to injury or blips in form. Checked the numbers:
Career record against players ranked
7th: 5-7
8th: 1-2
9th: 2-3
10th: 4-4
11th: 11-4 (!!)
12th: 6-1 (!!)
13th: 6-3
14th: 6-4
15th: 1-3
and so on…there’s of course generally a gap between 8th-10th and 11th-13th (duh)…but not usually this big of one. Some of this is down to plain old bad luck.
Rod’s overall record against the top is indeed pretty unsightly, 37-73. But against #’s 11 - #’s 15 it’s 30-15. Against #’s 16 - #’s 20 it’s 28-6, 58-21 altogether.
This might sound like it’s par for the course, but Wawa by comparison is a healthier 63-103 against the top 10 compared with mediocre 52-57 against ranks 11-20. Some others that occupy a similar tier historically:
Hewitt: 65-73 against the Top 10, 53-38 against ranks 11-20.
Murray: 105-96 / 95-53
Rafter: 35-49 / 35-33
Have yet to see a discrepancy as big as Roddick’s.
Point being, yes he underachieved against the top players but it is vastly overblown and mostly due to
a) his best surface having the least representation
b) Fed and
c) the aforementioned wonkiness from ranks 8-10 to ranks 11-13