Surface Open Era Rankings

[Tennis7296]

I think it would be an interesting thing to create a ranking system in which each surface is represented proportionally. The ATP current system could be used, but the yearly ranking would be calculated by the sum of:
a) Clay court points obtained / Clay court points available
b) Grass court points obtained / Grass court points available
c) Hard court points obtained / Hard court points available
I do not know if it is better than the actual system, but I think it could have some interesting results. There might be important changes from 1990 onwards, since the proportion of hard courts is too high. Of course, there are even differences between slow or fast hard (or 90s and 00s grass) and I insist that it is not perfect, but that it could reveal some interesting facts.

By this system, it would be 33,33% clay, 33,33% grass and 33,33% hard, but the proportions can be modified. It could also be 25% clay, 25% grass, 25% outdoor hard, 25% indoor hard/carpet, or given the prestige of clay and grass, something like 30% clay, 30% grass, 20% outdoor hard, 20% indoor hard/carpet (or 25-15). I would like to hear opinions about which proportion is better, and then I will calculate the Year End Top 8 Rankings for 1970-2013 using it.

 

[Guivs]

Great idea!

 

[6-1 6-3 6-0]

How are we defining 'points available'? Are challenger tournaments not included?

 

[Tennis7296]

How are we defining 'points available'? Are challenger tournaments not included?

Since my purpose was only to rank the Top 8, I did not think of Challengers, but if someone has the time to extend the list to other players, we could think of a way to count them.

I will use the 2013 season as an example:
Clay-Court Available Points = 2000 (RG) + 2 * 1000 (Madrid+Rome) + maximum of 6 non-compulsory tournaments (see below)
Grass-Court Available Points = 2000 (WO) + maximum of 6 non-compulsory tournaments (see below)
Hard-Court Available Points = 2 * 2000 (USO+AO) + 1500 (WTF) + 5 * 1000 (IW+MA+CA+CI+SH+PA) + maximum of 6 non-compulsory tournaments (see below)
On the non compulsory tournaments, the ATP puts a maximum of 6 per year including 4 500. Given the distribution of the 2013 calendar, I would suggest a maximum of 2 on clay (1500 points: MC + a 500), 3 on hard (1500 points) and 1 on grass (250), but this could be debatable. What do you think?

 

[Tennis7296]

All Time Surface Ranking

I still haven´t had enough time to calculate year-end rankings, but I was able to do another interesting task: to calculate the 6 players with most points from 1972 onwards.

I have used a surface rankings (33% clay, grass and hard). each player adds his best x tournaments (judged in terms of points obstained) por each 52 weeks periods, which is divided by the most points which could be obtained playing x tournaments. The number x varies according to the number of important tournaments in each surface: for example, since 1987, I made the calculations with x=4 on clay, x=2 on grass and x=8 on hard. Each tournament was weighted similarly to the way the ATP does it today (a slam is worth double the points of a masters 1000, etc.), but I decided to give a player who reaches each round of a tournament twice the amount of points he would have got had he lost in the round before (e.g. 256 for SF, 512 for F and 1024 for W). I will give more details on my calculations later.

The results are:

RANK PLAYER OVERALL CLAY GRASS HARD
1. Federer 9,727,321 2,194,977 4,120,123 3,412,221
2. Connors 8,529,642 1,831,697 2,626,263 4,071,683
3. Lendl 7,629,309 2,714,963 1,227,114 3687232
4. Nadal 7,593,613 4,281,349 1,710,304 1601961
5. Sampras 7,198,369 559,340 3,672,714 2966315
6. Borg 7,002,241 2,850,408 2,146,095 2,005,738

Again, I will repeat I don´t intend my method to be perfect, I just wanted to see how this rankings looked.

 

[eldanger25]

Good stuff, thanks for posting.

For somebody who quit at 25, Borg's totals are really impressive. Maybe more impressive are his surface splits - so balanced. Like a distance runner's splits, just clean and consistent across the board.

 

[ultradr]

I think it would be an interesting thing to create a ranking system in which each surface is represented proportionally. The ATP current system could be used, but the yearly ranking would be calculated by the sum of:
a) Clay court points obtained / Clay court points available
b) Grass court points obtained / Grass court points available
c) Hard court points obtained / Hard court points available
I do not know if it is better than the actual system, but I think it could have some interesting results. There might be important changes from 1990 onwards, since the proportion of hard courts is too high. Of course, there are even differences between slow or fast hard (or 90s and 00s grass) and I insist that it is not perfect, but that it could reveal some interesting facts.

By this system, it would be 33,33% clay, 33,33% grass and 33,33% hard, but the proportions can be modified. It could also be 25% clay, 25% grass, 25% outdoor hard, 25% indoor hard/carpet, or given the prestige of clay and grass, something like 30% clay, 30% grass, 20% outdoor hard, 20% indoor hard/carpet (or 25-15). I would like to hear opinions about which proportion is better, and then I will calculate the Year End Top 8 Rankings for 1970-2013 using it.

This whole surface issue becomes rather moot since Wimbledon and US Open slowed their surfaces in 2003 and 2004.

Maybe except clay where its surface remained traditional. Other surfaces now become more like clay, slow to medium higher bouncing. More importantly all surfaces are neutralized.

Surface issues becomes strong arguments for discussing players up until 90's, IMHO.
For example, Borg's record on truely slow clay and fast grass courts are something truely special record and
will never be challenged.

 

[Tennis7296]

This whole surface issue becomes rather moot since Wimbledon and US Open slowed their surfaces in 2003 and 2004.

Maybe except clay where its surface remained traditional. Other surfaces now become more like clay, slow to medium higher bouncing. More importantly all surfaces are neutralized.

Surface issues becomes strong arguments for discussing players up until 90's, IMHO.
For example, Borg's record on truely slow clay and fast grass courts are something truely special record and
will never be challenged.

Thanks for your answer

Even though there have been major changes in the surfaces since 1972 (and especially in the last 10-15 years), I think there are still important differences between clay, grass, and hard. Their speed may be similar, but movement and sliding are really different. Racket technology should also be considered.
Anyway, from 2000 onwards the surface rankings do not differ much with the ATP rankings, it only increses Wimbledon points and decreases those won in hard courts. Even if we don´t take into accont the surface issue, since Wimbledon is the most prestiguious tournament, I think it is still a good way to analyse the period.
However, as I mentioned before, I do not intend this method to be perfect. It is just another way to look at history.

With regards Borg, I am afraid I disagree with you. I would say Rosewall was better than Borg on slow clay and Sampras on fast grass. Even Connors has more points than Borg in the fast grass of Wimbledon (and this is not only by using my method but also if we use the ATP system). It is beyond any doubt that Borg is in the Top 10 of All Time (that is why it is 6th in my list, 7 millon points with such a short career is impressive), but many of his records have been challenged.

 

[SpicyCurry1990]

Thanks for your answer

Even though there have been major changes in the surfaces since 1972 (and especially in the last 10-15 years), I think there are still important differences between clay, grass, and hard. Their speed may be similar, but movement and sliding are really different. Racket technology should also be considered.
Anyway, from 2000 onwards the surface rankings do not differ much with the ATP rankings, it only increses Wimbledon points and decreases those won in hard courts. Even if we don´t take into accont the surface issue, since Wimbledon is the most prestiguious tournament, I think it is still a good way to analyse the period.
However, as I mentioned before, I do not intend this method to be perfect. It is just another way to look at history.

With regards Borg, I am afraid I disagree with you. I would say Rosewall was better than Borg on slow clay and Sampras on fast grass. Even Connors has more points than Borg in the fast grass of Wimbledon (and this is not only by using my method but also if we use the ATP system). It is beyond any doubt that Borg is in the Top 10 of All Time (that is why it is 6th in my list, 7 millon points with such a short career is impressive), but many of his records have been challenged.

1) He was saying no one will ever dominate both slow clay AND fast grass the way Borg did, not that he was the best on both. What's Rosewall's record on fast grass and Sampras' on slow clay?

2)Collecting more points off 2 titles and 4 RU and a bunch of other earlier round knock-out performances is in no way akin to "challenging" 5 straight titles there. That right there is the innate flaw in a "points system." Any system that values 2 Runner-Ups > 1 Title is pretty much useless to be taken seriously. (Also are you sure Connor's points at just Wimbledon surpasses Borg? I have a hard time believing that and I think Connors only has higher grass totals due to winning a US Open back when it was on grass and an AO on grass as well).

 

[Tennis7296]

1) He was saying no one will ever dominate both slow clay AND fast grass the way Borg did, not that he was the best on both. What's Rosewall's record on fast grass and Sampras' on slow clay?

2)Collecting more points off 2 titles and 4 RU and a bunch of other earlier round knock-out performances is in no way akin to "challenging" 5 straight titles there. That right there is the innate flaw in a "points system." Any system that values 2 Runner-Ups > 1 Title is pretty much useless to be taken seriously. (Also are you sure Connor's points at just Wimbledon surpasses Borg? I have a hard time believing that and I think Connors only has higher grass totals due to winning a US Open back when it was on grass and an AO on grass as well).

Thanks for your answer

1) Sorry, I had not understood what he meant. Yes, I think Borg´s combined slow clay and fast grass record is the best, but Rosewall´s 5 clay majors (58, 60-62 French Pro, 68 RG) when there was no clay major in his peak years (63-67) and 4 grass court majors (US Pro 63-65, USO 70 and AO 71, without considering AO 72 due to its weak field) should also be taken into account, as well as his 9 pro majors on fast carpet and wood.


2) Yes, using ATP ranking system Connors has more points than Borg at Wimbledon.
However, in my system 2 RU = 1 W and so on.
Connors at Wimbledon:
Q + Q + W + F + Q + F + F + S + S + S + W + 4R + F + SF + 1R + SF + 4R + 2R + 3R + 1R
128 + 128 + 1024 + 512 + 128 + 512 + 512 + 256 + 256 + 256 + 1024 + 64 + 512 + 256 + 8 + 256 + 16 + 32 + 8 = 5888 (5760 if we don´t count WO 73)
Borg at Wimbledon:
QF + 3R + QF + W + W + W + W + W + F
128 + 32 + 128 + 1024 + 1024 + 1024 + 1024 + 1024 + 512 =5920 (5792 if we don´t count WO 73)
So Borg has higher points, but only by a little margin.