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Lmao seven of the 10 weakest Masters since 1990 have taken place at the Paris Masters!
Reminder, Djoker has 5 titles there. Fed, Nadal and Murray have a combined 2 because nobody cares about it.
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Tennis is back, but plenty of top players are still at home–or crashing out in the early rounds of their first tournament in months. While the ATP “Cincinnati” Masters event delivered the expected winner in Novak Djokovic, the Serb never had to face a top-ten opponent. The same was true of Victoria Azarenka, who won the WTA Premier tournament with the benefit of Naomi Osaka’s withdrawal in the final round, and without playing a top-tenner on her way there.
The tennis world’s “asterisk” talk has mostly focused on the US Open, since most people care about slams and don’t care about anything else. But judging from these easy paths to the two Cincinnati titles, should we be talking asterisk about the event just passed?
Novak’s 35th, but not (quite) his easiest
Last week, I explained why I thought the asterisk talk was premature, if not wrong. The field doesn’t matter, because the player who wins the title faces only a handful of players. The presence of, say, Rafael Nadal doesn’t have much to do with the difficulty of winning the title unless the eventual winner has to go through Rafa. If the champion’s opponents are very good, the path to the title is hard; if they are relatively weak, the path to the title is easy. Keep in mind I’m using the terms “good” and “weak” in theoretical terms. On paper, Djokovic was fortunate that his semi-final and final opponents were ranked 12th and 30th, respectively, and his title path was “easy.” As it happened, he was forced to work hard for both wins.
We now know that the title paths of the Cincinnati champions were relatively easy. But just how weak were they?
I calculate the difficulty of a path-to-the-title by determining the probability that the average Masters champion on that surface would beat the opponents that the champion faced. By using the “average Masters champion,” we are taking the skill level of the actual champ out of the equation, and looking only at the quality of his opposition. The resulting numbers vary wildly, from 2.5%–the odds that a typical Masters champion would have beaten the players that Jo Wilfried Tsonga defeated to win the 2014 Canada Masters–to 61.2%–the chances that an average titlist would have beaten the players that confronted Nikolay Davydenko at the 2006 Paris Masters.
Novak’s number this week was 40.5%. In other words, an average hard-court Masters champion would have a four-in-ten shot at beating the five guys that fate threw in Djokovic’s path. That’s the 11th easiest Masters title since 1990:
Title Odds Tournament Winner
61.2% 2006 Paris Nikolay Davydenko
50.5% 2012 Paris David Ferrer
49.8% 2000 Paris Marat Safin
48.3% 2004 Paris Marat Safin
47.0% 1999 Paris Andre Agassi
44.5% 2013 Shanghai Novak Djokovic
43.3% 2002 Madrid Andre Agassi
42.9% 2005 Paris Tomas Berdych
41.4% 2009 Canada Andy Murray
41.3% 2017 Paris Jack Sock
40.5% 2020 Cincinnati Novak Djokovic
39.6% 2011 Shanghai Andy Murray
39.1% 2019 Canada Rafael Nadal
37.9% 2008 Rome Novak Djokovic
36.2% 2007 Cincinnati Roger Federer
Unless we’re prepared to put a permanent asterisk next to the Paris Masters, we should hold off on cheapening this year’s Cincinnati title. Surprisingly, Djokovic’s path was even easier at the 2013 Shanghai Masters. He had to face two top-ten opponents in the final rounds (Tsonga and Juan Martin del Potro), but Elo didn’t think that highly of them at the time.
Reminder, Djoker has 5 titles there. Fed, Nadal and Murray have a combined 2 because nobody cares about it.
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How Should We Value the Masters and Premier Titles in the Bubble? – Heavy Topspin
www.tennisabstract.com
Tennis is back, but plenty of top players are still at home–or crashing out in the early rounds of their first tournament in months. While the ATP “Cincinnati” Masters event delivered the expected winner in Novak Djokovic, the Serb never had to face a top-ten opponent. The same was true of Victoria Azarenka, who won the WTA Premier tournament with the benefit of Naomi Osaka’s withdrawal in the final round, and without playing a top-tenner on her way there.
The tennis world’s “asterisk” talk has mostly focused on the US Open, since most people care about slams and don’t care about anything else. But judging from these easy paths to the two Cincinnati titles, should we be talking asterisk about the event just passed?
Novak’s 35th, but not (quite) his easiest
Last week, I explained why I thought the asterisk talk was premature, if not wrong. The field doesn’t matter, because the player who wins the title faces only a handful of players. The presence of, say, Rafael Nadal doesn’t have much to do with the difficulty of winning the title unless the eventual winner has to go through Rafa. If the champion’s opponents are very good, the path to the title is hard; if they are relatively weak, the path to the title is easy. Keep in mind I’m using the terms “good” and “weak” in theoretical terms. On paper, Djokovic was fortunate that his semi-final and final opponents were ranked 12th and 30th, respectively, and his title path was “easy.” As it happened, he was forced to work hard for both wins.
We now know that the title paths of the Cincinnati champions were relatively easy. But just how weak were they?
I calculate the difficulty of a path-to-the-title by determining the probability that the average Masters champion on that surface would beat the opponents that the champion faced. By using the “average Masters champion,” we are taking the skill level of the actual champ out of the equation, and looking only at the quality of his opposition. The resulting numbers vary wildly, from 2.5%–the odds that a typical Masters champion would have beaten the players that Jo Wilfried Tsonga defeated to win the 2014 Canada Masters–to 61.2%–the chances that an average titlist would have beaten the players that confronted Nikolay Davydenko at the 2006 Paris Masters.
Novak’s number this week was 40.5%. In other words, an average hard-court Masters champion would have a four-in-ten shot at beating the five guys that fate threw in Djokovic’s path. That’s the 11th easiest Masters title since 1990:
Title Odds Tournament Winner
61.2% 2006 Paris Nikolay Davydenko
50.5% 2012 Paris David Ferrer
49.8% 2000 Paris Marat Safin
48.3% 2004 Paris Marat Safin
47.0% 1999 Paris Andre Agassi
44.5% 2013 Shanghai Novak Djokovic
43.3% 2002 Madrid Andre Agassi
42.9% 2005 Paris Tomas Berdych
41.4% 2009 Canada Andy Murray
41.3% 2017 Paris Jack Sock
40.5% 2020 Cincinnati Novak Djokovic
39.6% 2011 Shanghai Andy Murray
39.1% 2019 Canada Rafael Nadal
37.9% 2008 Rome Novak Djokovic
36.2% 2007 Cincinnati Roger Federer
Unless we’re prepared to put a permanent asterisk next to the Paris Masters, we should hold off on cheapening this year’s Cincinnati title. Surprisingly, Djokovic’s path was even easier at the 2013 Shanghai Masters. He had to face two top-ten opponents in the final rounds (Tsonga and Juan Martin del Potro), but Elo didn’t think that highly of them at the time.
