Taking your list, Gary, and adding another detail, matches played.
Djokovic 88/33 121 Ranking # 1 (61-8 )
:::::: HC: 89/34 123
Federer 91/26 116 Ranking # 2 (73-12)
:::::: HC: 90/27 117
Nadal 85/35 120 Ranking # 3 (48-11)
:::::: HC 86/30 116
Berdych 86/25 111 Ranking # 7 (55-22)
:::::: HC: 88/26 114
Murray 81/32, 113 Ranking # 6 (59-20)
:::::: HC: 81/32 113
Nishikori 85/28 113 Ranking # 5 (54-14)
:::::: HC: 86/22 110
Ferrer 79/33 112 Ranking # 10 (54-24)
:::::: HC: 79/31 110
Cilic 85/22 109 Ranking # 9 (54-21)
:::::: HC: 86/22 110 ----------------------------------- USO
Wawrinka 86/22 108 Ranking # 4 (39-17)
:::::: HC: 85/23 109 ----------------------------AO
Matches played would read like this:
1. Federer 85
2. Murray 79
3. Ferrer 78
4. Berdych 77
5. Cilic 75
6. Djokovic 69
7. Nishikori 68
8. Nadal 59
9. Wawrinka 56
What we glean from this is unclear as of yet but we know Ferrer and Murray spent a large part of their matches played in tournaments where they knew they wouldn't have to face Djokovic or Federer. Would this have affected your statistical analysis to a significant extent? I am not sure. It does show that Federer had a fantastic year on serve.
I haven't really done any analysis, Russel. I simply compiled a list going back to when the ATP starting keep records. I really don't think this shows anything that should not be obvious. I'm not sure yet.
It seems to me that the best players in the world should be winning by the biggest margins, and adding the percentages together correlates with what the scores would be.
200 would be winning every game. Every set would be a bagel.
100 is breaking even. It should mean being pretty close to winning and losing about the same amount.
It turns out that 120 on any surface is very VERY good. For the most part the scores will be around the same on all surfaces, because return percentage goes down on fast surfaces, but service game percentages go up.
I believe the margins are smaller on the fastest surfaces. But generally anything between 120 and 130 means #1 in the world and a slam winner AND a player is in God-mode that year.
Examples:
Fed was 130 on grass for the year in 2004. 121 on HC was world class, and he own AO and USO with that. 118 that year on clay should have been good enough to get the FO and thus a grand slam, but Gaudio stole it that year.
In 2006 Fed was 124 on grass, won Wimbledon, 123 on HC and won the AO and USO again. He was 118 on clay, VERY good, but Nadal was at 126 and took the FO.
It's not just Fed and Nadal. The same thing goes back to 1991. There are always exceptions, but when people with much lower scores win slams, they are not also at the very top. About the highest you see there is someone unexpected wins slam then gets pushed up to around #5 or #4, as happened to Waw last year. So far none of these dark horses has repeated with both another slam and a very high ranking. That's why I don't expect to see another slam from Cilic or Waw.
