Weakeraerer's Delight: ELO ranks the Wimbledon Fields from 1978

Meles

Bionic Poster
I'm going to OP this one differently than previous ELO threads in that the technical weeds of the discussion will follow the graph and conclusions:
1. Field strength has been weakening on grass (peak ELO of Wimbledon QFers) and we are in a weak era on grass (not what I wanted to here.;))
2. The early 80's are also weak, but are we really suprised in the era of Chris Lewis?
3. Late 80's and early 90's have the strongest field (a surprise for me as I've always held Connors, Mac, Borg era in higher esteem.
skleroz.gif
)
4. The field weakened through out the 1990s cratering in 2002 (Nalbandian in final.:eek:) Sampras cleaned up in a weak era.:confused:

Considerations:
1. The peak ELO rating is from a list compiled at the end of 2012. Ratings were conservatively fudged for Raonic(2100), Cilc, Dimitrov, and Kyrgios. 2016 match data was not available from my source and I've avoided manually putting in the players as the trend is clear. The 1978-1980 ratings are very suspect. Borg's grass ELO is quite low in this list and I fudged it up to 2300. I don't have the tennis knowledge to begin to fudge the lesser players. We can make more corrections based on TTWer input, but I'd say 1978-1980 is a lost cause. Everyone starts out at 1500 at beginning of 1978.
2. I'd love to have current surface ELO at tournament time versus just peak, but that data is not availabe. For evaluating field strength, peak is probably very good and the players had to be in good form to make QFs. This is in the background, but QF evens out over the peak issues with the number of players.
3. I'd like to have an explanation for Sampras, but these are slam weighted peak grass ratings for players. They are set based so in bo5 a 3 set win carries more weight than a five set win. Did Sampras have some small grass events where he did very poorly every year? ELO rates Sampras as 3rd best of this era, but Edberg 2.:eek: Their ratings are almost identical.
WimbyFieldChartQF.png

WimbyFieldChartSF.png

ELOWimbyField.png

I can post other data views on request, just ask.:D The rank is the all-time grass rank (post 1978) of winner and runner-up. The QF and SF ELO are the averages of the participants.

Also I will be able to generate data for the three other slams very quickly. Wimbledon is the guinea pig as grass stats are notoriously unreliable, so ELO seems to be a great solution, but faces some of the same issues due to the shortness of the grass season. (Another reason that peak ELO may be the better rating for field.) Please ATTACK anything that you think ELO is over rating or under rating. Also the method of using peak ELO of QFs could be modified. I show graph of SF. R16 field strenght may be possible, but I stayed away as I thought it more likely to have players with ELO ratings outside the top 500 in R16. As it stands, Nastase was the only failed lookup for QFs (1978) and Janowicz in 2014. Doing R16 might trigger a lot more exceptions and guestimates.

Please see the predecessor to this thread for some initial discussion:
http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/inde...ng-era-wimbledon-finals.569169/#post-10512433

Here is the best discussion I've seen of using ELO for tennis. The table with the odds of upset for the various different ratings is very good:
http://www.ighs-tennis.com/IGHST_Method.pdf (Yes, ELO is being used for tennis and is vastly superior to the current ranking system.)

http://www.mens tennis forums.com/11-statistics/211663-elo-ratings.html (get rid of the spaces; this has the four surface ratings used, slam weighted too.)

Slackmann's recent all time hard and clay ratings:
http://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/...-djokovic-and-roger-federer-and-rafael-nadal/

Slackmann's awesome github:
https://github.com/JeffSackmann/tennis_atp (all the match data of the open era in csv format for easy import.)
 
Last edited:
For convenience. Some of the grass ratings:
Pos Name Ratings Date
1 Roger Federer 2437.72 June 30, 2008
2 Stefan Edberg 2373.00 July 1, 1991
3 Pete Sampras 2366.91 June 19, 2000
4 Boris Becker 2333.08 July 2, 1990
5 Rafael Nadal 2310.64 June 27, 2011
6 John Mcenroe 2262.94 July 1, 1985
7 Pat Cash 2240.45 June 13, 1988
8 Ivan Lendl 2219.93 July 2, 1990
9 Andy Roddick 2204.18 June 27, 2005
10 Novak Djokovic 2201.15 August 4, 2012
11 Jimmy Connors 2184.19 June 27, 1983
12 Andy Murray 2182.48 August 4, 2012
13 Lleyton Hewitt 2148.25 June 16, 2003
14 Michael Stich 2144.74 June 28, 1993
15 Kevin Curren 2133.15 July 1, 1985
16 Mats Wilander 2120.44 December 3, 1984
17 Patrick Rafter 2115.82 July 2, 2001
18 Goran Ivanisevic 2105.47 July 3, 1995
19 Tim Henman 2101.24 June 28, 1999
20 Andre Agassi 2089.84 July 2, 2001
21 Todd Martin 2077.32 June 27, 1994
22 Tomas Berdych 2067.90 June 28, 2010
23 Mark Philippoussis 2066.84 June 30, 2003
24 Richard Krajicek 2053.45 June 16, 1997
25 Jo Wilfried Tsonga 2048.28 June 27, 2011
26 Johan Kriek 2032.25 December 6, 1982
27 Sebastien Grosjean 2025.16 June 27, 2005
28 Guy Forget 2024.14 June 19, 1995
29 Miloslav Mecir 2019.39 June 27, 1988
30 Bjorn Borg 2019.00 June 29, 1981
31 Jim Courier 2011.40 June 28, 1993
32 Slobodan Zivojinovic 2004.90 July 3, 1989
33 Tim Mayotte 2004.70 June 27, 1988
34 Cedric Pioline 2002.22 June 28, 1999
35 Tommy Haas 1999.63 June 29, 2009
36 Mario Ancic 1991.06 June 30, 2008
37 Richard Gasquet 1989.04 June 16, 2008
38 Wally Masur 1981.70 January 19, 1987
39 Henri Leconte 1980.38 June 30, 1986
40 Hank Pfister 1973.07 December 6, 1982
41 Greg Rusedski 1972.70 June 30, 1997
42 Sjeng Schalken 1970.05 June 30, 2003
43 Robin Soderling 1963.81 June 27, 2011
44 Thomas Johansson 1956.72 June 27, 2005
45 Wayne Ferreira 1955.08 June 27, 1994
46 Mardy Fish 1952.55 June 27, 2011
47 Juan Carlos Ferrero 1952.53 June 29, 2009
48 Jonas Bjorkman 1949.43 July 3, 2006
49 David Nalbandian 1947.21 July 3, 2006
50 Chris Lewis 1946.88 June 27, 1983

Ha just spotted Chris Lewis rating, so correcting graphics within 5 minutes (minor diff as I had him at estimated at 1900) My lookup was failing and when I searched ratings Lewis was missing so had to manually fill in that one number. The rest are 100% accurate. This list has Borg at 30 which is crazy and shows the impact of the numbers starting in 1978. I fudged Borg up to 2300, but others early ratings may be suspect for the same reason.
 
@Meles I keep telling you that we don't need such detailed research to know it is weak era.

Anyways I am glad your finding has the same conclusion
Well I thought it wasn't.:mad: This is kind of a weak era detente for all the various camps. I expect this may stir up a bit of a Sampras hornet's nest.

I love doing this kind of stuff and it only took about 3 hours or so to do it. The cool thing is the other three slams should just take minutes.;) Would really appreciate your input on anything that looks off versus your own views on the fields over the years. I've been fighting the Weakeraerers on this site some what viciously and now I've become one.:confused:
 
For convenience. Some of the grass ratings:
Pos Name Ratings Date
1 Roger Federer 2437.72 June 30, 2008
2 Stefan Edberg 2373.00 July 1, 1991
3 Pete Sampras 2366.91 June 19, 2000
4 Boris Becker 2333.08 July 2, 1990
5 Rafael Nadal 2310.64 June 27, 2011
6 John Mcenroe 2262.94 July 1, 1985
7 Pat Cash 2240.45 June 13, 1988
8 Ivan Lendl 2219.93 July 2, 1990
9 Andy Roddick 2204.18 June 27, 2005
10 Novak Djokovic 2201.15 August 4, 2012
11 Jimmy Connors 2184.19 June 27, 1983
12 Andy Murray 2182.48 August 4, 2012
13 Lleyton Hewitt 2148.25 June 16, 2003
14 Michael Stich 2144.74 June 28, 1993
15 Kevin Curren 2133.15 July 1, 1985
16 Mats Wilander 2120.44 December 3, 1984
17 Patrick Rafter 2115.82 July 2, 2001
18 Goran Ivanisevic 2105.47 July 3, 1995
19 Tim Henman 2101.24 June 28, 1999
20 Andre Agassi 2089.84 July 2, 2001
21 Todd Martin 2077.32 June 27, 1994
22 Tomas Berdych 2067.90 June 28, 2010
23 Mark Philippoussis 2066.84 June 30, 2003
24 Richard Krajicek 2053.45 June 16, 1997
25 Jo Wilfried Tsonga 2048.28 June 27, 2011
26 Johan Kriek 2032.25 December 6, 1982
27 Sebastien Grosjean 2025.16 June 27, 2005
28 Guy Forget 2024.14 June 19, 1995
29 Miloslav Mecir 2019.39 June 27, 1988
30 Bjorn Borg 2019.00 June 29, 1981
31 Jim Courier 2011.40 June 28, 1993
32 Slobodan Zivojinovic 2004.90 July 3, 1989
33 Tim Mayotte 2004.70 June 27, 1988
34 Cedric Pioline 2002.22 June 28, 1999
35 Tommy Haas 1999.63 June 29, 2009
36 Mario Ancic 1991.06 June 30, 2008
37 Richard Gasquet 1989.04 June 16, 2008
38 Wally Masur 1981.70 January 19, 1987
39 Henri Leconte 1980.38 June 30, 1986
40 Hank Pfister 1973.07 December 6, 1982
41 Greg Rusedski 1972.70 June 30, 1997
42 Sjeng Schalken 1970.05 June 30, 2003
43 Robin Soderling 1963.81 June 27, 2011
44 Thomas Johansson 1956.72 June 27, 2005
45 Wayne Ferreira 1955.08 June 27, 1994
46 Mardy Fish 1952.55 June 27, 2011
47 Juan Carlos Ferrero 1952.53 June 29, 2009
48 Jonas Bjorkman 1949.43 July 3, 2006
49 David Nalbandian 1947.21 July 3, 2006
50 Chris Lewis 1946.88 June 27, 1983

Ha just spotted Chris Lewis rating, so correcting graphics within 5 minutes (minor diff as I had him at estimated at 1900) My lookup was failing and when I searched ratings Lewis was missing so had to manually fill in that one number. The rest are 100% accurate. This list has Borg at 30 which is crazy and shows the impact of the numbers starting in 1978. I fudged Borg up to 2300, but others early ratings may be suspect for the same reason.
The numbers seem all over the place. Doesn't there seem to be a huge bias towards players who have played more recently?

I guess these are peaks?

The right players seem to be on top, but the timing of when this happens seems a bit weird.
 
The numbers seem all over the place. Doesn't there seem to be a huge bias towards players who have played more recently?

I guess these are peaks?

The right players seem to be on top, but the timing of when this happens seems a bit weird.

Wouldn't that be because more recent players build on the ELO rankings of those that came before them when they defeat them? Hence why I don't like it.
 
Interesting, and I'm not surprised by the results.

Would it be possible to do ELO ratings for each players based on their results against the field?
 
Wimbledon Quarterfinalists with their peak ELO:
I see the same number for Federer for 2004-2008 then again in 2012.

That makes no sense to me at all. This would imply that he was at the same level in all those years, and that anyone playing against him would be playing the same level player.

If that's the way this works, I don't buy it at all...
 
Last edited:
The numbers seem all over the place. Doesn't there seem to be a huge bias towards players who have played more recently?

I guess these are peaks?

The right players seem to be on top, but the timing of when this happens seems a bit weird.
This started in 1978 with everyone at 1500. That is why the Borg rating is nuts and had to be corrected. I posted the QFs so I can swag a higher rating in for some players. I'm kinda of right off 1978 to 1981 because of this issue. 2013 onwards can be shakey. This is an issue with using peak ELO for this field ranking. It is not an issue for general ELO ratings once the system is adjusted. ELO is far superior to rankings in this regard.

These are not Slackmann's numbers who I like the best:
http://tennisabstract.com/reports/atp_elo_ratings.html (He had Delpo at 10 very close to Wawrinka coming into Wimbledon.)

He's done some surface ratings, but not grass:
http://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/...-djokovic-and-roger-federer-and-rafael-nadal/
Player Year Elo All Surfaces
Novak Djokovic 2015 2525
Roger Federer 2007 2524
Bjorn Borg 1980 2519
John McEnroe 1985 2496
Rafael Nadal 2013 2489
Ivan Lendl 1986 2458
Andy Murray 2009 2388
Jimmy Connors 1979 2384
Boris Becker 1990 2383
Pete Sampras 1994 2376
Andre Agassi 1995 2355
Mats Wilander 1984 2355
Juan Martin del Potro 2009 2352
Stefan Edberg 1988 2346
Guillermo Vilas 1978 2325

Player Year Hard Ct Elo
Roger Federer 2007 2453
Novak Djokovic 2014 2418
Ivan Lendl 1989 2370
Pete Sampras 1997 2356
Rafael Nadal 2014 2342
John McEnroe 1986 2332
Andy Murray 2009 2330
Andre Agassi 1995 2326
Stefan Edberg 1987 2285
Lleyton Hewitt 2002 2262

Player Year Clay Ct Elo
Rafael Nadal 2009 2550
Bjorn Borg 1982 2475
Novak Djokovic 2015 2421
Ivan Lendl 1988 2408
Mats Wilander 1984 2386
Roger Federer 2009 2343
Jose Luis Clerc 1981 2318
Guillermo Vilas 1982 2316
Thomas Muster 1996 2313
Jimmy Connors 1980 2307

These ratings are not slam weighted. The one's I'm using for hard, grass, and clay are slam weighted.
 
Wouldn't that be because more recent players build on the ELO rankings of those that came before them when they defeat them? Hence why I don't like it.
I don't know. I don't understand the math behind any of this yet. It just looks flawed to me.

My analysis is very different. I've tracked all the matches in all slams during the Open era. There are absolute beatdowns in every round, and it's not predictable. It does seem like that greatest players win by the biggest margins, and when you look at at multiple slam winners, generally they will place very high. The biggest margins seem to happen most often in years when those same players are obviously dominating.

But extremely close matches can happen in finals or in first rounds. A player who ultimately loses can win more games in a match against a player who would normally easily beat him.

I do think that in the late 80s and early 90s there was a very heavy load of extremely talented players. When you think of Becker, Edberg and Sampras all having overlapping careers, then throw in other players who were really dangerous on grass, then think of all the amazing clay court players (I know, I sound like 90s Weeds here!), that seems like an amazing time for tennis.

I would say the same thing about the period where Borg, Connors and JMac were all playing at the same time plus others, and the period when Fed, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray were all close to the top at the same time.

That's as far as I can go in comparing eras.
 
This started in 1978 with everyone at 1500. That is why the Borg rating is nuts and had to be corrected. I posted the QFs so I can swag a higher rating in for some players. I'm kinda of right off 1978 to 1981 because of this issue. 2013 onwards can be shakey. This is an issue with using peak ELO for this field ranking. It is not an issue for general ELO ratings once the system is adjusted. ELO is far superior to rankings in this regard.
First question: Why can't anyone be rated before 1978?

Second question: how can peak Elo be valid for multiple years?
 
Wouldn't that be because more recent players build on the ELO rankings of those that came before them when they defeat them? Hence why I don't like it.
It absolutely has problems the first few years as all players start with a rating of 1500.

I just posted the clay ratings above for top ten of all time and I believe Slackman is using data back to 1969 and ranks Connors 10th. These slam weighted numbers start in 1978. That source on clay has Connors ranked 75th. I am showing all the way back to 1978 to show the issue. Some of the 1981 to 1984 peak QF ratings might need some help. I'm sure the tail is longer than three years as the Connors example illustrates.

To be clear to everyone. ELO ratings don't build off of peak ELO. Peak ELO is something me little me is using to rate these fields.:D Its a first.;)
 
Question: How does this ELO system compute things like Becker's 1999 win over Hewitt or Becker's 1999 loss to Rafter? Obviously, Becker is an all-time great at Wimbledon with a high peak ELO, but he was #77 and a part-time player in 1999.
 
First question: Why can't anyone be rated before 1978?

Second question: how can peak Elo be valid for multiple years?
This is a limitation of the source for the data. Slackman could probably produced the data, but he does not. The 1978 and beyond numbers look reliable given the issue with them strarting in 1978. i think @NatF 's concerns about it building off of other players is valid. Nadal had Federer's number and I'm sure it helped his peak rating. The high numbers for the fields in the late 1980s probably show that ELO will settle down with time. I don't think inflation is an issue in the long run. Here's some discussiong from a chess site on the subject:
.....However the Elo system as used by federations around the globe does have a historical component, in that ratings are calculated by calculating a delta, a change from the previous rating.

The historically-based system has a natural tendency towards deflation. ...
http://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1632/has-there-been-much-research-on-rating-inflation

LOL. Deflation might be the issue.:rolleyes:
 
I'm trying to get a grasp on the relevance of this. Let's look at 2 all-time grass greats:

2 Stefan Edberg 2373.00 July 1, 1991

4 Boris Becker 2333.08 July 2, 1990​

So, on average, Edberg from the start of his career until 7/1/1991 was better than Becker from the start of his career until 7/2/1990. But, you could still argue that Becker had the higher peak (e.g., Wimbledon 1989) and that Becker had the overall better career on grass (because, for example, Becker made Wimbledon finals in 1991 and 1995, which aren't part of his peak ELO while Edberg made no finals after his peak ELO).

In other words, what are these ELO rankings really telling us?
 
Question: How does this ELO system compute things like Becker's 1999 win over Hewitt or Becker's 1999 loss to Rafter? Obviously, Becker is an all-time great at Wimbledon with a high peak ELO, but he was #77 and a part-time player in 1999.
Ugh. You're making me get into the black box.:mad: LOL. Before I do that and reveal an equation, my understanding is that their is a component based on the expected result based on rating coming into the match.

Remember here I am using Peak ratings. ELO does not use peak ratings for matches. Becker did not make QFs in 1999 so it does not affect my field rating. However, he's in the QFs in 1995 and 1997 and probably bumping up the graph a bit those years with his solid peak rating. This should even out a bit with lets say young with young Rafter or Philippousisisisisisisis boosting.

I'm not going to look at the ELO equation as it would handle 1999 Becker vs Hewitt and Rafter just fine using their current rating. Grass is the most shakey one because of the short season. Your question about the use of Peak ELO's is valid. I think for field strenght it tends to balance out the way I'm using it and peak may eliminate some of the shakiness inherent at using a players current ELO rating.

For predicting matches peak ELO isn't valid to use for obvious reasons. Here I think it might even be better for field strength as your examples tend to balance out with time and the fact that said player makes a QF means they must be in reasonablely good form that might not be that far from peak. If Becker is off 200 points which is a lot, he's boosting the number by 25 points. Its something, but I think the overall graph is showing the rough strength of field move up and down with the years. We've got some other views and for me something like selling Malvia Washington vs Krajicek in the final (or Chris Lewis earlier vs Mac) as a strong field just doesn't wash. Its not suprise that those weak finals also have weak fields in the QFs. Its a crude tool, but I think this is bring perspective.
 
I'm trying to get a grasp on the relevance of this. Let's look at 2 all-time grass greats:

2 Stefan Edberg 2373.00 July 1, 1991

4 Boris Becker 2333.08 July 2, 1990​

So, on average, Edberg from the start of his career until 7/1/1991 was better than Becker from the start of his career until 7/2/1990. But, you could still argue that Becker had the higher peak (e.g., Wimbledon 1989) and that Becker had the overall better career on grass (because, for example, Becker made Wimbledon finals in 1991 and 1995, which aren't part of his peak ELO while Edberg made no finals after his peak ELO).

In other words, what are these ELO rankings really telling us?
Edberg won more grass court slams.;) (4:3) He won two Wimbys over Becker. There is head to head component to this too. I would argue from points statistics that big servers like Sampras and Becker can hit higher levels because of what happens when the first serve gets hot. ELO just looks at who they were beating at the time. These rankings are very close, so I think ELO does a very good job with both and I think peak ELO is a valid stat. Who is to say that Becker couldn't have peaked in 1988 or 1990, he might have. Peak is the only source available to rate these fields and I don't think its failing the test. Becker or Edberg up or down a 100 ELO points is only 13 points in the average field rating.
 
@Gary Duane , You need to edit your post as your reply is in the quote above.:mad:

I don't think peak rating is all that bad here. If Federer at his best is 2500 and lets say we are upset using that for the 2015 final, then would 2400 be better? That's probably about right at that time with his form and that's 100 points. Using peak Fed here boosted the average field strength by 13 points. We have players in the early stages of their career where using peak inflates. These will tend to balance. I think the data is giving a very good rough picture of field strength and the trend over periods. If a year looks particularly strong or weak it can be investigated to see what might be the cause. So far, I've yet to find one example where its well off the mark for the field. If the player made the QF and remember we are talking about the field, they must have been in good form and peak rating might be a better measure than the previous year's grass ranking.

Essentially this peak ELO measure of field strength is a model and we need TTWers to test it. We need to pick we don't like the rating and then see if the model is correct or has some other issue. It looks like so far we have arguments against the following for this model of field strength:
1. the start of the ELO rankings is flawed for years since the players start at a base of 1500.
2. We have an issue with over rating the field when it has lot of young or older players in place. When this peak approach is used like on 2014; old Federer and early Raonic both pump up the average ELO of the field.

We certainly can adjust the ratings for players in a given year. Peak just feeds in easier, but its a small matter to make a correction like I did for Borg in the 1978 data where his peak grass rating was off the mark. We are allowed to adjust these. I still very much like this way of measuring field strength.
 
@Gary Duane , You need to edit your post as your reply is in the quote above.:mad:
Done. I did not have much to say there...
I don't think peak rating is all that bad here. If Federer at his best is 2500 and lets say we are upset using that for the 2015 final, then would 2400 be better?
Nothing would please me except some kind of running figure that accurately rates any player at the moment he is playing a match based on his level at that time. But that is most likely impossible.

I see Elo as another "fun toy to play with", the same as other things we play around with. I suppose the idea is to judge wins in any year as stronger or weaker according to the judged level of opponents.

But there is no control. Tennis simply does not have one. We can assume, rightly or wrongly, that the strength of thew whole field is more or less the same from era to era, or that it is not. It's a bit like the weather. The larger time period you use, the more likely that you can compare. If you are comparing 1916 to 1966 against 1966 to 2016, most likely you will get something useful. But comparing 2016 to 2015 may not get you anywhere. Just think of hurricanes in South Florida, where I live. One year can be an anomaly.

So I personally doubt that the 70s, 80s, 90s or 2000s are terribly different in terms of talent. But individual years are hugely different. One example would be in around 1982 when Borg suddenly disappeared from the scene, leaving a relative vacuum. I think the "vacuum" idea definitely applies to 2016, with both Fed and Nadal absent with injuries and now curious draws happening with players not playing right now, preparing for the Olympics.

Then there are insanely competitive years.

I would expect that 2002 was partially such a "vacuum" year. But there have been others, and Agassi going AWOL in the 90s would be perhaps another example.
That's probably about right at that time with his form and that's 100 points. Using peak Fed here boosted the average field strength by 13 points. We have players in the early stages of their career where using peak inflates. These will tend to balance.
This is the opposite of % of games, which is low at the beginning of careers. It spikes in peak years, but a peak year often follows several building years. Federer's career stats in 2004 would have been much lower than they are today. Those stats don't fall until there are a number of years factored in from the end of a career to bring it back down.

The thing I like about % of games is that so far that stat seems to closely match peak years, such as Fed's 2005 or 2006, JMac's 84, Novak's 2011 and 2015, and so on. Generally players hit a peak on games the same years that they have peak win/loss records in winning matches and winning big tournaments.
Essentially this peak ELO measure of field strength is a model and we need TTWers to test it. We need to pick we don't like the rating and then see if the model is correct or has some other issue. It looks like so far we have arguments against the following for this model of field strength:
1. the start of the ELO rankings is flawed for years since the players start at a base of 1500.
2. We have an issue with over rating the field when it has lot of young or older players in place. When this peak approach is used like on 2014; old Federer and early Raonic both pump up the average ELO of the field.
I would reject the idea of using any kind of static rating over years, just on principle. That seems to be what is going on, but I may be misunderstanding the numbers. Each of these players varies tremendously from year to year. They aren't the same player. We could, for instance, assume that the change in Novak between 2011 and 2012 in winning was only the change in other players and nothing to do with a fall in Novak's level, but I would reject that idea as both illogical and anti-intuitive.

Sometimes the eye-test makes us believe things that are not true. It is easy to make conclusions based on biases - preconceptions. But we can also tweak stats, subconsciously, to support pet theories.
We certainly can adjust the ratings for players in a given year. Peak just feeds in easier, but its a small matter to make a correction like I did for Borg in the 1978 data where his peak grass rating was off the mark. We are allowed to adjust these. I still very much like this way of measuring field strength.
Well, I can see where trying to adjust everything could be monumentally difficult. But I like the idea of data being used in a rather rigid, 100% consistent way. Whatever method is being used I would like that to remain 100% in place to test everything, then if you change the method, I would also like to see that change remain equally unchanged while testing that.
 
Done. I did not have much to say there...

Nothing would please me except some kind of running figure that accurately rates any player at the moment he is playing a match based on his level at that time. But that is most likely impossible.

I see Elo as another "fun toy to play with", the same as other things we play around with. I suppose the idea is to judge wins in any year as stronger or weaker according to the judged level of opponents.

But there is no control. Tennis simply does not have one. We can assume, rightly or wrongly, that the strength of thew whole field is more or less the same from era to era, or that it is not. It's a bit like the weather. The larger time period you use, the more likely that you can compare. If you are comparing 1916 to 1966 against 1966 to 2016, most likely you will get something useful. But comparing 2016 to 2015 may not get you anywhere. Just think of hurricanes in South Florida, where I live. One year can be an anomaly.

So I personally doubt that the 70s, 80s, 90s or 2000s are terribly different in terms of talent. But individual years are hugely different. One example would be in around 1982 when Borg suddenly disappeared from the scene, leaving a relative vacuum. I think the "vacuum" idea definitely applies to 2016, with both Fed and Nadal absent with injuries and now curious draws happening with players not playing right now, preparing for the Olympics.

Then there are insanely competitive years.

I would expect that 2002 was partially such a "vacuum" year. But there have been others, and Agassi going AWOL in the 90s would be perhaps another example.

This is the opposite of % of games, which is low at the beginning of careers. It spikes in peak years, but a peak year often follows several building years. Federer's career stats in 2004 would have been much lower than they are today. Those stats don't fall until there are a number of years factored in from the end of a career to bring it back down.

The thing I like about % of games is that so far that stat seems to closely match peak years, such as Fed's 2005 or 2006, JMac's 84, Novak's 2011 and 2015, and so on. Generally players hit a peak on games the same years that they have peak win/loss records in winning matches and winning big tournaments.

I would reject the idea of using any kind of static rating over years, just on principle. That seems to be what is going on, but I may be misunderstanding the numbers. Each of these players varies tremendously from year to year. They aren't the same player. We could, for instance, assume that the change in Novak between 2011 and 2012 in winning was only the change in other players and nothing to do with a fall in Novak's level, but I would reject that idea as both illogical and anti-intuitive.

Sometimes the eye-test makes us believe things that are not true. It is easy to make conclusions based on biases - preconceptions. But we can also tweak stats, subconsciously, to support pet theories.

Well, I can see where trying to adjust everything could be monumentally difficult. But I like the idea of data being used in a rather rigid, 100% consistent way. Whatever method is being used I would like that to remain 100% in place to test everything, then if you change the method, I would also like to see that change remain equally unchanged while testing that.
Excellent. I can't say I disagree with much.

For me ELO is just another tool and its fairly easy to use. I think for grass, peak ELO is not so bad given the difficulties with any stats on grass year to year. For me this has been a succesful attempt to model field strength on grass. We've identified the shortcomings, but they don't really blur the picture too badly. We can get into all sorts of conisderations. Federer's early years lacked another ATG to rival him and many Federer fans contend his best tennis or play may have been in 2003 to 2004 with the eye test. ELO shows that he did have some competition in these years. The Djokovic years have a lot of competiion at the top levels, but it does look like field strength is waning at the QF level. I don't think these ELO numbers can be used to say what absolutely was the strongest year.

For me this excercise (and I think we just started looking at these numbers in any detail three days ago) has been surprisingly fruitful:
1. I perceived the early 80s as a great grass court era. McEnroe, Connors, and Borg had strong reputations on the surface. This ELO surface rating has contradicted that evaluation and when we think about Chris Lewis making a final one year its downgraded that period for me.
2. Late to mid 80s to early 90s has gone up a lot. I never liked Lendl in this period, but the field strength for this time says a lot. Poor Lendl at Wimbledon lol.
3. The decline of the field during the middle and later Sampras years is even more believable when you consider that there were not a lot of great players coming into the game. Of course Pete's play and regular stats are down in the latter part of his career too.
4. I have a new respect for the earlier Federer years especially given the havoc that Poly strings may have caused for many of these players careers.
5. We are definitively in a weaker era on grass. Only Federer's resurgence has kept levels afloat. Despite Murray and Djokovic playing well, its clear that we are at best in a very normal era at the moment on grass.

Four days ago I would have denied all of the above, so this has been a great exercise and its brought my views much more in line with many of the great posters on this site. My own impressions of the game from just watching alone were not spot on. This has given me a much better appreciation of the game and its history.

Generally, I believe the overall field strength in tennis has improved with time and the level of the game. Many experienced TTW posters are quite down on the last five years and we'll see how that holds up at the other majors.

We'll see how long I hold up, but I'm afraid the US Open version of these stats is coming soon.;) With hard courts we have much better traditional data and the ELO data should be a bit better. I've got a feeling with hard that I'd rather have dynamic ELO ratings for the field rather than peak ELO, but we'll see how it holds up. The ELO crash course continues...:D
 
For convenience. Some of the grass ratings:
Pos Name Ratings Date
1 Roger Federer 2437.72 June 30, 2008
2 Stefan Edberg 2373.00 July 1, 1991
3 Pete Sampras 2366.91 June 19, 2000
4 Boris Becker 2333.08 July 2, 1990
5 Rafael Nadal 2310.64 June 27, 2011
6 John Mcenroe 2262.94 July 1, 1985
7 Pat Cash 2240.45 June 13, 1988
8 Ivan Lendl 2219.93 July 2, 1990
9 Andy Roddick 2204.18 June 27, 2005
10 Novak Djokovic 2201.15 August 4, 2012
11 Jimmy Connors 2184.19 June 27, 1983
12 Andy Murray 2182.48 August 4, 2012
13 Lleyton Hewitt 2148.25 June 16, 2003
14 Michael Stich 2144.74 June 28, 1993
15 Kevin Curren 2133.15 July 1, 1985
16 Mats Wilander 2120.44 December 3, 1984
17 Patrick Rafter 2115.82 July 2, 2001
18 Goran Ivanisevic 2105.47 July 3, 1995
19 Tim Henman 2101.24 June 28, 1999
20 Andre Agassi 2089.84 July 2, 2001
21 Todd Martin 2077.32 June 27, 1994
22 Tomas Berdych 2067.90 June 28, 2010
23 Mark Philippoussis 2066.84 June 30, 2003
24 Richard Krajicek 2053.45 June 16, 1997
25 Jo Wilfried Tsonga 2048.28 June 27, 2011
26 Johan Kriek 2032.25 December 6, 1982
27 Sebastien Grosjean 2025.16 June 27, 2005
28 Guy Forget 2024.14 June 19, 1995
29 Miloslav Mecir 2019.39 June 27, 1988
30 Bjorn Borg 2019.00 June 29, 1981
31 Jim Courier 2011.40 June 28, 1993
32 Slobodan Zivojinovic 2004.90 July 3, 1989
33 Tim Mayotte 2004.70 June 27, 1988
34 Cedric Pioline 2002.22 June 28, 1999
35 Tommy Haas 1999.63 June 29, 2009
36 Mario Ancic 1991.06 June 30, 2008
37 Richard Gasquet 1989.04 June 16, 2008
38 Wally Masur 1981.70 January 19, 1987
39 Henri Leconte 1980.38 June 30, 1986
40 Hank Pfister 1973.07 December 6, 1982
41 Greg Rusedski 1972.70 June 30, 1997
42 Sjeng Schalken 1970.05 June 30, 2003
43 Robin Soderling 1963.81 June 27, 2011
44 Thomas Johansson 1956.72 June 27, 2005
45 Wayne Ferreira 1955.08 June 27, 1994
46 Mardy Fish 1952.55 June 27, 2011
47 Juan Carlos Ferrero 1952.53 June 29, 2009
48 Jonas Bjorkman 1949.43 July 3, 2006
49 David Nalbandian 1947.21 July 3, 2006
50 Chris Lewis 1946.88 June 27, 1983

Ha just spotted Chris Lewis rating, so correcting graphics within 5 minutes (minor diff as I had him at estimated at 1900) My lookup was failing and when I searched ratings Lewis was missing so had to manually fill in that one number. The rest are 100% accurate. This list has Borg at 30 which is crazy and shows the impact of the numbers starting in 1978. I fudged Borg up to 2300, but others early ratings may be suspect for the same reason.

There's something a bit dodgy about your figures, Meles. Roddick higher on grass than Connors, Djokovic, Borg, Hewitt or Murray? Somehow, I don't think so! o_O
 
You haven't made me believe in this yet
I'm not advocating this as a tool for comparing Federer and Djokovic just yet and we have three slams to go. Before doing this exercise I though Federer faced a joke of a field and I'd argue that the two biggies in Hewitt and Roddick got hurt by Poly strings. Hewitt had consistent powerful ground strokes as a big part of his game and this and injury issues eventually brought him down. The problem for Hewitt is his strengths weren't as strong versus the rest of the tour on Poly strings. Roddicks advantages on serve may have been hurt by Poly strings helping return. This ELO exercise has changed my views. It will be interesting to see how the field rates out on other surfaces. A lack of depth would certainly help Djokovic rack things up like he's been doing. If more events were like Rome this year, it would take its toll. All this being said. Peak ELO still shows Djokovic as an incredibly strong player and maybe the strongest. So don't give up on ELO.:D
 
I'm not advocating this as a tool for comparing Federer and Djokovic just yet and we have three slams to go. Before doing this exercise I though Federer faced a joke of a field and I'd argue that the two biggies in Hewitt and Roddick got hurt by Poly strings. Hewitt had consistent powerful ground strokes as a big part of his game and this and injury issues eventually brought him down. The problem for Hewitt is his strengths weren't as strong versus the rest of the tour on Poly strings. Roddicks advantages on serve may have been hurt by Poly strings helping return. This ELO exercise has changed my views. It will be interesting to see how the field rates out on other surfaces. A lack of depth would certainly help Djokovic rack things up like he's been doing. If more events were like Rome this year, it would take its toll. All this being said. Peak ELO still shows Djokovic as an incredibly strong player and maybe the strongest. So don't give up on ELO.:D
But how much is ELO credible at this point? :D I won't give up. Do another one once the season ends. I didn't say it wasn't completely uninteresting.
 
There's something a bit dodgy about your figures, Meles. Roddick higher on grass than Connors, Djokovic, Borg, Hewitt or Murray? Somehow, I don't think so! o_O
LOL. I despise Roddick as @NatF knows. His serve is his strength much like Sampras. The Connors number might be a tad low as the Borg number is because the ELO ratings started buiding in 1978 with these numbers. Roddick made a lot of those finals because of his serve. These numbers don't have Murray 2015 in them and I did not adjust. I did bump Djokovic from just below Roddick at 2200 to 2250. I didn't bump Murray up for 2016, but I'm pretty sure a current rating would have him above Roddick. Roddick has a lot of Wimbledon finals and as a Roddick hater I was almost sick when he might have taken Federer out in 2009. Roddick's rating on grass is correct and he would have been trouble as he was for Murray in the 2009 SF (Ugh!)

Hewitt gets clobbered by ELO and I don't see a problem with Roddick having a higher peak rating given his 2004 and 2005 finals. He's still 13th overall and that's very, very good.

As a Murray fan, you should love, love ELO. He's 7th all time nudging out Connors and those are from good ELO stats from Sackmann:
http://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/...-djokovic-and-roger-federer-and-rafael-nadal/

On hard courts Sackmann has Murray 7th! The Sackmann ELO on clay which is through 2015 does not have Murray in the top ten which undercuts my Clayray blathering and I think jibes with your views.;)

If find the Borg rating interesting and it would be awesome if the ratings went back that far for this current exercise so we could truly evaluate those fields. Borg may have been cleaning up in a weak era.:eek:

I think the Connors and Borg ratings are a tad low, but witness what big serving Kevin Curren did to McEnroe and Connors in 1985. He absolutely crushed them. Roddick's serve cannot be underestimated. The rest of Roddick's game (okay return was pretty good):
vomit-into-the-toilet.gif

Roddick 2004 and 2005 on my refresher viewing list lol.
 
But how much is ELO credible at this point? :D I won't give up. Do another one once the season ends. I didn't say it wasn't completely uninteresting.
Thank your for the kind words.

I am not generating the ELO surface specific numbers, so we are at the mercy of others in the years upcoming. US Open analysis next!
 
3. I'd like to have an explanation for Sampras, but these are slam weighted peak grass ratings for players. They are set based so in bo5 a 3 set win carries more weight than a five set win. Did Sampras have some small grass events where he did very poorly every year? ELO rates Sampras as 3rd best of this era, but Edberg 2.:eek: Their ratings are almost identical.
I'd say the explanation is that there's something wrong with the metric, right? Any metric that rates Edberg better than Sampras on grass has to be wrong, just as a metric that resulted in water being dry and sand being wet would be wrong.
 
I think the Connors and Borg ratings are a tad low, but witness what big serving Kevin Curren did to McEnroe and Connors in 1985. He absolutely crushed them.
But this is where we need context. McEnroe fell off a cliff in 1985. And in 85 Connors turned 33 in September. Edberg had not hit his peak yet. Lendl was useless on grass. Borg was gone. It was at least a bit of a vacuum, and along came Becker!
 
I'd say the explanation is that there's something wrong with the metric, right? Any metric that rates Edberg better than Sampras on grass has to be wrong, just as a metric that resulted in water being dry and sand being wet would be wrong.
I agree that peak Sampras with his serve on is better. Amazingly the peak ELO for Sampras is from 2000.:confused: There numbers are very close, so Becker, Edberg, and Sampras are a virtual dead heat. I just looked at the head to head and Oldberg was 6-8 versus Sampras. They never played on grass. ELO says Edberg might be a tad bit underrated. Edberg had a great first serve return.
 
I agree that peak Sampras with his serve on is better. Amazingly the peak ELO for Sampras is from 2000.:confused: There numbers are very close, so Becker, Edberg, and Sampras are a virtual dead heat. I just looked at the head to head and Oldberg was 6-8 versus Sampras. They never played on grass. ELO says Edberg might be a tad bit underrated. Edberg had a great first serve return.
Are you using peaks instead of career totals?
 
Edberg won more grass court slams.;) (4:3) He won two Wimbys over Becker. There is head to head component to this too. I would argue from points statistics that big servers like Sampras and Becker can hit higher levels because of what happens when the first serve gets hot. ELO just looks at who they were beating at the time. These rankings are very close, so I think ELO does a very good job with both and I think peak ELO is a valid stat. Who is to say that Becker couldn't have peaked in 1988 or 1990, he might have. Peak is the only source available to rate these fields and I don't think its failing the test. Becker or Edberg up or down a 100 ELO points is only 13 points in the average field rating.

I'm not saying that Becker was definitely better than Edberg. I'm just saying that the the peak grass ELO rating doesn't answer either of the questions most people want to know: (1) Who had the better grass court peak; and (2) Who had the better grass court career? Peak grass ELO shows that Edberg from 1984-July 1, 1991 was, on average, better than Becker from 1984-July 2, 1990. But (1) Becker's Wimbledon in 1989 could have been a better peak performance than Edberg's peak performance at any grass court tournament; and (2) Becker's grass court career could have been better than Edberg's grass court career, given that Becker's grass court results from 1991 on were much better than Edberg's grass court results from 1991 on (including Wimbledon finals in 1991 and 1995 as well as a Queen's Club title -- over Edberg -- in 1996).

Now, could Edberg have had a higher grass court peak and grass court career than Becker? Sure, those are both defensible conclusions. But peak grass ELO rating doesn't directly answer either of those questions.
 
But this is where we need context. McEnroe fell off a cliff in 1985. And in 85 Connors turned 33 in September. Edberg had not hit his peak yet. Lendl was useless on grass. Borg was gone. It was at least a bit of a vacuum, and along came Becker!
I'm just saying that a big server is a dangerous thing. Becker is lucky Curren cooled off a bit for the final.

The ELO stat say Lendl was not useless on grass. He's in the top ten and the poor guy had to deal with Becker and Edberg. Curren put Connors and McEnroe out top pasture that year. And of course Becker was very good and won it the next year. Leconte, Cash, (poor) Wilander, and Mayotte made for some strong fields.
 
Are you using peaks instead of career totals?
I'm not calculating the peak ELO ratings. That is the stat available and its been put in use here. Remember, the player has to make QF to have their peak ELO used for the field. You have to be in decent form to make a QF even if your a bit over the hill or young (rarer). These discrepancies seem to balance out in the field rating. Take a look at years you know well and see if you think a given field rating is greatly off. So far, really just the early years have been bad and this is easily explained by the nature of ELO and its limitations when first being used.
 
I'm not saying that Becker was definitely better than Edberg. I'm just saying that the the peak grass ELO rating doesn't answer either of the questions most people want to know: (1) Who had the better grass court peak; and (2) Who had the better grass court career? Peak grass ELO shows that Edberg from 1984-July 1, 1991 was, on average, better than Becker from 1984-July 2, 1990. But (1) Becker's Wimbledon in 1989 could have been a better peak performance than Edberg's peak performance at any grass court tournament; and (2) Becker's grass court career could have been better than Edberg's grass court career, given that Becker's grass court results from 1991 on were much better than Edberg's grass court results from 1991 on (including Wimbledon finals in 1991 and 1995 as well as a Queen's Club title -- over Edberg -- in 1996).

Now, could Edberg have had a higher grass court peak and grass court career than Becker? Sure, those are both defensible conclusions. But peak grass ELO rating doesn't directly answer either of those questions.
ELO just says they are in the ballpark. As with other stat comparisons the tiebreaker is the serve and Becker/Sampras win the tiebreaker. A big hot serve really lets you punch through the draw and win slams.

I like the ELO numbers and where they seem a bit off when you go to head to head and other metrics, you realize that things may be closer than we thought. Becker is two years younger than Edberg, so this is not quite as easy as comparing Djokovic and Murray. I know a lot of TTWers love Becker and Sampras. ELO says hold on Edberg was close.
http://www.givemesport.com/482561-boris-becker-exclusive-stefan-edberg-was-my-toughest-rival

Edberg 3-1 in slams vs Becker. And I will say that the current surface rated ELOs are slam weighted, so that may be part of the answer. Versus Sampras in five set format, Edberg:
38/1994 Sweden v USA - DC WG - SF Carpet Stefan Edberg Pete Sampras 6-3 Retired
3/1993 SF Australian Open Hard Stefan Edberg Pete Sampras 7-6(5) 6-3 7-6(3)
36/1992 F US Open Hard Stefan Edberg Pete Sampras 3-6 6-4 7-6 6-2

Its not grass, but Edberg 3-0 vs Sampras in best of five. He not bad.:D
 
LOL. I despise Roddick as @NatF knows. His serve is his strength much like Sampras. The Connors number might be a tad low as the Borg number is because the ELO ratings started buiding in 1978 with these numbers. Roddick made a lot of those finals because of his serve. These numbers don't have Murray 2015 in them and I did not adjust. I did bump Djokovic from just below Roddick at 2200 to 2250. I didn't bump Murray up for 2016, but I'm pretty sure a current rating would have him above Roddick. Roddick has a lot of Wimbledon finals and as a Roddick hater I was almost sick when he might have taken Federer out in 2009. Roddick's rating on grass is correct and he would have been trouble as he was for Murray in the 2009 SF (Ugh!)

Hewitt gets clobbered by ELO and I don't see a problem with Roddick having a higher peak rating given his 2004 and 2005 finals. He's still 13th overall and that's very, very good.

As a Murray fan, you should love, love ELO. He's 7th all time nudging out Connors and those are from good ELO stats from Sackmann:
http://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/...-djokovic-and-roger-federer-and-rafael-nadal/

On hard courts Sackmann has Murray 7th! The Sackmann ELO on clay which is through 2015 does not have Murray in the top ten which undercuts my Clayray blathering and I think jibes with your views.;)

If find the Borg rating interesting and it would be awesome if the ratings went back that far for this current exercise so we could truly evaluate those fields. Borg may have been cleaning up in a weak era.:eek:

I think the Connors and Borg ratings are a tad low, but witness what big serving Kevin Curren did to McEnroe and Connors in 1985. He absolutely crushed them. Roddick's serve cannot be underestimated. The rest of Roddick's game (okay return was pretty good):
vomit-into-the-toilet.gif

Roddick 2004 and 2005 on my refresher viewing list lol.

Unlike you, I don't despise Roddick. He was one of my favourite players and put in some really good performances in those 3 Wimby finals especially that heartbreaker in 2009. He also has 4 Queens titles so his grasscourt record is excellent. But I don't think they can outweigh actual Wimbledon titles. It's possible I have misunderstood your stats. I just thought it rather odd, that's all. :cool:
 
Unlike you, I don't despise Roddick. He was one of my favourite players and put in some really good performances in those 3 Wimby finals especially that heartbreaker in 2009. He also has 4 Queens titles so his grasscourt record is excellent. But I don't think they can outweigh actual Wimbledon titles. It's possible I have misunderstood your stats. I just thought it rather odd, that's all. :cool:
Well the ELO goes off of matchups and also how well you do even in a loss, so Roddick going five with Federer helps him. I think with Murray's win in 2016 he's put Hewitt and Roddick in his rear view mirror. I am not calculating these peak ELOs. I will take full credit/blame for rating the fields based on peak ELO for surface; that's definitely my beloved baby.:D So the parent is going to be a bit biased for their new child.;)
 
@tennisaddict can say the same thing without a huge wall of text. Peak Federer > Peak Everyone Else.
Player Year Elo
Novak Djokovic 2016 2571 :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
Roger Federer 2007 2524
Bjorn Borg 1980 2519
John McEnroe 1985 2496
Rafael Nadal 2013 2489
Ivan Lendl 1986 2458

These are for all surfaces from 1969, so these are rock solid ELO ratings for the top 6 of the Open era (well except for Laver.;) and Sampras's clay hurts him.:()
 
ELO just says they are in the ballpark. As with other stat comparisons the tiebreaker is the serve and Becker/Sampras win the tiebreaker. A big hot serve really lets you punch through the draw and win slams.

I like the ELO numbers and where they seem a bit off when you go to head to head and other metrics, you realize that things may be closer than we thought. Becker is two years younger than Edberg, so this is not quite as easy as comparing Djokovic and Murray. I know a lot of TTWers love Becker and Sampras. ELO says hold on Edberg was close.
http://www.givemesport.com/482561-boris-becker-exclusive-stefan-edberg-was-my-toughest-rival

Edberg 3-1 in slams vs Becker. And I will say that the current surface rated ELOs are slam weighted, so that may be part of the answer. Versus Sampras in five set format, Edberg:
38/1994 Sweden v USA - DC WG - SF Carpet Stefan Edberg Pete Sampras 6-3 Retired
3/1993 SF Australian Open Hard Stefan Edberg Pete Sampras 7-6(5) 6-3 7-6(3)
36/1992 F US Open Hard Stefan Edberg Pete Sampras 3-6 6-4 7-6 6-2

Its not grass, but Edberg 3-0 vs Sampras in best of five. He not bad.:D

Ivanisevic vs. Kevin Curren might be an even clearer example of the point I'm making:

15 Kevin Curren 2133.15 July 1, 1985
18 Goran Ivanisevic 2105.47 July 3, 1995​

Ok, so your peak grass ELO ranking has Curren ranked higher than Ivanisevic based upon Kevin's grass court results from 1979-1985 vs. Goran's grass court results from 1988-1995. But, after 1985, Curren was a combined 9-8 at Wimbledon and the Australian Open (when it was on grass), with 1 QF and 1 3rd round appearance. Meanwhile, after 1995, Goran was 23-6 at Wimbledon, with a title in 2001 and a 5 set loss in the final to Sampras in 1998. Also, while it's not hugely relevant, 18-19 year-old Goran was 2-0 against 32 year-old Curren in 1990, including a win at Wimbledon.

I think that almost everyone would agree that Goran's grass court peak and career were better than Curren's grass court peak and career, and yet the peak grass ELO ranking has Curren ranked higher than Ivanisevic.
 
Last edited:
3. I'd like to have an explanation for Sampras, but these are slam weighted peak grass ratings for players. They are set based so in bo5 a 3 set win carries more weight than a five set win. Did Sampras have some small grass events where he did very poorly every year? ELO rates Sampras as 3rd best of this era, but Edberg 2.:eek: Their ratings are almost identical.

Yes, Sampras never played particularly well at other grasscourt tournaments.

At Wimbledon his overall record was 63-7 with 7 titles. At Queens, his record was 28-10 with 2 titles. He also played Halle once (1-1 record) and Manchester once (4-1 record) with no titles at either.

It's a consequence of the focus on Slams - other tournaments were treated as time to practice and get ready for the REAL deal. He won Wimbledon literally half the times he played it, but only won 2 titles out of the 14 times he played minor grass-court events.
 
Ivanisevic vs. Kevin Curren might be an even clearer example of the point I'm making:

15 Kevin Curren 2133.15 July 1, 1985
18 Goran Ivanisevic 2105.47 July 3, 1995​

Ok, so your peak grass ELO ranking has Curren ranked higher than Ivanisevic based upon Kevin's grass court results from 1979-1985 vs. Goran's grass court results from 1988-1995. But, after 1985, Curren was a combined 9-8 at Wimbledon and the Australian Open (when it was on grass), with 1 QF and 1 3rd round appearance. Meanwhile, after 1995, Goran was 23-6 at Wimbledon, with a title in 2001 and a 5 set loss in the final to Sampras in 1998. Also, while it's not hugely relevant, 18-19 year-old Goran was 2-0 against 32 year-old Curren in 1990, including a win at Wimbledon.

I think that almost everyone would agree that Goran's grass court peak and career were better than Curren's grass court peak and career, and yet the peak grass ELO ranking has Curren ranked higher than Ivanisevic.
LOL. Kevin Curren was a God at 1985 Wimbledon. It was an amazing performance. I never saw him play anywhere near like that in the rest of his career. He absolutely destroyed Conners and McEnroe. Becker never would have beaten that Curren. Sadly youtubers don't show McEnroe and Connors bad defeats. Goran was a fine player, but he never played like that.
 
Yes, Sampras never played particularly well at other grasscourt tournaments.

At Wimbledon his overall record was 63-7 with 7 titles. At Queens, his record was 28-10 with 2 titles. He also played Halle once (1-1 record) and Manchester once (4-1 record) with no titles at either.

It's a consequence of the focus on Slams - other tournaments were treated as time to practice and get ready for the REAL deal. He won Wimbledon literally half the times he played it, but only won 2 titles out of the 14 times he played minor grass-court events.
Well that hurts him some. These grass stats are slam weighted so the damage is not too bad. We just have to adjust for this in our minds and know that any stats based rating of Sampras won't show his true worth at majors. You can't blow up the model for one player. At least ELO grass stats have him 3rd.

I don't know if peak Sampras would beat peak Federer, but in almost any other measure it appears Federer would have won more, even if their careers had been at the same time. Federer's great first return and overall return game would have put all sorts of pressure on Pete and vice versa. Fed's early, early victory in 2001 is impressive. Both players were no where near peak, but Fed deposed the defending champion. If their careers had been superimposed, Grandpaerer would have had a romp in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Sampras is a real conundrum for ELO. His own performance on tour waters down his numbers and hurts the field numbers some, but it sure looks like the tour was weak on grass in the late 1990s and earliest 2000s. This really calls into question the greatness of Sampras. I wonder how he will fare on the hard court numbers and US Open?
I am rabble rousing a bit to get someone to question all of this.;)
 
I'm just saying that a big server is a dangerous thing. Becker is lucky Curren cooled off a bit for the final.

The ELO stat say Lendl was not useless on grass. He's in the top ten and the poor guy had to deal with Becker and Edberg. Curren put Connors and McEnroe out top pasture that year. And of course Becker was very good and won it the next year. Leconte, Cash, (poor) Wilander, and Mayotte made for some strong fields.
"Useless" is a relative term. There is quite a list of great players who could not win a slam. But Lend could still have won the AO, also on grass through 1987. In those days players had two cracks yearly at a slam on grass. Admittedly ATP stats don't give a very good view of his career, starting in 1991, but even so he was actually slightly below 50% on grass for games. For that same late period I think he remained at around 56% of games on HCs.

No way I accept Lendl as top 10 on grass at peak level compared to other players at peak level.
 
Sampras is a real conundrum for ELO. His own performance on tour waters down his numbers and hurts the field numbers some, but it sure looks like the tour was weak on grass in the late 1990s and earliest 2000s. This really calls into question the greatness of Sampras.
You won't get answers to Sampras just with Elo. Dominance goes up on clay, then down some on HCs, then further down on grass, which is why you really have to compare records on surfaces. Margins get smaller and smaller as you move towards very fast surfaces. This same trend also shows up on the same surface with different styles of play.

In terms of winning games, Lendl killed everyone on HCs. I suspect he might have close to the most number of HC slams in the Open era if the AO had always been played on HCs. Agassi leads everyone with 72% of games won at the AO, but Lendl is in the next three places. Federer doesn't show up until #16, the AO, 2004. then at #19 at the USO in 2006.

Sampras is WAY down the list.

But let's think about style of play. Lendl was much more like Djokovic and Murray. Sampras was closest to modern day servebots, but with a much better defensive game.

Is Elo going to take this into consideration? Is anything going to show the difference in margins? My stats don't. I just know that dominant servers can and do win slams on smaller margin. I think we all know this, intuitively.

I don't think it's any coincidence that Ivanisevic won Wimbledon with smaller margins than any other champion at any slam. Who's on top? Borg, Nadal and Vilas, all on clay.

So far none of my stats explain the top gear of Sampras, and I suspect this is probably equally true of Laver.
 
Last edited:
"Useless" is a relative term. There is quite a list of great players who could not win a slam. But Lend could still have won the AO, also on grass through 1987. In those days players had two cracks yearly at a slam on grass. Admittedly ATP stats don't give a very good view of his career, starting in 1991, but even so he was actually slightly below 50% on grass for games. For that same late period I think he remained at around 56% of games on HCs.

No way I accept Lendl as top 10 on grass at peak level compared to other players at peak level.
The peak rating for Lendl is from July 2, 1990. Lendl knocked off McEnroe and Becker that year in route to Queens club. Becker probably had a very fat grass rating coming into Queens (career about 150 points above Lendl.) I don't see anyone screaming to be above him other than perhaps Murray whose 2016 result probably gives him a higher peak. Djokovic is also under rated as 2014 and 2015 are not shown. I adjusted Djokovic to 2250 provisionally already based on this which puts him ahead of Lendl. Considering Lendl had to deal with Edberg and Becker perhaps he should be seen as capable of winning Wimbledon in another era. Lendl thought he could win it, even skipping the French Open in 1990 and 1991. Lendl almost won Australia in 1985 losing to champ Edberg in 5 sets in the SF. Lendl was horrible at Wimbledon from 1991 onwards. I'm sure Grassdal's recent grass stats are pretty grueusome despite winning Stuttgart last year. ELO and Ivan say you're wrong Gary.o_O
 
Back
Top