Tennis Frontier

Tag: pete sampras

American Hope – Is Men’s Tennis in the US on the Rise?

A few years ago I wrote a couple blog articles on the sad state of American tennis, one a bit more straightforward—Houston, We Have a Problem—and one a bit more mythological: American Men’s Tennis and the Cycle of Ages. At the time of those writings, August of 2013, there wasn’t a lot to be excited about. Andy Roddick had retired and the last truly great American men’s player, Andre Agassi, had retired in 2006. The top American players at the time of the former article were (with their ages at the time in parentheses):

14. John Isner (28)
29. Sam Querrey (25)
87. Jack Sock (20)
92. Michael Russell (35)
97. Ryan Harrison (21)
100. James Blake (33)

Sock and Harrison looked vaguely promising, but Harrison (now 24) continued to stagnate and is ranked #90, and Sock (now 23) slowed his development and seems to have peaked as a top 20-30 type.

Here’s an update, the 2016 year-end top 100 Americans:
19. John Isner (31)
23. Jack Sock (24)
31. Sam Querrey (29)
33. Steve Johnson (26)
76. Taylor Fritz (19)
88. Donald Young (27)
90. Ryan Harrison (24)

As you can see, it doesn’t look much better than three years ago. Isner remains the top American and he’s just barely hanging on to a top 20 ranking. There’s a bit more meet in the middle, with four Americans in or close to the top 30, where three years ago there were only two. And there’s Fritz, who is the brightest young American player in years. On the surface it looks like Sock was only a year older but ranked similarly to Fritz, but in actuality he was almost two years older, so Fritz’s ranking is far more impressive.

But the top 100 only tells part of the story. Let’s compare the top ranked Americans age 21 and under in 2016 with those in the year-end in 2013:

2013
100. Ryan Harrison (21)
102. Jack Sock (21)
114. Denis Kudla (21)
306. Bjorn Fratangelo (20)
437. Christian Harrison (19)
476. Mitchell Krueger (19)
573. Marcus Giron (20)
594. Evan King (20)

2016
76. Taylor Fritz (19)
105. Jared Donaldson (20)
108. Frances Tiafoe (18)
116. Stefan Kozlov (18)
141. Ernesto Escebedo (20)
198. Michael Mmoh (18)
200. Noah Rubin (20)
204. Reilly Opelka (19)

I picked eight players for each to give a sense of the depth of 2016’s field. As you can see, there is much more to be excited about now than there was three years ago. Looking solely on my “Pace of Greatness” theory, Fritz and Tiafoe have already accomplished the first benchmark: ranking in the top 100 as 18-year olds. Kozlov is very close, and Mmoh has an outside chance. But the main point is that even if none of these eight players become true greats, there is a lot more talent there than in 2013.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iciaF8VryAU
Let’s go back a bit further. Starting in the late 90s and into the early 00s, there was a talented group of young Americans: James Blake, Andy Roddick, Taylor Dent, Mardy Fish, and Robby Ginepri. Ginepri and Dent had decent but unspectacular careers: Ginepri won an ATP 500 and reached the 2005 US Open semifinal, ranking as high as #15, and Dent won four titles and ranked as high as #21. Fish was better, finishing 2011 #8 in the world and reaching several Slam quarterfinals and Masters finals, but never winning more than an ATP 250 level tournament (he won six); his career was marred and shortened by a heart condition. Roddick was a Slam winner and #1, and perhaps the player who suffered most from Roger Federer’s dominance. James Blake had some good years, peaking in his late 20s, and was probably slightly better than Fish, and thus the distance second behind Roddick among this group.

After the group who came of age in the early 2000s, you get to players like John Isner, Sam Querrey, Brian Baker, and Donald Young. Isner is the best of the bunch, a third tier player who has spent many years in the top 20 but only just barely sniffed the top 10. Querrey is something of a disappointment, looking promising in his early 20s but stagnating; Baker never amounted to much, and the fact that I used Young as the emblematic player of the generation of players born from 1989-93 should speak volumes. I think we can safely say that the current crop of young Americans is the best such group that we’ve seen in at least fifteen years.

Going back before Roddick’s era, the mid-to-late 90s also didn’t see much in the way of American talent, with players like Vince Spadea, Jan-Michael Gambill and Justin Gimelstob being the top ranked young Americans. Gambill and Spadea were solid players who spent some time in the top 20, but never in the top 10 or with major titles.

We have to go all the way back to the early 90s to find a generation of truly great young Americans. Check out the American men age 21 and under in the top 100 in 1990:

1990
4. Andre Agassi (20)
5. Pete Sampras (19)
15. Michael Chang (18)
25. Jim Courier (20)
27. David Wheaton (21)
93. MaliVai Washington (21)

Sampras and Agassi are, along with Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, two of four truly great American men’s players of the Open Era. Jim Courier won four Slams and remains the youngest player (at age 22 years and 11 months) to have appeared in the finals of all four Slams, and was #1 for 58 weeks; Michael Chang was also a Slam winner and perennial top 10 player, with 34 titles and 7 Masters to his name. Even David Wheaton won the prestigious Grand Slam Cup title and ranked as high as #12, and Washington is known for his run at the 1996 Wimbledon (he lost to Richard Krajicek in the final). Overall we probably haven’t seen a crop of this kind of talent coming up at the same time from any country.

In Conclusion
Let me be clear: I am not predicting that the current crop of young Americans is on par with that group from 1990, but what I am saying is that we have to go back to 1990 to find a more promising group of Americans in terms of youth and rankings. If you go back to that 2016 21-and-under rankings list, there probably isn’t an Andre Agassi or Pete Sampras in that group, but there could be an Andy Roddick, a Michael Chang, even a Jim Courier, or at least several players akin to Todd Martin or Mardy Fish. In other words, American men’s tennis is on the rise and looks more promising now than it has in at least 15 years, and possibly more like 25 years.

There is hope!

Cover photo from Wikimedia Commons courtesy of the Creative Commons License.

December 10, 2016
Open Era Generations, Part Ten: Gen 8 (1969-73) – American Supernova
Last of the Great Americans
The United States has always been central to men’s tennis, from early greats like Richard Sears, William Larned, and Bill Tilden to the “golden age” of the 30s to 50s, with stars like Ellsworth Vines, Don Budge, Bobby Riggs, Jack Kramer, and the great Pancho Gonzales. American men’s tennis dipped in the 60s and then resurged with Stan Smith and Arthur Ashe being the harbingers of the first Open Era superstar, Jimmy Connors. Jimmy passed the baton to John McEnroe, who in turn passed it to Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras, the twin stars of Gen 8.

This was the last great—and probably greatest—generation of American men’s tennis. This generation included two (Sampras and Agassi) of the four greatest Open Era Americans (along with Connors and McEnroe), as well as a strong supporting duo in Jim Courier and Michael Chang.

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Click here to discuss “Open Era Generations, Part Ten” in the discussion forum.

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Players by Birth Year
1969: Cedric Pioline (FRA), MaliVai Washington (USA), Alberto Mancini (ARG), David Wheaton (USA)
1970: Andre Agassi (USA, 8), Jim Courier (USA, 4), Todd Martin (USA), Marc Rosset (SWI), Magnus Larsson (SWE)
1971: Pete Sampras (USA, 14), Goran Ivanisevic (CRO, 1), Sergi Bruguera (ESP, 2), Richard Krajicek (NED, 1), Wayne Ferreira (SAF)
1972: Michael Chang (USA, 1), Patrick Rafter (AUS, 2), Jonas Bjorkman (SWE)
1973: Greg Rusedski (CAN/UK), Alberto Berasategui (ESP), Albert Portas (ESP)

Discussion
This was a very talented generation, with 33 Slams distributed among eight players, including two who could be considered all-time greats and three other multi-Slam winners.

It is easy to forget how good Courier was for a few years, as he was historically well overshadowed by Sampras and Agassi. He was a player who wasn’t as naturally gifted as his contemporaries, but played his heart out to the tune of four Slam titles, all within 1991-93. He finished 1992 as the year-end No. 1, then 1993 as year-end No. 3, and then finished in the Top 10 only once more, in 1995, despite playing through the decade.

Pete Sampras was to the 90s what Roger Federer was to the 00s: the premier player by a good margin. He was never able to win the French Open — not even coming close, really — but he dominated Wimbledon with seven titles and the US Open with five. While some might look at his Slam performance record and think that it doesn’t compare to those of the recent three greats because of Sampras never winning more than two Slams in a year, and with plenty of first week losses even in his prime, it must be understood that the tennis of the 90s was a more diverse game in terms of the courts, before the surface homogenization that has taken place over the last decade or so.

Sampras was also considered by many to be the best player of the Open Era until Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic came along. He was such a dangerous player; one of his most notable skills was his incredible second serve, known to deliver many an ace. The lone match between Sampras and Federer is must-watch tennis:

Andre Agassi was no less memorable than Sampras, although more for his storied career than his play – although he was a great player, just not on the level of Sampras. Andre essentially had two careers: the first being a fiery and troubled youth who finished in the Top 100 at age 16 in 1986, although did not win his first Slam until six years later in 1992. Andre’s career unraveled in 1997 when he played only 13 tournaments and dropped to No. 110. He came back slowly at first in 1998, but then had his best year in 1999, winning two Slams and earning the year-end No. 1 ranking. He was the elder statesman of the game in the early 00s, for a few years after Sampras had retired, becoming the oldest player to be ranked No. 1 in 2003 at the geriatric age of 33, remaining in the Top 10 past the page of 35.

Underachievers and Forgotten Players
There is no clear player in this generation that I’d call an underachiever, although many players who have glimmerings of it. Agassi was an underachiever in his youth, but made up for it later on. I cannot remember the source, but I believe it was an interview on NPR in which Andre stated that he hated tennis and resented his family for pushing him into it – at least early on. Michael Chang could also be considered an underachiever in that he won his only Slam at the tender age of 17, but his overall skill set was more comparable to the better Slam-less players and overall he had an excellent career.

Jim Courier is an interesting case in that he could be considered both an under- and overachiever. He is an underachiever if you look at his career through 1993 when he turned 23, which included four Slams and a year-end No. 1 in ’92, and compare it to 1994 onward – when he never won a Slam or even made it to another final. But he could be considered an overachiever in that for those few years in 1991-93 he maximized his modest talent and was one of the best players in the game.

Two other players that come to mind, who probably fit the term better: Goran Ivanisevic, who had the skill-set to be a dominant grass and fast-court player but only won a single Wimbledon; and Richard Krajicek, an almost great but flawed player who was the only peer of Sampras to have a winning record against the generation’s greatest player, but only a single Slam winner.

Did You Know?
One of my favorite stories from this generation is the tale of Goran Ivanisevic – one of the greatest servers in the history of the game, and one of the ten or so best players of the 90s. Imagine Ivanisevic in 2000: he ended the year 29 years old, had seen his ranking fall each year from No. 4 in 1996 to No. 129 in 2000. The big Croat had lost the three Slam finals he had played in, all at Wimbledon – one to Agassi, two to Sampras. 2001 looked to be no different. He went out in the first round of qualifications at the Australian Open, didn’t play in the French Open, and entered Wimbledon ranked No. 125. He then proceeded to plow his way through the rounds, defeating everyone from Carlos Moya to an 18-year old Andy Roddick, Greg Rusedski, Marat Safin, Tim Henman, and then finally facing–and defeating–third seed Patrick Rafter in the final in five sets, becoming the first wildcard ever to win Wimbledon. I guess it is never too late; Ivanisevic should remain an inspirational story for Slam-less players in the twilights of their careers.

Top Ten Players of the Generation
1. Pete Sampras
2. Andre Agassi
3. Jim Courier
4. Michael Chang
5. Patrick Rafter
6. Goran Ivanisevic
7. Sergi Bruguera
8. Richard Krajicek
9. Todd Martin
10. Wayne Ferreira
Honorable Mentions: Cedric Pioline, Greg Rusedski, Jonas Bjorkman.

The top three are very easy to rank. After that you could make an argument for different orders of numbers 4-7, although I like Chang’s longevity better than the other three. Chang was, in a way, the 90s version of David Ferrer, but if Ferrer had managed to sneak a Slam in. Rafter won two Slams, but had a relatively short career. Sergi Bruguera was the definition of a clay-court specialist. He won two French Opens, made the final of another and the semifinal of a fourth, yet never made it past the 4th round at any other Slam.

Richard Krajicek is an interesting player in that he is one of the few to own a winning record against Pete Sampras, including beating him in the quarterfinal of the 1996 Wimbledon en route to his lone Slam title. It was Sampras’ only loss at Wimbledon between 1993 and 2000. After Krajicek, I ranked Martin and Ferreira in the top 10, but the honorable mentions are all close.

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Cover Photo (Creative Commons License): Chris Josefy / James Marvin Phelps / shinyasuzuki
January 11, 2016
National Tennis Careers – Part One: United States
Introduction to the Series

Imagine if each country had a tennis career. Rather than individual players, you have nationalities; rather than an individual career, you have a national one. As a thought experiment, I decided to compile the top Slam-winning countries in Open Era history, from the 1968 French Open to the 2015 French Open. How would these “national careers” look, as if they had careers spanning 48 years? What would their stories be? I looked at and compiled the best results from players of a given nationality, created a “national career chart” for the Open Era, and in doing so gained a deeper understanding of the history of men’s tennis. I’d like to share that research and understanding with you.

For this exercise I looked at the top five nations by Open Era Slams: The United States (51), Sweden (25), Spain (21), Australia (20), and Switzerland (19). Beyond those five, only Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic has double digits (12); Serbia (8), Germany (7), Argentina (6), Russia (4), and Brazil (3) all have more than two. The countries with two are Croatia, Romania, South Africa, and the United Kingdom; the countries with one are Austria, Ecuador, France, Italy, and the Netherlands.

This will be a six-part series, the first five articles covering the “Big Five” tennis nations, and the sixth part being a summarization, with a look at recent years and some thoughts about the game going forward. Look for further installments every few days to a week through June and July.

In each article I will briefly overview the trajectory of the nation during the Open Era, looking at the top players and compiling a Top 10 list for each nation. For these lists I am using a statistical system that takes into account Slam results, titles, and rankings. For the most part I am faithful to the system, although in one or two cases I add a subjective element – usually as a tiebreaker. Also, for these lists I am including some players who played before the Open Era, but only those players that played a significant portion of their careers in the Open Era. Finally, I will look at the current national players, including a glimpse at any potential up-and-comers.

On to the New World…

PART ONE: THE UNITED STATES

RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

The United States is the greatest tennis nation of the Open Era–actually, tennis history as a whole–and it isn’t particularly close: With 51 Slam titles during the Open Ea they have more than any other two nations combined, and include greats and multi-Slam winners such as Pete Sampras (14), Andre Agassi (8), Jimmy Connors (8), and John McEnroe (7), as well as lesser greats such as Jim Courier (4), Arthur Ashe (3), Stan Smith (2), and single Slam winners Roscoe Tanner, Vitas Gerulaitis, Brian Teacher, Michael Chang, and Andy Roddick.

Now let’s take a look at the performance timeline:

As you can see, there’s a build-up in the early years of the Open Era with Stan Smith and Arthur Ashe being among the best players in the sport, that blossomed with the first great American phase of Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, who together won 15 Slams between 1974 and 1984.

After that there was a lull in the mid-to-late 80s as Connors and McEnroe declined, until Michael Chang won his lone Slam in 1989, the harbinger of the second great American era of Courier-Sampras-Agassi that dominated the 90s and into the new century. Finally we have a last gasp in 2003, with Agassi winning the Australian Open and Andy Roddick winning the US Open, and decline since then. Roddick retired in 2012 as the last Slam-winning American. His last Slam final appearance was the epic 2009 Wimbledon, and since then an American has only reached the second week of a Slam three times.

Top 10 Americans of the Open Era
1. Pete Sampras
2. Jimmy Connors
3. John McEnroe
4. Andre Agassi
5. Arthur Ashe
6. Jim Courier
7. Andy Roddick
8. Stan Smith
9. Michael Chang
10. Vitas Gerulaitis
Honorable Mentions: Roscoe Tanner, Brian Gottfried, Harold Solomon, Todd Martin, Eddie Dibbs, Cliff Richey, Brad Gilbert, Aaron Krickstein, Brian Teacher, Tim Mayotte, Gene Mayer, Bob Lutz, Jimmy Arias, Marty Riessen, Eliot Teltscher, Tom Gorman, James Blake, Steve Denton, MaliVai Washington, Bill Scanlon, Dick Stockton, Tim Gullikson, Mel Purcell, Mardy Fish, John Isner.

Determining the Top 10 greatest American players was relatively easy as there is a drop-off from Gerulaitis to the rest of the pack. That said, the Americans are so strong that there are several players not in the Top 10—namely Tanner, Gottfried, Solomon, and Martin—that would be in the Top 10 of any other nation, with the possible exception of Spain.

Clearly the Top 4 are relatively easy, although some might quibble about the order of Connors, McEnroe, and Agassi. But using my system, Connors is actually closer to Sampras than he is to the rest, while McEnroe just edges Agassi. Further down we become more controversial. Courier had a higher peak than Ashe, but Ashe was good for so long; those two are also very close, but the edge goes to Ashe. Roddick, Smith, and Chang are also very close and most might rank Smith higher than Roddick due to his better peak, but I ranked them according to my system, which acknowledges that despite being dominated by Roger Federer, Roddick was still one of the best players in the sport for a decade. Finally, Gerulaitis is a big step behind the first nine, but even further ahead of No. 11 (Roscoe Tanner).

Pre-Open Era Greats
American greatness in men’s tennis did not start with Jimmy Connors, or even his precursors, Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith. While this series focuses on the Open Era, it would be remiss on my part not to mention some of the best players before the Open Era: Bill Johnston, Bill Tilden, Ellsworth Vines, Don Budge, Jack Kramer, Tony Trabert, Bobby Riggs, Pancho Segura, Vic Seixas, and Pancho Gonzales. Tilden, Gonzales, and Budge are probably all among the dozen or so greatest players in tennis history, with Vines, Kramer, and Riggs not too far behind.

Pancho Gonzales in particular remains one of the most underrated all-time greats, perhaps mainly because he only won two Grand Slams. But he also won 12 Pro Slams and the Tournament of Champions three times, so essentially has 17 Majors to his name – as many as Roger Federer, and more than any player other than Ken Rosewall and Rod Laver. Gonzales was almost certainly the greatest player of the 1950s, just as Rod Laver was of the 1960s (with Ken Rosewall bridging the two decades as second fiddle to both). I place Gonzales, Tilden, and Sampras as the Trinity of greatest American tennis players, with Budge, Connors, McEnroe, and Agassi after them, then Vines, Kramer, Trabert, Riggs, Segura, Seixas, Ashe, and Courier following in some order.

But the key here is to get a sense that American greatness in men’s tennis goes back virtually to the beginning of the sport. Richard Sears won the first seven US Opens, from 1881 to 1887, although it wasn’t until 1908 that an American won a Slam outside of the US–John Alexander at the Australian Open–and not until 1920 when an American first won Wimbledon, the great Bill Tilden. The first American to win the French Open was Don Budge in 1938. The United States remained dominant through the 1950s, until a pair of Aussies led the way for dominance from Down Under…but more on that in a later installment.

Will the Empire Rise Again?
Other than Roddick, American tennis has been slim since the retirement of Andre Agassi. Consider also that in 1990 fully 35 of the Top 100 were Americans; today it is only six, and none in the Top 10. Players such as James Blake, Mardy Fish, and John Isner have been decent but unremarkable. Some players such as Donald Young, Sam Querrey, and Ryan Harrison have displayed varying degrees of promise but have all disappointed in different ways.

What about the future? Is there any hope? First of all, let’s look at the Americans currently in the Top 100, as of June 8:

18. John Isner (30)
31. Jack Sock (22)
39. Sam Querrey (27)
51. Steve Johnson (25)
57. Donald Young (25)
72. Tim Smyczek (27)

Given their ages, the only player who looks to have solid upside is Jack Sock, who is memorable for his solid run at Roland Garros this year, defeating Grigor Dimitrov, Pablo Carreno Busta, and Borna Coric before being defeated by Rafael Nadal in the fourth round. While it seems unlikely that Sock will become an elite player, he at least seems like a probable Top 20 regular, and perhaps could challenge for a spot in the Top 10. But it seems very unlikely that Sock will rise above the level of Fish, Isner, and Blake.

What about younger players? Beyond the Top 100 there are two that are especially worth taking note of: 18-year-old Jared Donaldson, currently ranked No. 152, and 17-year-old Francis Tiafoe, ranked No. 279. Clearly these two are a long ways from making a mark, but Donaldson is just around the corner, and Tiafoe has only just gone pro and is showing promise. Keep your eyes on these two. Also on the radar is 21-year-old Bjorn Fratangelo, ranked No. 144 – but he needs to move fast if he’s going to make his mark.

Summation
American men’s tennis clearly saw its golden age from the early 70s to the early 00s, but has really been in a slump for over a decade now. While it may be that American tennis will never regain its glory, it is worth mentioning that there have been slumps before. After dominance in the 1930s to 50s, from Bill Tilden to Pancho Gonzales, the Australians took the mantle during the late 50s and 60s before Ashe and Smith, and then more fully Jimmy Connors, took it back in the 1970s. Yet unlike that era, when fading great Pancho Gonzales played long enough–into his mid-40s–to see Jimmy Connors emerge, there are no elder statesmen to pass the mantle – Agassi is ten years gone; even lesser great Andy Roddick has been gone for almost three years now (can you believe it?).

So it seems that we’re left with a moderate view: that American tennis will probably not return to its dominant position in the sport any time soon, but that better days are ahead.

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Cover Photo (Creative Commons License): robbiesaurus / bootbearwdc / craigoneal
June 11, 2015
Has Rafa Improved Since He Was 19? / Jonathan Northrop

The Spanish Meteor
I realize the question must seem silly and/or rhetorical, but bear with me. As I was reading through some conversations about Rafael Nadal on the Tennis Frontier discussion forums and looking at his career statistics page on Wikipedia, as I often do when discussion of a specific player comes up, I noticed something about Rafa. It is well-known that he had a meteoric rise to the top at a very young age, without the usual long developmental phase that most players go through. He went from around No. 50 in the rankings for a couple years to No. 2 the year he turned 19 years old. Think about that for a moment – that would be like 19-year-old Nick Kyrgios being the No. 2 player in the world right now, or Borna Coric next year — or Grigor Dimitrov four years ago!

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Click here to discuss “Has Rafa Improved Since He Was 19?” in the discussion forum.

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But that wasn’t anything new. The thought, or question, that came to me is whether or not, or to what degree, Rafa has improved since that amazing 2005 season? I had noticed his pattern before, but I hadn’t given much thought to it, so I decided to investigate a bit and see what the data tells us.

Developmental Patterns
To start, let’s compare his developmental pattern to those of the other three of the four very greatest players of the last 25 years (I’m deliberately ignoring Andre Agassi because his developmental rise–while early–was extremely unusual and fraught with “off court” issues, and I’m not looking before this era because the further back you go, the less similar the game is).

Player: Year-end Rank From Age 18-22
Nadal: 51, 2, 2, 2, 1
Federer: 64, 29, 13, 6, 2
Djokovic: 78, 16, 3, 3, 3
Sampras: 81, 5, 6, 3, 1

Notice how all four were ranked roughly similarly at age 18, all between No. 51 and No. 81. But starting with age 19 we can pair Rafa and Pete on one hand, and Roger and Novak on the other. The former pair went straight from the latter half of the Top 100 to the Top 5. To put that in a current context, that would be as if Borna Coric–who will finish this year ranked No. 91–rises into the Top 5, or at least Top 10 next year. We can only hope, but it seems extremely unlikely.

Roger and Novak, on the other hand, had a kind of “beachhead” year – Roger rising to No. 29 at age 19, Novak to No. 16. Actually, Roger had a second beachhead year, finishing his age 20 season at No. 13, and a “semi-beachhead” year at age 21, finishing No. 6. Roger’s rise to greatness was notoriously gradual, at least compared to other all-time greats. He didn’t win a Slam until just before his 22nd birthday; consider that Rafa won his fourth Slam just after turning 22.

These rankings are, of course, merely a reflection of performance, so if we look at titles Rafa was extremely successful in 2005, winning 11 titles – the most of his career. And this wasn’t a lightweight title season: not only did he win his first of nine French Opens, but he also won four Masters tournaments.

But those were surely all clay court tournaments, right? Actually, no. Of the four Masters titles, two were on hard courts: the Rogers Cup, in which he beat a 35-year-old Andre Agassi, 16 years older than Nadal; and the Madrid Masters, the indoor hard-court version that was replaced by the Shanghai Masters in 2009. So even in 2005, Rafa was able to perform at an elite level outside of the clay courts. This was further solidified in 2006 at the Slams. After he won his second French Open that year, he was going into Wimbledon with only two second-week Slam appearances, his two Roland Garros titles. But then he made it to the Wimbledon final and the US Open quarterfinal, cementing his all-surface elite status.

Let us turn our gaze to winning percentage. Take a look at the four players, from age 18 to 27 (I stop at 27 because all four have played through that age, and beyond isn’t really relevant):

Here we see four subtly, but still distinctly different developmental patterns. All jumped in performance level from age 18-19. But as you can see, Rafa was pretty steady from that point onward (and off the chart is 2014, in which he had an 81% – his worst since 2004, but still roughly within range of the rest of this chart). He fluctuated, of course, but whereas the others all had some variation of rise, peak, and plateau, Rafa’s pattern has been more up and down within an early peak-plateau range. Also, notice how the 2005-14 range has no winning percentages in the 84-87 range; it is either a “down” year of 81-83 or an “up” year of 88-91.

Roger’s is a classic curve: a steady rise, high peak, and then descent to an up-and-down late-career plateau that continues to this day. Sampras was kind of a hybrid of Nadal and Federer: a quick rise, long peak-plateau, then decline. Novak has an interesting early plateau in his early 20s, and then a rise at age 24, his legendary 2011 season.

Putting It All Together
So what does this data tell us? First, what it can’t tell us are all the changes to Rafa’s game, whether we’re talking micro-adjustments or larger ones. We know, for instance, that his serve improved in 2010, probably his best overall year, but then has slipped again over the last few years. But the numbers don’t tell us about his real game, the sweat and focus and will that happens on court. But what it does tell us is that regardless of how his game has changed, his overall performance level has been very similar since breaking through as an elite player in 2005 at the tender age of 19.

That said, there is another–perhaps more nuanced–narrative that should be brought forth, which is that while he was great from 2005-07, he was still “unfinished” and, in particular, learning to establish himself off clay. His 2005 winning percentage is inflated by the fact that he played 52 matches on clay, or 58.4% of his total matches, compared to 26 in 2006 (36.6%) and 32 in 2007 (37.6%). So while his overall winning percentage dipped, a lot of that was because of fewer clay courts (although interestingly enough, his record on hards was actually better in 2005 than 2006-07).

To continue the narrative, Rafa was still developing in 2005-07 and then came more fully into his own in 2008 at the age of 21-22, when we saw a more “complete” Rafa. This was Rafa in his prime, finally and fully. 2009 saw two bumps in the road, one being injury and the other being Robin Soderling. Yet he regained his balance in 2010, having his best year of all. And then in 2011 Novak Djokovic had a season for the ages, and while Rafa was probably just as good as he had been the previous year, he couldn’t get around Novak. In 2010 Rafa was 2-0 against the Serb, but in 2011 he was 0-5. Now here’s where it gets very interesting: If we take those matches out of his record for both years, we get the exact same record. Take a look:

2010 – with Novak: 71-10 (88%), without Novak: 69-10 (87%)
2011 – with Novak: 69-15 (82%), without Novak: 69-10 (87%)

In other words, Rafa was virtually the same in 2011 as he had been in 2010; it is just that Novak had his number. Rafa turned the tables in 2012 and they’ve been relatively even since, with Rafa having a slight edge at 7-6 since 2012. Aside from his rivalry with Novak, after his injury in 2012 Rafa rose again in 2013 and then struggled in 2014.

In summarizing Rafa’s trajectory, we see a quick rise to elite status in 2005 and then a kind of plateau as he worked on aspects of his game, rising to the very top in 2008. From that point on, he was on a higher level of play, but suffered various setbacks that reduced his overall performance level and thus lend credence to the argument that he reached his peak level in 2005 and hasn’t improved since. But I think the answer to the original question is that yes, he has improved since he was 19 in 2005, although perhaps not as much as players like Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, both of whom have followed more traditional “curved” career patterns.

In a way, Rafael Nadal was like some kind of Mediterranean demigod, born (nearly) fully formed, (nearly) perfect. Yet like the demigods of myth, he has suffered hardship and challenges, and the end results fluctuated with life’s trials and tribulations.

Addendum: Rafa’s Alleged “Decline”
Rafa’s demise has been long-prophesied but never fulfilled. He has always managed to comeback, to rise again as if from the ashes and reclaim his status as one of the very best in the game, certainly the best at times. Yet we cannot ignore the fact that time catches up to us all. Rafa turns 29 years old next year and at some point, the gentle fluctuation of his career pattern won’t rise back up from a fall in performance. I am not saying that this will happen in 2015 – in truth, I don’t think it will – but we should be prepared for it.

While we don’t know when it will happen, there might be signs beforehand. If you take one more look at the graph above you can notice that in Rafa’s career, there have been four dips, four “downward fluctuations” – in 2006-07, 2009, 2011, and one in 2014 off the chart. But as I pointed out above, the 2006-07 dip was mainly a matter of adjusting to a less clay-heavy schedule, so in truth the only downward turns were in 2009, 2011, and 2014 – his three injury-plagued years. And therein lies the key, and this is no surprise: Can Rafa remain healthy? If he can, I see no reason why he can’t remain on top for several more years. But if not, well, for those of us over three decades of age, we all know how it gets harder and harder to recover. We can hope, though, as fans of Rafa, fans of tennis (if not fans of Roger!) that we’ll see at least one more rise to the top from the great Spanish Meteor.

Cover Photo (Creative Commons License): James Marvin Phelps / Marianne Bevis

December 13, 2014
Top 20 Greatest Players of All Time (Yet Another Take)

Here’s another take on the Top 20 of all time – they’re always fun to talk about and never fail to get someone’s panties in a wad. The caveat is just that: it is a take and is not meant to be taken as fact or even how I see things. I was just looking at pre-ATP rankings for players and was surprised to see that players like Jack Kramer had finished (alone or tied) No. 1 six times. I decided to create a quick ranking system based upon two things and two things only, to determine true greatness:

* Year-end No. 1 rankings: three points for solo; two points for shared
* Majors won: two points for pre-Open Era Grand or Pro Slams; three points for Open Era Slams

Now obviously, and again, this is a huge over-simplification. It doesn’t take into account a whole host of important data: Non-win results, other titles, non-No. 1 rankings, etc, not to mention it doesn’t differentiate Slams enough (e.g. the Australian Open in the 1970s was less competitive than other Slams). But it is a quick and dirty system and, I think, worked out pretty well.

So here we go, the Top 20 players of all time according to one system. I’ve also included the points so you can see how close or far players were from each other.

1. Roger Federer 66
2. Rod Laver 62
3. Ken Rosewall 61
4. Pete Sampras 60
5. Pancho Gonzales 56
6. Rafael Nadal 51
7. Bill Tilden 48
8. Bjorn Borg 42
9. Jimmy Connors 39
10. Ivan Lendl 36
11t. Don Budge 34
11t. William Renshaw 34
13. John McEnroe 33
14. Fred Perry 31
15t. Jack Kramer 30
15t. Novak Djokovic 30
17. Andre Agassi 27
18t. Ellsworth Vines 25
18t. Henri Cochet 25
18t. John Newcombe 25

Some interesting things to note.

1) Whatever you think of the exact order, I think it has the Top 10 players rightly in the Top 10. Novak has a chance of sneaking in there and edging Lendl out in another year or two, but right now it works.

2) To be honest, the accuracy of the next ten gets decreasingly reliable as I didn’t research absolutely everyone. But I think the next ten is mainly right, although maybe one or two players weren’t accounted for. It is really hard to research 19th century players. Also right off the edge of the list would be players like Stefan Edberg, Mats Wilander, Bobby Riggs, Roy Emerson, etc.

3) While many (myself included) think Nadal has surpassed Sampras, this system likes Pete quite a bit more because of those year-end number ones. I think it makes a valid point.

4) This system rightly honors perhaps the most underrated historical great player, Pancho Gonzales, who is underrated because his peak was in the Pro Slam era and he only won two Grand Slams, while winning 15 Pro Slams. Pancho was the best player of the 50s and finished No. 1 a record eight times.

5) Yes, Roger Federer is No. 1. Sorry Roger Haters, just about any system is going to place him as the greatest of all time, or at least the greatest of the Open Era. Rafa may pass him, although according to this system Roger would have to remain stagnant (a distinct possibility) and Rafa would have to have five more Slam wins and/or year-end No. 1’s to tie him – a tall order, but possible. But for now I think Roger deserves his place.

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Cover Photo (Creative Commons License): Marianne Bevis

November 14, 2014
Slam Results – Consistency and Era

I have often been struck by how amazingly consistent some of the contemporary great players are, and how it seems they are far more consistent in terms of Slam results than in past eras. I wanted to see if my hunch was correct, so I looked at all players who had won 4+ Slams in the Open Era (except for Ken Rosewall), plus Andy Murray added in the mix (as the player currently active with the best chance at 4+ Slams). I came up with a list of 16 players, who I then checked for a few statistics: total Slams, Quarterfinal appearances, % of Slams that were QF or better, Streaks of QF appearances at Slams, and years in which the player was in the QF of all Slams he appeared in (minimum 2 appearances).

The results were somewhat surprising. First of all, when I compared the Big Four to the previous generation of greats, namely Sampras and Agassi, but also Courier, I found that the Big Four are far more consistent. Here are those players:

QF% (longest QF streak, years of all QF)
Murray: 62% (15, 4)
Djokovic: 75% (22, 5)
Nadal: 69% (11, 4)
Federer: 69% (36, 8)
Sampras: 56% (11, 2)
Agassi: 59% (6, 5)
Courier: 36% (5, 0)

As you can see, the recent greats–in particular Djokovic and Federer–have been more consistent. Rafa’s QF% is the same as Roger’s, but his penchant for occasionally going out earlier has reduced his overall consistency. What really stands out for me in this list are two things: Novak’s amazing QF%, and Roger’s ridiculous streak of 36 straight Slams, plus his eight years of making at least the QF in all Slams.

Let’s dial back to another generation plus:
Becker: 50% (5, 1)
Edberg: 48% (5, 1)
Wilander: 45% (7, 2)
Lendl: 60% (13, 5)
McEnroe: 58% (10, 4)

As always, Becker and Edberg are neck-and-neck. Wilander was great in spurts, but bad in other years. Lendl was remarkably consistent in a very competitive era. Overall it seems the numbers are in line with Agassi and Sampras.

One more jump:
Borg: 78% (12, 6)
Vilas: 39% (8, 3)
Connors: 72% (27, 12)
Newcombe: 55% (8, 2)

Clearly Borg’s numbers are skewed by his shortened career. Connors’s numbers are surprisingly good, but we need to remember that in a lot of years he (and Borg) only played two or three Slams, which is easier to make it far in every appearance.

So while it seems that the current group of greats are historically more consistent than most eras, there’s a range across the decades, so it doesn’t seem clear that the factors of the game today allow for greater consistency (the so-called court homogeneity), or if it simply could be that the current crop is just so damn good. I imagine its a combination of both.

What do you think?

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October 26, 2014
Rafael Nadal – From Peak to Plateau
All good things come to an end. It is the inevitable tragedy of life, although of course it also allows for greater appreciation of the moments we do have. And so it is with tennis greats, whether the current twilight years of Roger Federer or, as is the focus of this piece, the inevitable decline of Rafael Nadal from an unstoppable force of nature to merely a great, but beatable, player.

Before you protest that all players have their ups and downs, let us consider the simple fact that Rafael Nadal is in an age window when most great players drop a notch; even if he’s not dropping yet, it is inevitable that at some point soon he will. But a notch from his peak level still makes him one of the best players in the game – just as in Roger’s “twilight years” he is still probably the third greatest player on tour.

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Perhaps by understanding the career trajectories of other great players we can better understand where Nadal might be in his own career, and what might be ahead. For a player of Nadal’s stature there are few peers – we have to look at players who were for a significant portion of their careers considered the best in the game. Going back through Open Era history, we have Roger Federer, Pete Sampras, Ivan Lendl, John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg, and Rod Laver. With apologies to other dominant players such as Novak Djokovic, Andre Agassi, Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg, Mats Wilander, and Jimmy Connors, I’m looking at players who were the best for an extended period of time (Djokovic is close, but he’s younger than Nadal so doesn’t really qualify). Borg also has to be taken out of the equation as he retired at 25.

That leaves us with Federer, Sampras, Lendl, McEnroe, and Laver. Considering that Nadal turns 28 this year, let’s keep in mind the year those five turned 28 for a reference point:
- Federer: 2009
- Sampras: 1999
- Lendl: 1988
- McEnroe: 1987
- Laver: 1966
As I’ve suggested elsewhere, most players follow a career pattern in four major phases (with general age averages): development (17-21), peak (22-26), plateau (27-31), and decline (32-). Obviously players veer out of those ranges, but those are typical. I would maintain that one way to define the peak phase is that it is the period of a player’s career in which their results, especially winning percentage, are solidly over their career average, while the plateau phase is more around the career average or a bit below. Now the question at hand in this context is whether or not Rafael Nadal is transitioning from his peak to plateau phase, which is a step below peak but still very high.

Let’s take a look at the five players and see at what point they transitioned from peak to plateau. To get a sense of that, we’ll be focusing on their Grand Slam results and match winning percentage.

Roger Federer

The Swiss Maestro was clearly in his peak from 2004 to 2007. When he actually dropped a notch into his plateau phase is a bit unclear, however. Many consider the great 2008 Wimbledon match as when Roger passed the baton to Rafa for greatest player in the game. But not only was that match a complete toss-up, but Roger went out and won the next Slam and four out of the next six. Rather, I would maintain that what the 2008 Wimbledon marked was Nadal joining Federer as the best in the game, a partnership which was maintained–some some passing of the baton back and forth–until 2010 when two things happened: Rafa had probably his best year and Roger dropped a notch, leaving Rafa as the sole king of the tour.

Regardless of when Federer’s skills began to erode, greatness is always defined relative to others, thus the results offer a reliable barometer for his drop in performance. Looking at the statistical record, Roger’s career definitely dropped a solid step after the 2010 Australian Open, his penultimate Slam victory (so far, at least). Whereas Roger won a remarkable 16 of 27 Grand Slams from Wimbledon 2003 to the 2010 Australian Open, playing in a perhaps even more remarkable 22 of 27 Finals, from 2010 Roland Garros to the present, Roger has won only 1 and played in 2 Finals of 16 Slams. He is still a very, very good player, but clearly a step down from his previous peak.

Looking at Roger’s winning percentage confuses the matter a bit, as he dropped quite a bit from 88% in 2007 to 81% in 2008, and then equalized in the 83-86% range from 2009 to 2012, and then plummeting to 73% in 2013 before rising to 87% (so far) in 2014. But winning percentage is only part of the equation, the other being Slam results, and Roger remained pretty dominant through the Australian Open in 2010 so I would argue that he entered his plateau phase around Roland Garros in 2010 – when he was 28 years old, turning 29 a few months later.

Pete Sampras

Pistol Pete was the No. 1 ranked player in the game for an unparalleled six years in a row, from 1993-1998, the year he turned 27. While Pete was No. 1 as late as November 2000 when he was 29 years old, his reign of dominance had clearly ended, or at least diminished.

In 1998, Pete’s last year at No. 1, his winning percentage had dropped for the second straight year and, at 78.2%, was about at his career average (77.4%). But then in 1999 it shot up again to 83.3%, the highest it had been since 1996 and the fourth highest of his career. Yet it dropped again in 1999 to 76.4% and continued to drop over his last couple years.

So in one sense we could say that Pete was as good as ever in 1999, the year he turned 28, yet on the other it was in far fewer matches than usual – he only played 48, the fewest he had played since 1989, and far fewer than his average of 81 per year from 1990-98.

Regardless, it seems clear that Pete entered his plateau phase sometime between 1998 and 1999. He lost the No. 1 ranking in late March of 1998 after holding it for 102 weeks straight. He did regain it again before the end of the year so that he still finished No. 1, but I think at that point the writing was on the wall. So I’d maintain that he transitioned into his plateau phase around age 27.

Ivan Lendl

Some might take issue with Lendl’s inclusion, as his early career was overshadowed by Borg, McEnroe, and Connors, and later on he vied with Wilander, Becker, Edberg, and then Sampras and Agassi. (Actually, as an aside, Lendl may be one of the most underrated players in tennis history because of all great players—at least during the Open Era—no one else played alongside other greats playing at or near their peaks, and Lendl held his own, and then some.) Let us remember that Lendl finished three years in a row, 1985-87, at No. 1, and a fourth year in 1989. He also finished in the Top 3 for nine straight years and the Top 8 for thirteen straight years, both of which only Roger Federer has equalled since (Fed finished in the Top 3 for ten straight years and assuming he finished 2014 in the Top 8, will equal Lendl’s thirteen straight years in the Top 8).

Lendl’s fall to his plateau is relatively easy to determine. In 1989, his last year finishing No. 1, he had a winning percentage of 92% which fell to his career average of 82% in 1990, which was also the last year he won a Slam, and then 75% in 1991. So the fall came between 1989 and 1990 – perhaps after his last Slam at the Australian Open in 1990, so when he was 29, almost 30 years old.

John McEnroe

Johnny Mac is a bit of an outlier to this group because his later career was marred by personal issues. But he was still a similarly dominant player as the others on this list during the first half of his 20s, ranked No. 1 for four years in a row, and the only player to be considered the great Bjorn Borg’s equal, even surpassing the great Swede towards the end of their rivalry.

Anyhow, McEnroe’s drop is quite clear. His very greatest year was 1984 when he had an amazing 96% winning percentage (82-3). Yet 1985—despite not winning any Slams—was also great, with an 89% winning percentage and far above his career average of 81.5%. But then he missed a lot of time in 1986-87 and never came back even close to peak form, so we could say that there’s a clear separation between peak and plateau/decline between the years 1985 and 1986. Johnny Mac turned 27 in early 1986, so the drop was at age 26-27.

Rod Laver

I include Laver with some hesitancy considering that he played in the mists of ancient tennis history. Yet he was a similarly dominant player to Nadal and Federer, and had his last great year in the Open Era.

It is more difficult to example the statistical records from before the ATP era (1973), but from what the statistical record shows us, Laver maintained a peak level of performance throughout his 20s and through his great year in 1969 when he won all four Grand Slams. He turned 31 that year.

Laver remained a good player for a few more years, but was never the same. So his peak ended quite late – at age 31.

Summary

So when we look at our five comparable greats to Nadal, we see the age that they transitioned from peak to plateau form as follows:
- Federer: ~28
- Sampras: ~27
- Lendl: ~29
- McEnroe: ~26
- Laver: ~31
Looking back over the last year or so, Rafa was playing at a very high level through the summer of 2013. After dominating the North American section of the tour by winning the US Open and both the Canadian and Cincinnati Masters, Nadal slowed down a bit, not winning a tournament for the rest of the year. He started 2014 by winning the Qatar Open, although then lost in the Australian Open final, partially due to injury. He also won his second tournament of the year in Rio, but both his wins so far are relatively minor (an ATP 250 and 500, respectively), and he hasn’t won any of the three Masters and just lost in Barcelona in the quarterfinal. His 91% winning percentage in 2013 was the best of his career, while his 82% so far this year is actually a bit below his career average of 83.6%, so there is cause for concern.

Nadal will turn 28 years old in a little over a month, so he is certainly within range of the norm for transitioning from peak to plateau. Right now he is the same age that Roger Federer was when he won the 2009 Wimbledon and when Sampras won the 1998 Wimbledon. At Rafa’s current age, both Roger and Pete won three more Slams; Lendl won only two more, but had fewer total.

So if we want to guess what is before Rafa, we can look at Federer and Sampras in particular. If Rafa truly is transitioning from his peak to his plateau—and it seems likely, in my opinion—he still has many good years ahead of him. And if I were to guess how many more Slams he will win, like Federer and Sampras at the same age, three is as good a guess as any. Both Roger and Pete won two more at their best Slam (Wimbledon) and one more at another. Perhaps, then, an educated guess would be that Rafa will win two more French Opens and one more on another court, which would bring him to a total of 16 for his career – one shy of Roger Federer’s current total, but more than anyone else.

But of course there are always exceptions to the rule, and Rafa is as good a candidate to be one as any other. Every player has a different career trajectory; but if he follows the typical trajectory of a great player, while he would truly be transitioning into his plateau phase now, he also likely has a few good years—and a few Slam titles—left in him.
April 26, 2014
Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa’s Window of Opportunity

[This is the first of two thematically-linked articles focusing on Rafael Nadal and his quest for greatness; the second article will be out in a day or two.]

Rafael Nadal turned 27 years old a few months ago, about a week before winning his 8th French Open and 12th Slam overall, at that point and now, with his 13th Slam victory, standing behind only Pete Sampras (14) and Roger Federer (17) for the most Slams in the Open Era; if we include pre-Open Era Pro Slams–as I think we should–we add a few others so we get the following list:

Most Slam Wins in Tennis History (Pro, Amateur, and Open Era)

23 Ken Rosewall
19 Rod Laver
17 Pancho Gonzales, Roger Federer
14 Bill Tilden, Pete Sampras
13 Rafael Nadal

With 13 Slam wins and, still only 27 years old, playing some of the best tennis of his life, it’s reasonable to start taking seriously the idea that Nadal could surpass Federer. Now with a player as great as Nadal there are few comparable players – once you get to this level anything is possible and new benchmarks can be made. And of course Nadal, like all of the greats, has his unique style of tennis: a blend of tremendous athleticism, defensive prowess, unrivaled topspin that has been the bane of many a player, and of course his perhaps unparalleled tenacity. (For those watching the US Open Final, you might have heard John McEnroe say that he thought Jimmy Connors tried harder than any player in tennis history until Rafa came along.) But it is still important to ask: What are the precedents? In particular, how many Slams did the above players win after turning 27? And of players with fewer Slams, how many of their total were won after their 27^th birthday?

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Let’s take a look. We’ll start with the above list of “inner circle greats” with the seven highest total Slam victories. We’ll also look at those players in the Open Era that won 6+ Slams, although will exclude those players who did not (or have not yet) played at age 27: Bjorn Borg – who played his last Slam at age 25 – and Novak Djokovic, who is 26. I’m also going to exclude Bill Tilden because he played tennis during a very different era; coupled with the fact that he didn’t win his first Slam until age 27 and won his last at age 42 (!), he skews the numbers in a way that has little relevance to the current game. In truth, we could easily exclude Gonzales, Rosewall, and Laver as well, but I’d like to include them as other “GOAT” candidates (more on this in the second part).

This gives us a list of 14 players: GOAT candidates Rosewall, Laver, Gonzales, Federer, Sampras, and Nadal, as well as “outer circle” all-time greats John Newcombe, Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl, John McEnroe, Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker, and Andre Agassi. As of last night, those 14 players have won a total of 160 Slams.

To start, let’s take a look at the age at which those Slams were won. For the sake of ease, by age I mean the age a player turned in a given year, not the time period between their birthdays. So, for example, any Slam in 2013 is part of Nadal’s “age 27 season” – even the Australian Open, during which he was still 26. Obviously this isn’t exact, and it doesn’t differentiate between players who were born in January versus December, but it’s close enough for the purpose of this study. We’ll be more exact in a moment when we turn our gaze to his closest contemporaries.

As you can see, plenty of Slams were won up until the age 31 season but there’s a steep and remarkable drop-off at age 32 and beyond. (As a side note, it is worth mentioning that 2012 was Federer’s age 31 season, and this year is his age 32 season, so he follows this pattern quite well.)

Of those 14 players, three did not win a Slam at Rafa’s current age – Wilander’s last was at age 24, McEnroe’s at age 25, and Edberg’s at age 26. The rest, however, did win Slams at age 27 and older.

Rafael Nadal has 13 Slams through his age 27 season. Of the 160 Slams above, 107 were won through age 27, or 67%. If Nadal follows that same ratio, it means he’ll end up with 19 Slams. But note that of those 53 Slams won at age 28 and later, 32 were won by Pancho Gonzales, Ken Rosewall, and Rod Laver – players whose primes were in a very different era. If we take those three out of the mix, we’re left with 101 Slams total and 21 won at age 28 and older – only 21% compared to the 33% total. If Nadal follows that trajectory, it means that he’ll finish with 16, maybe 17.

Now let’s look more closely at Nadal’s closest contemporaries: Federer, Sampras, and Agassi. Between the three they won 39 Slams. Of those 39 Slams, 12 were won at age 28 or later – or 31%. If Nadal follows a similar pattern, that means his 13 Slams is 69% of his total, and that he’ll win 17 or 18 total.

Those numbers are somewhat skewed by Andre Agassi’s remarkable longevity. Agassi is the rare player who was better in the second half of his career than he was in the first half, winning five of his eight Slams during his age 29 and later seasons. Sampras and Federer, on the other hand, won seven of their 31 total at age 28 and later – or 23%. So it really depends upon whose career path Nadal is closer to.

Let’s be a bit more specific with Federer and Sampras. Federer turned 27 on August 8, 2008, shortly before winning his fifth and last US Open. From his 27^th birthday on, he’s won five Grand Slam tournaments (so far!), 29.4% of his total. Three of those five were before his 28^th birthday, so after turning 28 he has won only two Slams.

As for Sampras, he turned 27 on August 12, 1998, shortly after winning his 11^th of 14 Grand Slams. He won his 12^th just before turning 28, his 13^th just before turning 29, and his 14^th just after turning 31.

Between Federer and Sampras, they won 23 of their Slams before turning 27 (74%), four at age 27 (13%), and four after turning 28 (13%).

Nadal has one more Slam before his 28^th birthday — the 2014 Australian Open. So far he’s won two Slams at age 27, so has a chance of equaling Federer’s three while 27-years old. Yet here’s where the “window of opportunity” starts to close. Both Sampras and Federer won only two more Slams each after turning 28 (again, so far – we should completely write Roger off…yet). So if Nadal follows their career pattern – and even if he wins the AO to get to 14 – he’ll finish with 16 Slam wins; that’s certainly nothing to be ashamed about but not quite enough to catch Federer.

But remember also that Andre Agassi won five Slams after turning 28 – and he isn’t the only player to do so; Rosewall, Laver, and Gonzales all won that many or more after turning 28. It could also be said that, in some ways, Nadal plays a style more similar to Agassi than Sampras and Federer. While it should be said that one commonality that just about every all-time great has, especially the inner circle greats, is that they were adept at offense and defense, like Agassi, Nadal plays a more defending than attacking tennis. Whether there is any correlation between this and longevity is questionable.

Some have explained Agassi’s longevity – which is unmatched in terms of maintaining an elite level of play, at least since Ken Rosewall in the 1970s – to him missing significant periods of time earlier in his career, and thus avoiding the grueling schedule that Sampras and, more so, Federer has undergone. Rafa has missed some time, although not nearly as much as Andre.

Another thing to bear in mind is that both Sampras and Federer were great servers – Sampras arguably the greatest in tennis history, and Federer certainly among the greatest – while Nadal has been considered a particularly weak server for such a great player (although his serve of late seems to have taken on new guile and spin, last night notwithstanding). Just recently some commentator or analyst—unfortunately I can’t remember whom—said that the reason Federer is struggling so much is that his serve has been off. It makes me wonder if the fact that a larger portion of Sampras’s and Federer’s greatness comes from their serve than, say, Agassi or Nadal, which makes decline after losing an edge on serve more certain.

Obviously Nadal’s longevity is tied into his health, particularly his knees. It is hard to imagine his knees holding out for another half decade of healthy tennis. But until they go, that is, until Nadal finds himself missing more tournaments than not, and struggling with recovery times, he should remain a top player. I would guess that when he starts to “go”, it will happen fast. I can’t help but imagine that Nadal is currently playing on borrowed time, although as a fan of the game I certainly hope not.

In conclusion, we started with asking the question: What is Rafa’s window of opportunity for continued greatness and Slam contention? Is it closing? If not, when will it close? There really is no way to definitively answer those questions – but that’s not the point of this article. What I’m trying to do is develop an informed opinion, one that is flexible but has an awareness of context.

In the end I’m left with this: It all depends upon the health of the knees, which he relies upon for his incredible speed and endurance. But given his incredible will and tenacity, I suspect that Rafa has a few good years left in him. There may be bumps in the road, and the older one becomes the longer recovery from injury takes, but Rafa has given us reason to believe that he will—like other all-time greats—remain effective into his 30s. After age 31, all bets are off, but that still gives us about four years of potential greatness from the Spanish Maestro, and in that time he has a chance to build a case to be considered the greatest player of all time. But more on that next …

Photo by globalite (Creative Commons license)

Original chart made using onlinecharttool.com

September 10, 2013
American Men’s Tennis and the Cycle of Ages

Photo by Neon Tommy (Creative Commons License)

Consider the following as an addendum, or second part, to the previous blog in which I looked at the decline of American men’s tennis. In this entry we’ll look at the big historical trajectory of men’s tennis, and from a slightly different perspective: that of mythology.

Various mythologies throughout the world – such as Greek, Indian, and Mesoamerican – hold that the world passes through great ages of time. While there are differences between these myths, they are also remarkably similar in that all start with some kind of paradisiacal “Golden Age” from which there is a “fall” and further decline into successively lesser ages. The Golden becomes the Silver, then the Bronze, and finally the Iron or Dark Age. Some of these mythologies hold that this process is cyclical, so that the Dark Age will eventually transition into a new cycle, even a new Golden Age.

It struck me how American men’s tennis has gone through its own cycle of ages over the last four decades (and perhaps before).

The Golden Age (1974-1984) had its beginnings in the early 70s with the elder statesmen Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith, but did not truly arrive until the peak of Jimmy Connors, the first truly dominant American male player since Pancho Gonzales. American men dominated the rankings from the mid-70s into the mid-80s. Perhaps the most dominant year was 1979 when the #2-5 players were all American (Sweden’s Bjorn Borg was #1), and seven of the top 10 were American. From 1974 to 1984, an American held the #1 ranking for all but two years, in 1979-80 when the great Swede was at the top of the game.

Photo by University of Salford (Creative Commons license)

There was a slight lull as the ages shifted when the two greatest players of the Golden Age, Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, were in decline, and before the next generation of American greats arose. 1985-1988 saw no American man win a Grand Slam event, the first time since 1973 that at least one American man hadn’t won a Slam. While Connors and McEnroe were both in the top 5 in 1985, Connors was the highest ranked American in 1986 at #8, and no American male finished the year in the top 2 until Jim Courier in 1991.

The Silver Age (1989-1999) began when 17-year old Michael Chang won his first and only Grand Slam event in 1989 at the French Open. American men began another streak of years with Grand Slam winners. Chang was joined by Sampras in 1990, Courier in 1991, Courier and Agassi in 1992, and then the reign of Pete Sampras from 1993 and beyond. While American men’s tennis was still strong in the late 80s–at least relative to the current era–it returned to dominance in the early 90s. It was not the Golden Age of the late 70s and early 80s in that while Sampras and Agassi reigned, the field was not as deep. Thus the 90s were truly a Silver Age, with two Americans – Sampras and Agassi – the most dominant players of the decade.

Photo by pandemia (Creative Commons license)

I mark the end of the Silver Age as 1999, when Andre Agassi was #1 and Sampras had dropped to #3. Agassi remained a dominant player for a few more years but Sampras faded quickly.

The Bronze Age was, in some ways, a transitional era, and thus difficult to demarcate. But I’d offer that it began right after the end of the Silver Age, in 2000, which was the first year since 1991 that an American didn’t hold the #1 ranking. Sampras remained a strong player for a few years but was in obvious decline. Andre Agassi still played at a high level, even reaching #1 at the venerable age of 33 in 2003, the year that young Andy Roddick finished #1 and the last time an American held the #1 ranking. Americans hoped to see Roddick take the mantle from Agassi and Sampras, but it wasn’t to be – partially because his game was simply too one-dimensional to be a truly elite player, but also because of the rise of a Swiss player by the name of Roger Federer, who took the #1 ranking from Roddick in early 2004. Roddick went from being the top player for a short period of time at the end of 2003, to one of a few near-elites vying for the scraps left behind by Federer and, shortly after, Rafael Nadal.

The Bronze Age was a short period, fading in the mid-Aughties, suitably without a distinct ending. Perhaps it ended when it became clear that no active American male would win a Grand Slam or be #1. This could be 2006 when Roddick dropped out of the top 5, or it could be 2011 when he dropped out of the top 10 – or 2012 when he retired. No one stepped up to carry the mantle of American spokesman. I’m considering 2005 as the last year of the Bronze Age, for it was the final full season of the last truly great American tennis player, Andre Agassi, who finished the year at #7. Andre played a few tournaments in 2006 but didn’t win any and finished the year #150.

Photo by Keith Allison (Creative Commons license)

We are currently in the Dark Age of American men’s tennis, with no player in the top 10, and no elite player on the horizon. While the present and foreseeable future of American men’s tennis looks bleak, we must remember that the wheel turns and a new Golden Age may come around again. 1961 saw the last Slam win by Pancho Gonzales, the greatest American men’s tennis player of the couple decades before the Open Era, and probably the greatest overall player of the 1950s. In a way we could say that Gonzales was to the pre-Open Era what Sampras was to the Open Era – the leading player of a Silver Age. Early in his career and before him saw other American greats such as Jack Trabert, Pancho Segura, Jack Kramer, and Bobby Riggs, and some years before them you have Ellsworth Vines and Don Budge, and before them the great Bill Tilden.

The point being, American tennis did not begin with Jimmy Connors, but it was with Connors that it returned to dominance. The late 1950s to early 1970s was dominated by Australian greats Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Lew Hoad, Roy Emerson, and John Newcombe. When Arthur Ashe won the 1968 US Open he was the first American to win a Slam, amateur or pro, since Chuck McKinley won Wimbledon in 1963. So the mid-60s were a dark period for the Americans, and only slowly did that Dark Age transition into the new Golden Age. In other words, we could see a transitional, or “Dawn Age” from 1968 through 1973, when Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith were among the best in the game, but not dominant on the level of Gonzales in the 1950s or Connors in the 1970s.

So Americans can hope that this current Dark Age will transition into a Dawn Age. If history repeats itself, as it often does, then the first signs of transition will be the appearance of lesser luminaries akin to Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith – not truly dominant players, but winners, or at least serious contenders, of Grand Slams. So we will watch and wait for a 21^stcentury Arthur Ashe to usher the way towards that next Golden Age of American men’s tennis. But we might have some time to go. And given the more international nature of the game and world, it seems likely that the next Golden Age of American men’s tennis will not be as dominant, not shine as brightly as even in the early 90s. Some relativity is involved and we must think modestly; the next Golden Age might not see the United States returning to dominance, just re-joining the elite of the game.

Photo by freezr (Creative Commons license)

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August 24, 2013
Houston, We Have A Problem: The State of American Men’s Tennis

Preamble

Mardy Fish retiring from the US Open got me thinking about the state of American men’s tennis. Here is a current list of the American men in the top 100, with their age in parentheses:

#14 John Isner (28)

#29 Sam Querrey (25)

#87 Jack Sock (20)

#92 Michael Russell (35)

#97 Ryan Harrison (21)

#100 James Blake (33)

From looking at that list, the near future of men’s tennis looks bleak. Blake and Russell have seen their best days. Isner is probably as good as he’s going to get. Querrey is an interesting case because five years ago he looked quite promising, finishing 2008 (age 21) at #39, but he was injured and has stagnated since, seemingly establishing himself as a #20-30 type player.

If Jack Sock and Ryan Harrison are the hope of American men’s tennis then, quite frankly, “Houston, we have a problem.” There are a few other players outside of the top 100 that have some promise, but none stand out as the next great American tennis player.

The focus of this blog is on statistics and historical trends, so I won’t speculate too much as to the why of this, but by looking at historical trends we can begin to get a sense of whether the current lack of top American talent is part of a cycle, or whether it’s something new and potentially lasting.

One speculative idea I do want to put forth is the question of how popular tennis is in the United States compared to prior decades, and whether or not this relates to how good the top American players are. Without having any proof other than anecdotal (which obviously doesn’t constitute proof), it is my sense that tennis is less popular today in the United States than it was during the hey-day of American tennis in the early 90s when you had Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, and Jim Courier dominating the game. But not only is this just a guess, but correlation does not equal causation, and if there is causation it may be two-way – in other words, it could be that the game is less popular in the United States partially because there are no elite American players, and there are no elite American players partially because the game isn’t as popular as it once was.

Let us return to the historical trends. The question I want to answer is this: How dominant have American players been in men’s tennis over the years, and how does 2013 compare to prior years? To do this I looked at the year-end rankings for the entirety of ATP history, from 1973 to 2013, with a focus on American players. What I found was quite astonishing to me. What follows is a chart that depicts the way American rankings have changed over the last four decades, with some explanation and discussion.

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A Few Notes on Tennis Statistics

The ATP website has a strange lack of rankings from 1980-82; I’m not sure exactly why it is. I can’t find any other source on the internet that has year-end rankings, so while I could find the top 10 rankings, the rest of the rankings will be empty for those years. But it doesn’t make that much of a difference for this study as the years just before and after that span were very similar.

Secondly, due to the lack of a good database for tennis statistics (although Tennis Abstract looks promising), I reserve the right to make errors! Hopefully they’ll be small, but chances are there will be one or two, hopefully small, errors along the way, but it wouldn’t change the overall weight of the statistics.

A briefer note on Ivan Lendl: Lendl became an American citizen on July 7 of 1992. Some records denote American status for earlier years because he lived in the United from 1981 on, for the sake of this study I’m considering him as a Czech for his entire career up to but not including 1992. I feel that it’s both kinder to the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia) to do so, but also considering that he was born and raised in the former Czechoslovakia, it’s more accurate to consider him as a Czech for the sake of this study.

American Rankings in ATP History

So let’s look at the rankings. The following chart depicts the number of American men in the year-end ATP top 100, 50, 20 and 10 over 41 years of ATP history (In the case of 1980-82, I just continued from 1979 for 80-81, and made 1982 the same as 1983).

(Please click on it to see a larger, more clear view)

When I put together this chart I was stunned by the results. I was expecting a drop off in recent years, but not to this extent. What I found particularly interesting is that the drop-off didn’t begin recently but actually back in the mid ‘80s and speeding up in the ‘90s.

I was also intrigued to find a rise in the mid-70s. Unfortunately we don’t have rankings before 1973, but if you think of the great names of the 1960s and before, few of them were American. Americans rose to prominence with Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, but it was Jimmy Connors who became the first truly dominant American men’s tennis player, at least in the Open Era, and since the earlier greats of the 1940s and ‘50s: Tony Trabert, Jack Kramer, and Pancho Gonzales, and before them Don Budge, Bobby Riggs, Ellsworth Vines, and Bill Tilden. The Australians dominated men’s tennis in the 1960s, with names such as Ken Rosewall, Lew Hoad, Rod Laver, Roy Emerson, and John Newcombe.

Jimmy Connors changed that, ushering a new era of American tennis (with the help of Smith and Ashe). The baton (or racket, if you will) of men’s tennis was passed from Connors to John McEnroe, and then for a brief time to Jim Courier, then to Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. And then from Andre and Pete to…Andy Roddick? James Blake? Robby Ginepri?

The decline in the number of American men in the top 100 has been relatively minor since 1995, but what has changed is the presence of a truly great American men’s player. Pete Sampras started declining in 1999 and then retired in 2002, and when Agassi retired a few years later we lost the last truly great American player. Roddick and James Blake carried the baton as best they could, but although Roddick finished 2002 as the #1 player, his reign was short-lived as he was surpassed by superior players Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, and become one of the “best of the rest” in the field of the Aughties.

Andy Roddick is the last American man to have won a Slam, and also to have been #1. What may even more disturbing is that the only active American man to have been in the top 5 is James Blake, who is 33 years old and ranked #100 in the world. A couple years ago Mardy Fish – of the same generation as Roddick and a couple years younger than Blake – seemed to be a late bloomer, ranking as high as #7 in August of 2011, but a heart condition in the following year limited his play and he seems close to retirement.

With his big serve, John Isner remains a dark-horse candidate at many tournaments and has reached as high as #9 in the rankings in April of 2012. But at age 28 he is unlikely to improve.

Final Thoughts

American men’s tennis is in dire straits and there is no clear end in sight. American men’s tennis rose in the mid-70s, peaked in the late 70s to early 80s, but then began a long decline in the late ‘80s, with a startling drop in the mid-90s and continued slow decline since. We can hope that, like the Once and Future King (which is, ironically enough, of the British cultural mythos), a new great young player will rise up. But who he is, or will be, remains to be seen. The highest ranked American teenager is Christian Harrison, younger brother to Ryan, who is currently #389. The highest ranked American junior is #16, Macedonia-born Stefan Kozlov, who made it to the quarterfinals of the 2013 Boys’ Wimbledon at the tender age of 15.

Certainly, we are amidst a long winter in American men’s tennis.

Credits: Cover Photo: Mike McCune, (Creative Commons License)

August 21, 2013