Changing big title dominance during the Open Era

[El Dude]

OK, before you say, "El Dude, wtf?! All I see is crazy colors," let me explain. Below is a chart of every big title of the Open Era, from 1968 to the present. It includes the four Slams, the ATP year-end finals, the Masters in their various incarnations, the Olympics, as well as the WCT finals and the Grand Slam Cup, both of which aren't traditionally considered "big titles," but were at least on the level of the Masters tournaments.

OK, easy enough. Now what about the colors? Those are players who won at least 6 Slams and/or 10 or more big titles - what we could call "dominant players." Basically it is all six Slam winners, plus Ilie Nastase (only 2 Slams, but 13 big titles), Guillermo Vilas (4 Slams, 12 big titles, and Andy Murray (3 Slams, 20 big titles). Notably absent are Arthur Ashe (3 Slams, 6 big titles), Jim Courier (4 Slams, 9 big titles), and Gustavo Kuerten (3 Slams, 9 big titles). I was tempted to put those three in, but I had to draw the line somewhere.

So the dominant players are, in chronological birth order: Pancho Gonzales, Ken Rosewall, Rod Laver, John Newcombe, Ilie Nastase, Guillermo Vilas, Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl, Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker, Andre Agassi, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, and Novak Djokovic. Every other title is white (and yes, Pancho is on there - look at the dark blue Masters in 1971...Obviously I included their total big title count, as to whether they were colored or not).

So here's the chart:

Don't worry - you don't need to read it (although it is too bad I can't get this larger. Oh well). The colors is the main thing. But know that the x-axis is years, from 1968 to 2017 and the y-axis are the tournaments, from Slams, to finals, to Olympics, to Masters.

I made this chart because I'm a bit nerdy like this, and enjoy looking at tennis history in a pictorial manner. But I also wanted to see if anything jumped out as noteworthy, and something most definitely did. Specifically, notice the changing dominance of great players, especially in the Masters. Notice what a great percentage of big titles were won by the Big Four, now compare that to the 90s, when a huge number of different players won Masters. Now to some degree this is because for half of the 90s and into the early 00s, there were only two truly dominant players active--Sampras and Agassi--vs. the Big Four today. But even in the early 90s, when Edberg and Becker were still going, the Masters were spread out more evenly.

The 1970s and 80s were a bit more monopolized by great players, but not as much as the last 12 years or so.

So one question that arises is: What changed to make not only the Slams, but ALL big titles monopolized by great players?

A second question: Anything else stand out to you?

EDIT: Here is a thumbnail link to a larger version:

 

[mrzz]

El Dude, wtf?! All I see is crazy colors!

 

[Denis]

Doesn't guga deserve his own color? I mean if you're giving one to Murray

 

[Moxie]

Doesn't guga deserve his own color? I mean if you're giving one to Murray

At first I thought that response came from Mrzz.

 

[El Dude]

Doesn't guga deserve his own color? I mean if you're giving one to Murray

I mentioned the criteria as being 6+ Slams and/or 10+ big titles. Guga had 3/9, so he just missed the cut.

One thing to remember about Andy is that while he only has 3 Slams, he has 20 big titles - more than Edberg, Wilander, Courier, Vilas, Nastase, and Ashe. As I have said elsewhere, he may belong more in the Edberg/Wilander/Becker/Newcombe group than he does in the Courier/Vilas/Nastase group. Right now he's in-between the two, but he's catching up to Wilander and some rankings even have him ahead of him.

 

[Moxie]

Thanks for doing that, Dude. Now to answer more seriously, though perhaps with a question, as to the 'other important tournaments,' I wonder when it was that the ATP systematized the MS 1000s more, and made a structure of mandatory tournaments. Certainly that should have impacted that they begin being won by the dominant players, no?

 

[Busted]

The 1970s and 80s were a bit more monopolized by great players, but not as much as the last 12 years or so.

So one question that arises is: What changed to make not only the Slams, but ALL big titles monopolized by great players?

A second question: Anything else stand out to you?

EDIT: Here is a thumbnail link to a larger version:

What changed to enable the Big 4 to dominate?The intangibles - equipment, surfaces, the benchmark, a decline in American tennis - and prize money.

Numbers 1, 2, 4 and 5 are obvious. The Benchmark maybe less so, but that was Sampras and is now Federer. I'd also argue that you don't see the athletically gifted American kids going into tennis. They play other sports. So the epicenter of the tennis talent pool has shifted as well. Instead of 10 Americans in the top 50 now you have 10 Spaniards or 10 Frenchman. And even though the most athletic kids want to play soccer not tennis.

The other thing that stands out to me is - HEADACHE! LOL! Actually...what I see is fewer players who can win on clay. You used to have guys who were clay court specialists who could win clay Masters. Is that because Nadal is so dominant on the surface or because nobody else really likes the surface and just suck it up and play the events because they have to? Back in the day you had 8-9 guys who could win a clay tournament. When he's on form - which he wasn't for 2-3 years - then these days Nadal wins everything on clay and to my mind some of these guys are just handing him the matches and not even trying that hard. Ahem...Stan. There was a period in the mid-to-late '90s when Thomas Muster was the clay king, so it's not like there haven't been guys before Nadal (or Borg or Vilas) who were superior to everyone else on that surface, but for the most part, since 2005 - it's been Nadal on clay and occasionally Roger or Djokovic.

If there's something else I'm supposed to be getting out of the Rorschach test - I'm not seeing it. One thing I will say though is that it's interesting how little Nadal has really "dominated." He hasn't be able to do that for a long stretch at a time. Maybe a 12-18 months at a stretch and then he falls off due to injury or someone else outplaying him. Meanwhile both Federer and Djokovic have been able to sustain their levels for 2-4 year periods. Yes, I'm beating my usual dead horse - Nadal is the King of Clay but that's it. Meanwhile Federer hasn't won as much the last 5 years - but he's also 5-6 years older than Djokovic, Nadal and Murray and technically shouldn't even still be able as competitive with them as he is.

 

[Busted]

Thanks for doing that, Dude. Now to answer more seriously, though perhaps with a question, as to the 'other important tournaments,' I wonder when it was that the ATP systematized the MS 1000s more, and made a structure of mandatory tournaments. Certainly that should have impacted that they begin being won by the dominant players, no?

To answer that - IIRC it wasn't until around 2005-2006 - maybe as late as 2009 - that the ATP started making the Masters series mandatory...