Today’s Men’s Feature (12/12)

Written by: Staff on 12th December 2012

EXHIBITION GAME BETWEEN DJOKOVIC AND KUERTEN

Today's Men's Feature (12/12)

epa03475781 Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic returns a ball as he wears a wig during an exhibition game against Brazilian former tennis player Gustavo Kuerten at Maracanazinho colliseum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 17 November 2012. EPA/Marcelo Sayao |

Knockin’ ‘Em Down an’ Stompin’ On ‘Em

Some of the challenges we get from readers can be intriguing. For example, could we devise a ranking system that would make anyone other than Novak Djokovic #1?

The first time we were asked such a question, Roger Federer was #1, and the best we could come up with was the Satisfaction Index, based on reaching a lot of late rounds. That won’t help us with knocking Djokovic off his perch; he simply has too many good results. If we chart Satisfaction scores for the Top Five, they come out as:

Djokovic: 1440

Federer: 1430

Ferrer: 1390

Murray: 1110

Nadal: 800

Amazingly, Djokovic improved from last year, when his score was 1320. But the real shock is probably how close this all is — much closer than the ATP rankings. That’s the result of all the semifinals Roger Federer had. In the ATP rankings, two semifinals are worth less than one title — indeed, three semifinals are worth only slightly more than one title. But in Satisfaction, two semifinals are substantially better than one title.

And note that David Ferrer is #3, ahead of not only Rafael Nadal (who of course was injured for most of the year) but also Andy Murray. Still, Djokovic is on top — although, interestingly, an early loss at the Australian Open would probably cost him the #1 satisfaction ranking.

But we want to dethrone him now. And that’s tough. Most obvious methods of re-ranking won’t do it; Djokovic’s per-tournament results were strong. So we’re going to try something very different indeed. We’ll call this the “Knock Him Down and Stomp On Him” ranking, because the idea is to take a player’s worst surface and make it most important, and his best surface and make it least important.

Here is what we will do: We will take each of the Top Five (Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, Murray, and Ferrer) and compute his points per tournament on each of the four major surfaces: Clay, Grass, Hard, Indoor Hard. Whichever is his worst surface we will count eight times, his next-worst four times, his second-best twice, and his best only once. For someone like Nadal, who loves clay and missed the indoor season, that will be close to murder. But what about Djokovic?

The data for each guy is as follows — note that this is points per event, not total points on each surface. For obvious reasons, we ignore Davis Cup. The results are as follows (we treat Nadal as having 0 points per event indoors, since he had no indoor events):

Player………..Clay…Grass….Hard..InHard

Djokovic……….645…..495…..871…..755

Federer………..693…..867…..509…..533

Murray…………180…..650…..518…..245

Nadal………….918……45…..503…….0

Ferrer…………321…..215…..224…..498

Djokovic’s scores on all surfaces are impressive, but he was actually the best only on hardcourt and indoor hard. Federer led on grass, Nadal on clay. Murray was last on clay, Nadal last on grass, Ferrer last on hardcourt, and Nadal last on indoor, with Murray the last of the four who played. The fact that Djokovic dominated hard is the main reason he is on top, since it is the dominant surface. But we’ll take care of that….

Taking Djokovic as an example, here is how we will calculate this. His worst surface is grass. So we take his score there, 495, and multiply it by eight. That gives us 3960. His next-worst surface is clay. So we multiply that by four. That turns out to be 2580. His next-lowest score is on hardcourt, so we multiply it by two to get 1540. Then we add his 871 (actually, 871.111…) on hardcourt. That all adds up, for Djokovic, to 8921.1 points (almost the same, interestingly, as his 8777.6 points last year).

We won’t go through the method of calculation again. We’ll just calculate the results, rounding to the nearest point:

Djokovic…….8921

Federer……..8462

Murray………4105

Ferrer………3754

Nadal……….2103

This is truly fascinating. Djokovic is still #1 — but just barely. His lead is so small that it could be in danger at the Australian Open.

Even more fascinating is Ferrer’s result. It’s not a huge surprise that he is ahead of Nadal, because Nadal missed a surface. But, amazingly, Ferrer is very close to Murray. In a ranking system where clay is as important as hardcourt (which this is), Ferrer is a true threat to the Big Four. Or, to put it another way, there isn’t a Big Four, there is a Big Three, and Murray isn’t part of it.

Nadal, of course, suffers dreadfully under this ranking. If we had calculated more players, he probably wouldn’t even be Top Five. But if Nadal is that unbalanced, what if we do this the other way: Count the player’s best surface eight times, and so on down. This puts Nadal right back in contention, because his 918 points per event on clay is the best score anyone has on any surface.

Djokovic……11774

Federer…….11283

Nadal……….9444

Murray………7941

Ferrer………5927

Once again Federer is on Djokovic’s tail, but still behind. Nadal moves up to a strong #3; Murray trails badly. At least he builds a lead on Ferrer.

The bottom line, though, is that we can’t see any way to knock Djokovic off his perch. At least until the Australian Open comes off.

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