Today’s Men’s Feature (12/23)

Written by: Staff on 23rd December 2012

Today's Men's Feature (12/23)

epa03468780 Novak Djokovic of Serbia returns to Roger Federer of Switzerland during their match at the ATP World Tour Finals in London, Britain, 12 November 2012. EPA/KERIM OKTEN |

At Least I’m Better Than You!

Last week, we tried (and failed) to find a ranking system that would have made someone other than Novak Djokovic this year’s year-end #1. But what about #2? Is Roger Federer as much of a lock there as Djokovic is at #1? Let’s investigate….

For this purpose, we are only going to look at the Top Ten: Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, Murray, Ferrer, Berdych, del Potro, Tsonga, Tipsarevic, and Gasquet. But we’ll try several alternate rankings.

For starters, let’s add up all the player’s points. If you play more, and win more, it counts. (This is equivalent to the 1997 WTA ranking system, except without quality/bonus points. And we don’t count Davis Cup.) That gives us the following (the number in parentheses is the player’s ATP ranking):

1 (1) Djokovic: 12920

2 (2) Federer: 10355

3 (3) Murray: 8000

4 (5) Ferrer: 6805

5 (4) Nadal: 6690

6 (7) del Potro: 4955

7 (6) Berdych: 4525

8 (8) Tsonga: 3770

9 (9) Tipsarevic: 3225

10 (10) Gasquet: 2630

The top three are the same — but observe Ferrer ahead of Nadal in the contest for #4! Even we didn’t expect that, but it makes sense when you realize that Ferrer played twice as many events — and won a bunch of little titles that didn’t count toward his ranking. The other move, del Potro’s rise to #6, is less surprising.

But will all those events help Ferrer and del Potro if we make losses count? Let’s calculate points per tournaments (i.e. the total points, above, divided by events played:

1 (1) Djokovic: 760

2 (2) Federer: 609

3 (4) Nadal: 608

4 (3) Murray: 421

5 (5) Ferrer: 309

6 (7) del Potro: 248

7 (6) Berdych: 206

8 (8) Tsonga: 157

9 (9) Tipsarevic: 124

10 (10) Gasquet: 114

Still no change at the top — but note Nadal back up to #3, ahead of Murray, and only a hair behind Federer.

Except that Nadal had only 11 events, and a disproportionate share of them on his beloved clay. That’s far fewer than the ATP wants. So let’s change this to a declining divisor: You have to play 16 events, but get to cut off a third of an event for each event above this.

1 (1) Djokovic: 775

2 (2) Federer: 621

3 (3) Murray: 444

4 (4) Nadal: 418

5 (5) Ferrer: 340

6 (7) del Potro: 265

7 (6) Berdych: 226

8 (8) Tsonga: 177

9 (9) Tipsarevic: 142

10 (10) Gasquet: 127

Yawn. Almost the ATP list. Nadal is back at #4. The only change is that del Potro is ahead of Berdych.

That’s three rankings, and the results are interesting: Djokovic was #1 in all of them, and Federer #2. The #3 to #7 spots all shifted around. But then stability is restored at the bottom: Tsonga #8, Tipsarevic #9, Gasquet #10. The top is strong, and the guys on the bottom aren’t even contending with the guys in the middle. But the center, it seems, cannot hold.