Palookas Named Andy – The Making of the Roger Federer Legend

More quick metrics following Nadal’s latest domination of the French Open. Our own ratings have Nadal at Number 1 with 7 Frenchies beating a cumulative field twice as good as Borg did in his 6 slams. Nadal has also passed Sampras on the cumulative power list of quality slam victories.

A former pro player mentioned to us that Nadal and Djokovic were beating Federer when he was not at his peak. And, that Federer, as the winner of 16 slams, is just better. This is mind numbingly dumb as 99% of society believes that in any sports endeavor when someone beats someone else, the winner is better than the loser. Nadal’s 6 title wins at Grand Slam finals without a loss to Federer the last 5 years dictates pure superiority. But not for that slim .1% of the tennis intelligentsia and innumerates like Peter Bodo. No wonder other sports fans don’t take tennis seriously. So we have a new metric to cut through the argument.

At #3 in the world, Federer is still at his peak. Since Federer’s first loss to Nadal at the 2006 French Open final when he was 24, Federer has reached the finals of more than 40 atp tournaments or about 47% of his total finals. There has been very little dropoff in performance unlike for example, Lleyton Hewitt, who reached only 9 finals or the last 20% of his career finals after his 2004 loss to Federer at the finals of the US Open and quickly fell out of the ATP top 3. Our eyes don’t deceive us, Federer at his peak is simply not as good as Nadal or Djokovic at their peak.

Below, we have a table that looks at the players Nadal beat in his Grand Slam finals vs. the players Federer and Sampras beat for their championships. Nadal owned Federer 6 times (from Federer at 24 years old to 29, beating him on every surface) and Djokovic twice to win 8 of his 11 championships. Putting a cumulative score on the number of slam wins of Nadal’s opponents, that amount is 106. For Sampras his cumulative score is 48. Federer’s cumulative score is 43 of which 27 come from beating Nadal and Djokovic before they turned 21.5 years old.

Unlike Nadal and Federer, Sampras 3 times beat 3 other grand slam winners to win a slam. His field was much tougher and he didn’t have a 32 seed draw to protect him from early round challengers. Sampras also was winner in 2 of the toughest Wimbledons and US Opens ever played. Nadal won a single slam defeating 3 prior slam winners but never repeated that feat. Federer never accomplished this. Another feat that Sampras accomplished that Federer did not near the end of his career is that when Sampras lost to Marat Safin at the US Open finals in 2000, he came back and defeated him in the subsequent year’s championship. Once Federer has lost to Nadal and Djokovic on any surface at a Slam, he has never beaten them again at that Slam.

But just who did Federer beat at his slam championships. Close scrutiny shows he won against a collections of journeymen named Andy (Palookas), Nadal and Djokovic before their prime (Puppies) and the Ghost of Andre Agassi. Four of Federer’s slam victories, and 4 of his cumulative “points” came against Andy Roddick. Andy Roddick never should have won the 2003 US Open. He was losing to David Nalbandian 2 sets to love, in a 3rd set tiebreaker with the score 7-7 when a fan called an in ball “Out” and Nalbandian mishit the next ball and lost the next point, the next two sets and the match. Another 2 of Federer’s slams came against Andy Murray. So 6 of his 16 have come against …

Palookas Named Andy

All Federer’s Slam wins against Nadal and Djokovic came before their peaks. Federer won his first slam at 21 and 11 months old.

Federer’s other big win was against an over the hill, 35 year old Agassi. Agassi was a shell of the player that demolished Federer at the US Open in 2002 when he was 32 years old. Taking out Federer’s win over out of his prime Agassi in 2005 with before their prime Nadal and Djokovic (as our former pro would do), his overall slam score falls to a mundane 8 points with wins over Palookas like Andy Murray, Marcos Baghdatis and Robin Soderling.

In contrast Sampras beat a host of players at their peak such as Edberg, Becker, Lendl, Agassi, Courier and Chang. He was the best player on hard courts until his last tournament, the 2002 US Open, which he won. The year following Sampras’ loss to Marat Safin at the US Open finals, he came back and beat him at the next year’s semifinals. Similarly, Nadal also came back in 2010 to avenge his loss against Soderling at Roland Garros. Federer hasn’t won a Wimbledon, his best surface, since 2009 and that year Nadal was out with a knee injury. It has been 5 years since Federer won a Wimbledon with Nadal in the field. If Nadal isn’t injured or out at the end of 2008 through the beginning of 2010, maybe Federer’s slam count stays at 14 and Nadal’s is at 13.

You can say for the all time greatest, Federer had a very short peak, from 21 years and 11 months old to 25 and 11 months old (the last time he beat Nadal at a slam) unlike any other all time great. Or that his path to number 1 was paved with Palookas named Andy.

Forget About Roy Emerson as an All Time Great Tennis Player

As Rafa Nadal wins his eleventh grand slam, how does he rank against the other all time greats that have won as many or more Grand Slams. Those would be Roger Federer (16), Pete Sampras (14), Bjorn Borg (11) and Roy Emerson (12).

But wait a second, who is Roy Emerson?!? Roy Emerson, Emmo, was an Australian amateur tennis player who is renowned for winning many of the amateur Grand Slam championships in the era just preceding the Open Grand Slams.

From 1920 to 1950 the United States won the Amateur Only Davis Cup 13 times and finished second 9 times. In that same period, Australia won 2 Davis Cup titles and finished second 10 times. (Davis Cup Titlists – http://bit.ly/OuRtOL ). In the late 1940s, Jack Kramer joined and developed the men’s professional tennis circuit.

Quickly the greatest players of the game joined the tour. Any players who had amateur grand slam success went to the next level of play, the pro circuit and Kramer’s championship tour. The US Pro Championships were considered to be the “Pro Grand Slam”

From 1948 through 1954 more than 95% of the quarterfinalists at the US Pro Championships were Americans. The Australians won the Davis Cup from 1950-1953 as the top 8 Americans were playing pro tennis. Frank Sedgman was the first Australian to have an impact on the pro circuit reaching the finals of the US Pro in 1954. He was quickly joined by Ken Rosewall and Lew Hoad, but Pancho Gonzalez dominated the championships, winning from 1952 to 1959. Americans still comprised more than 75% of semifinalists at the US Pros from 1955-1962 but Australia won the amateur Davis Cup until Rod Laver turned pro. (US Pro Draws for the 1960’s http://bit.ly/NbbQ6K ). The next year, despite Emmo’s wins in Australia and Roland Garros, the Australians lost the Davis Cup to the United States with Marty Riessen, Dennis Ralston and Arthur Ashe winning the amateur team championship.

Australia adopted a hard line. The Lawn Tennis Association of Australia (LTAA) provided a rich “stipend” for their “amateur” players to keep them amateur. From 1963 to 1966 no new Australians turned pro and qualified into the US Pro Championships and finally in 1967, Fred Stolle turned pro after winning the 1966 US Amateurs despite having a worse Slam record than Emmo.

In the period from 1963 to 1966, Emmo won 10 of his 12 slams. From 1963 – 1965, American amateurs had no budget to travel. More than 80% of top 8 Australian Amateur championship seeds were Australians while at the same time, more than 50% of US Pro quarterfinalists were American. (1963 Australian Open Seeds – http://bit.ly/MBwKGo)

Finally, in 1969, all the amateur championships converted to professional and Rod Laver, the professional champion 3 of the prior 4 years won the Grand Slam again. Emerson never got beyond a quarterfinal of any slams in the pro era, losing in the quarterfinals as defending champion of Roland Garros to the 40 year old Pancho Gonzalez. Jack Kramer in 1979 did not rank Emerson in his list of the top 21 players of all time (http://bit.ly/L3AmUG)

Philosophically we like to consider Emmo’s position in the tennis pantheon. As an amateur during a settled pro era, we have never seen a period where amateurs in any sports are better than the pros. Think about the difference between the US Amateur Olympic basketball team and the Dream Team.

As you know, this blog looks at the hard data and real history of tennis and fixes the data so people can do apples to apples comparisons of tennis quality. When head to head data is not available, we substitute other data such as common opponents or competition during different eras.

For the decade of the 1960s there is no way to rank Emmo against his peer group during that period since he did not play any of them for long periods. However, we can rank him post amateur as a professional against the same players who are about the same age. In the pro era, Emmo had a Won/Loss record of 5-34 against the top pros from 1963-1967 including Arthur Ashe who turned pro in 1969 and was 11-1 against Emmo as a pro though he lost two Amateur Australian finals to Emmo.

Roy Emerson record vs. the top pros of 1963-1967, post 1967

W/L
Rod Laver 1-14
Ken Rosewall 1-5
Pancho Gonzalez 0-1
Andres Gimeno 2-3
Arthur Ashe 1-11

Overall Record 5-34

Given this record, we would put Emerson’s highest rank among amateur / pros of the 60’s who were his age outside of the top 5.

Yet Emerson remains in the top 10 players of many “experts” who don’t know the data or the circumstance of the time or willfully choose to ignore the data. If you google Roy Emerson and top 10 players of all time, more than 240,000 results occur. Yet, Pancho Gonzalez, who won a record 8 US Pro championships in a row, is not ranked as high by many experts as Emerson.

How do you reply to someone over beers who says Roy Emerson is a top 10 player of all time? You smile, you say,

* “He was a great amateur champion”,
* “He never got past a professional grand slam quarterfinal”,
* “He was 5-34 against the best pro players of his era”,
* “If he wasn’t the best of any of his years, how could he be one of the best of all time?”

And then you drink your beer very slowly.