Ranking Federer by Surface All Time

ADDING THEM UP – MEASURING TENNIS GREATNESS

We’ve covered how Roger Federer stacks up vs the other all time greats on an all surface basis.  Our methodology, SHOTS , argues that for tennis greatness it is important to establish a consistent framework.   SHOTS relies on 2 metrics we created, SITDON, which looks at career winning percent between all time greats, Pantheonists, vs. each other and SATERICCON, a multi-dimensional snapshot of the competitiveness of open era slams ranking each one of them.  When we aggregate the results of those slams for each winner, it gives us a portrait of the all time most competitive slam champions, those players who were greatest when greatness was required.   So rather than hypothesize, we look at player records, value the toughest tournaments and add them up.  In the absence of an alternative methodology, we provide a robust framework to answer the question, who really is the Greatest Tennis Champion.

Breaking out Federer’s match record by surface, he places 7^th at Wimbledon in SATERICCON score vs. Sampras who comes in first with a 2.63 ranking.   Sampras may not have a 2.63 times greater chance of winning a Wimbledon championship than Federer (though we think it is somewhat indicative).  But he is more likely to win such a championship where players have won 2.63 times more slams than in Federer’s era.  (Remember that we have adjusted the SATERICCON rating to almost double Federer’s chances of winning a slam vs all time greats based on cumulative rather than average score. )  Some consider Sampras’ victory in 1993 to be the greatest Wimbledon.  Quarterfinalists included 6 slam winners (Agassi, Edberg, Becker, Stich, Courier and Sampras) and 2 multi-slam finalists (Todd Martin and Cedric Pioline).  However, Becker’s 1989 victory had 4 quarterfinalists that had won as many grand slams as the 1993 quarterfinalists combined (Edberg, McEnroe, Lendl, Wilander). Both are great feats and show the confluence of great all time players and styles in that era.

Again, SATERICCON Analysis shows the quality of a player by the field they defeat.  Not surprisingly the 4 toughest Wimbledon’s occurred within a 6 year time frame, between 1988 and 1993.

A similar story plays out at the US Open where Federer places 6^th to John McEnroe’s 2.93  cumulative rating.  Though some have argued that Sampras’ first US Open victory was the hardest with 5 Pantheon quarterfinalists (McEnroe, Lendl, Agassi and Becker), on a SATERICCON basis, Edberg’s 1991 victory had at least the same difficulty and his 1992 victory was superior with 5 Pantheon quarterfinalists (Sampras, Agassi, Courier and Lendl) plus Michael Chang, a slam winner. McEnroe had a similarly challenging 1980 victory with 4 Pantheonists (Borg, Connors, Lendl) and multi-slam winner, Johan Kriek.

Again, SATERICCON Analysis shows the quality of a player by the field they defeat.  Not surprisingly the toughest US Open’s are concentrated in two eras when great new talents emerged to challenge the established talents still in their prime.   2 of the top 5 occurred when McEnroe and Lendl came to challenge Borg and Connors and the remaining 3 occurred when Agassi, Sampras, Courier and Chang came to challenge Becker, Edberg and Lendl.

When taken on a weighted average across fast surfaces Federer ranks a cumulative 7^th on the SATERICCON scale.   Though Borg never won the US Open his cumulative Wimbledon score puts him ahead of Federer.  Likewise, Becker and Edberg who won less than half the titles of Federer, rank ahead of him when you consider that they played at  the nexus of all time great play.

When reviewing the fast surface data, we do a reality check of Federer’s play vs. comparable players who emulated the champions listed above him.  With a 10 year age difference there is insufficient match experience between Federer and Sampras to make a judgement, though Sampras frequently won tournaments at least twice as difficult as Federer and served 5-10 mph on average faster.  Federer lost to Nadal on fast courts many times.  Would he do any better against a left handed serve and volleying McEnroe.  Using Federer’s record against Agassi prior to Agassi turning 33, would Federer do well against a left handed, tough returning player like Connors?  Finally, Patrick Rafter dominated Federer before he retired, would Federer do better against Stefan Edberg who stylistically is a similar yet vastly superior player to Rafter?

When we started this discussion of all time greatness, it was pre-Wimbledon before Rafael Nadal won his 2^nd title in 4 consecutive finals.  Nadal fits the prototypical model of the Pantheon players as a teenage winner of a slam or a person who wins a slam within a year or two of turning pro such as Connors in 1974.  All of the top 5 Pantheon  players established themselves this way but not Federer who finishes 10th all time / all surface via SATERRICON .  Nadal is likely to move to #2 all time with his next slam win based on his SATERRICON rating while still maintaining the highest winning percent among Pantheon players via SITDON analysis.

We now look at Nadal’s French Open record.  Nadal’s French Open record is marked by his victories over Federer in 3 finals and 1 semifinal and Federer’s participation in each quarterfinal during Nadal’s era.  Borg’s era is marked by the absence of great clay court players and the retirement of the great Aussie generation early on and Lendl’s is hindered by his quest for a Wimbledon title where he skipped multiple French Opens.   In Lendl’s absence, Wilander and Andres Gomez (who Lendl handily beat 4 times at the French Open) won the title.

Again, SATERICCON analysis shows the quality of the players by the fields they played against.  Not surprisingly the toughest French Open’s involve the Lendl – Wilander rivalry which saw many great multi-surface matches and by Jim Courier’s two year dominance of the surface over Agassi.

To improve his legacy, Federer  will need to do more as the path of his career continues to mirror Sampras with fewer victories and even less victories against other grand slam winners.  A US Open, Wimbledon or Australian Open win against Nadal (the French seems out of the question) and tournament wins over the next generation of greats will be significant and could improve his SATERICCON ratings so he passes Becker and Edberg.  Sampras, Borg, Nadal and McEnroe seem unobtainable and surpassing Connors will depend on his success against a younger generation of future slam winners perhaps including Juan Martin Del Potro (should he return successfully from wrist surgery) and maybe Sam Querrey as both Nadal and Djokovic are on the down side of their career grand slam trajectories and are unlikely to add significantly to their totals.  We don’t see a new generation of players on the horizon like Sampras and Agassi or Lendl and McEnroe that will catalyze the game via a great rivalry with Federer and Nadal.

SHOTS, the Hierarchy of Tennis Supremacy

There are around 1 million articles or comments on the internet about Sampras vs. Federer.  Few articles ask, in a tournament of all time greats on any surface, exactly who would Federer (the first seed by A32 rules) beat and how?  If you had to bet your last dime on who would win a tournament of all time greats, would it go towards Federer or someone else?  To understand this concept we created SHOTS, Secada’s Hierarchy Of Tennis Supremacy.  We discuss SHOTS at the midway point of this article while delving into more of Federer’s career statistics comparisons in the next few paragraphs.

Successor Champions

Successor champions occur in tennis when the prior number 1 player is on the decline or has retired and there is a succession fight for number 1.  Martina Hingis, became number 1 without beating Steffi Graf; Roy Emerson remained amateur as other Aussies turned pro.  Sampras is the only open era player to win a slam in his teens, 20’s and 30’s.  Federer never won a Sampras era slam.  He became number 1 after Sampras retired and as Agassi became too long in the tooth to compete with him as displayed in the  “rope a dope” 2005 US Open final.   With Sampras and Rafter’s retirement, tennis saw the same absence of high quality serve and volleyers experienced in the 1974 – 1980 era when the Australian greats retired.

Federer’s career winning percentage of 80.66% trails Borg, Lendl and Connors.  In the diluted A32 era, he won 16 slams, a career grand slam and reached more semifinals than others (as the A32 rules enabled).  Federer won the French Open when there was only a one time slam winner in the quarterfinals.   He lost his last 3 slam finals to Nadal on every surface.  But Federer’s career slam is exaggerated and, SATERICCON analysis shows, happened with weaker fields.  Connors was undefeated in slams  in 1974 dominating Borg on clay.  Would he have won the French Open, and completed a one year slam if he had not been banned from the tourney?

What happens when we adjust for all time greats i.e. Pantheonists who have won slams on all surfaces.  In that case both Connors and Nadal enter the discussion and Federer’s all surface slam Q-rating is last using our SATERICCON methodology.  Nadal’s supremacy over Federer is dispositive  since no other top Pantheon player has had a significant losing record on every surface against another during their period of dominance.  If Federer wasn’t his era’s best, how could he be the greatest ever?

Federer’s Career All Surface Slam Quality (Q) Rank
via SATTERICON Analysis
1		Connors
2		Nadal
3		Wilander
4		Agassi
5/Last		Federer

With SATERICCON on an all surface slam record we modify it to take only the best results on that surface during a slam victory.  Each player ranked ahead of Federer beat a field more than twice as competitive as Federer’s in their respective all surface slams.   On that basis, Connors wins over Borg on hard courts and clay to win the US Open and his grass win over McEnroe at Wimbledon are dispositive with Nadal ranking a slight second.

Nadal is a classic all time great emerging as a teen like McEnroe, Borg, Sampras, Becker, Wilander and Agassi and he won a grand slam early in his career.  Federer was unable to show an extra gear vs. Nadal on any surface, unlike a Boris Becker on grass vs. Edberg or Lendl on hard courts vs. Wilander.   We saw the limit of his game.

Federer’s 82% and declining, winning percent against non-slam winners matches Sampras’ first 874 matches at the same point in his career.   Federer’s record against non Pantheon slam winners was built on a gaudy 40-5 record against 1 time slam winners and baseliners (for the most part) such as Gaston Gaudio, Thomas Johansson, Juan Carlos Ferrero and Andy Roddick  (not a natural serve and volleyer).  Sampras’ record against the power serve and volleyers Krajicek and Stich was no better than 8-10.  Outside those players, Sampras overall record is superior to Federer’s.  With respect to matches between Pantheonists, Sampras ranks first for players with more than 35 of these matches, Federer last.

Creating a Framework for Tennis Greatness

So how do you control for rule changes and the many other variables in different eras of tennis when tennis corporatists inflate statistics and smooth the way to championships?  In a tournament of all time greats, who would win?  SHOTS is a 4 step pyramid where to get to the highest level of realization, you must first complete the prior levels.  Level one is experience as a Grand Slam winner.  Level 2 is experience as a top 16 Grand Slam winner (Pantheon level player).  Level 3 is won-lost percentage vs. other Pantheonists as reflected in SITDON analysis.  Level 4 is the difficulty of slam championships won using SATERICCON analysis or Slam Quality (Q) Rating.  So although one can argue that today’s players may be taller, stronger and use better equipment or that the fields have been diluted due to rule and surface changes, they can’t argue the number of slam winners at any one tournament or their head to head record.  It is known data.

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Our Hiearchy of Tennis Supremacy is dominated by SITDON – Normalized head to head record and SATERICCON – Normalized difficulty of winning a slam.

GOVERNING TENNIS PREDICTIVE MODELS

Tennis is governed by a few 80-20 rules of match play.  After 3-5 matches it becomes settled science as to who will win 80% of the time if one player shows dominance over the other, moreso in a slam with Pantheonists as seen in this year’s Wimbledon final between Nadal and Berdych.  The lone caveat is a “breakthrough” event when a player reaches another level of tennis such as Pete Sampras after his loss to Stefan Edberg at the 1992 US Open or Ivan Lendl after his French Open victory over John McEnroe.   They both went to a next level of greatness, dominating most opposition and fighting the remainder to a draw at worst.  In contrast, each time Federer lost to Nadal, he came back and lost worse the next year.  Watching Nadal’s career progression shows that Nadal has an extra gear that Federer doesn’t.

Absent match competitive data, style of play matters, certain players have a style that beat other players.  Kick serve and volleyer Rafter dominated Federer, similarly styled Edberg may have the same result.  Left handed Nadal dominated Federer at his prime, then left handed, kick serving McEnroe, a clutch player, may have a significant chance against Federer.   Or if Agassi who hits off the bounce early, dominated Federer, then Connors a similar lefty may have a chance against Federer and his backhand.

And finally, youth triumphs over experience when there is a significant age difference and mileage.   For example, Jimmy Connors overall career record vs. Pantheonists is less than 40%.  When isolating for when he was at his peak i.e. younger than 31 and eliminating players over 31, his normalized performance was 57% about the same as Borg.  And of course a young Federer beats a 35 year old Agassi.  Next, SITDON analysis of the Federer record – crunching the numbers.

Wimpledon and the Inflated Tennis Era

Fans at the 1980’s Wimbledon tennis finals between Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker would wonder what they’re watching if they entered a “hot tub time machine” and saw the 2010 semifinals.  2001 rule changes by tennis corporate rule makers diluted the value of a Slam victory and inflated the likely number of wins for any all time great.  Wimbledon court was slowed the same year to align better with the other surfaces all but removing the serve and volleyer from contention in the game.  Wimbledon has become “Wimp”ledon.

In 2000, tennis was faced with the loss of their “Greatest Open Era Generation”.  Boris Becker, Jim Courier, Michael Chang, Stefan Edberg, and the aging Sampras, Agassi and Gustavo Kuerten were all heading to the tennis court in the sky.  They were also the “Greatest Marque Generation” with championship level players from high net worth countries besides the U.S. including Germany, Sweden, France, a well-liked player of East Asian descent and a great South American champion.

Sponsors and Slams revolted as the brand dissipated.    Independently controlled Slams wanted to seed by surface and sponsors were concerned about the relative no-names or surface specialists  (read “unbranded players”) who could pull an upset in an early round and ruin attendance and tv viewership for later rounds.  Unable to bridge the discrepancy between relative talent on different surfaces corporate tennis decided to save the brand moving to the 32 seed (A32) approach which limited all the Grand Slams with the exception of Wimbledon from seeding by surface.  A32 reduced risk and the number of tough matches a top ranked player would play in succession saving them only for the later rounds.  Like McGwire and Sosa in baseball’s home run era, by inflating statistics, in this case the number of times the top players reached later rounds and finals, they could market the brand and hide underlying problems in the game while satisfying sponsors.  Like baseball, this resulted in smashing hard won tennis records and metrics as high seeds win more slams than ever due to A32.  Tennis corporatist’s stewardship of the game’s integrity is questionable with A32.  When considering their disastrous PEDs testing program after 25 years of scandal or inability to develop metrics to measure tennis athleticism across eras it is awful.

A32 business decisions impacted the game’s integrity with intended and unintended consequences that were many and immediate.   Besides minimizing surface specialist challenges, older champs in decline would typically fall into the 17-32 unseeded rankings slots but now had no “puncher’s” chance to knock off younger, high seeds in earlier rounds when they were well-rested.  This would then open up the draw for a deep run into a tournament and for new contenders to emerge.  Falling out of the top 32 for a tennis Pantheonist was equivalent to retirement as almost every all-time great has fallen out of the top 100 within a year of falling out of the top 32 rankings.

A concrete example of this was Federer’s US Open victory over a 35 year old Agassi in 2005 after Agassi had already played 3 consecutive 5 setters the prior 6 days, the finals played on one day’s rest.    It was a triumph of a player in his prime against one with an expired warranty and more than 1,000 pro matches under his belt.  Agassi’s prior match record to Federer before turning 33 was 3-0 including a shellacking at the US Open where Federer won 7 games.  Low-seeded Sampras faced a similar uphill battle in decline, losing to Hewitt in 2001 after performing a Slam Triple defeating the last 2 players to beat him at the Open, Rafter and Safin (the year before, he beat Hewitt).

Meanwhile Federer (82%) has an almost identical winning record against a weaker non-slam field to Sampras after 874 matches.  He has played about 55% as many slam winners as Sampras and played 30% the matches against tennis Pantheonists than Sampras and less than 20% the matches than Connors and Lendl.  Simply put, Federer won slams in an era with a dearth of challengers in a system favoring champions.

The “Slam Triple” is a metric we’ve created that marks when a player in a slam defeats 3 prior slam winners in a row, typically to reach the finals or win the tournament.  A32 has decimated this metric.  12 times on fast surfaces between 1973 and 2001 a player had to defeat 3 slam winners in a row to either win a slam or get to the finals.  Sampras did it 3 times.  It is another measure of the difficulty of a tennis tournament.  Post A32, no fast surface slam winner has beaten 3 slam winners consecutively to win or reach the finals of a slam.  Federer had a chance in 2009 but instead lost his 3^rd consecutive slam final on a 3rd surface to Nadal in Australia.

In addition, since A32, the top seed  has not won Roland Garros which speaks to the spurious use of seeding by ranking across surfaces.  When incorporating the slam triple for clay courts, we find multiple occurrences by Pantheon players as Ivan Lendl did it in 1984, Jim Courier did it twice to win his two French Opens in 1991 and 1992 and Rafael Nadal did it to win the 2007 Roland Garros.  Between the 1990 US Open and 1993 Wimbledon the slam triple was accomplished 7 times (in those 12 tournaments) by 5 different Pantheon players.  Clearly the most competitive era in tennis.  Thomas Muster and Yevgeny Kafelnikov won slam triples later in 1995 and 1997.

Wimbledon’s decision to slow down the surface and balls with A32 eliminated some of the power player’s advantage as seen by the contrast in the serve and volley slugfest of 2001 with dozens of net approaches by both players and 40 aces to the 2002 baseline tournament with 7 aces in total and few jaunts to the net.  Tennis commentators and former pro serve and volleyers:  Paul Annacone, John McEnroe and Darren Cahill, all commented on how balls no longer skid, they popped up while match after match saw multiple lengthy baseline rallies.

Commentators  blame racquet technology, but racquet technology doesn’t alter physics much when a ball skids 6 inches high.  The biggest change is most players are hitting down on the ball at a height equal to or over the net height which favors the groundstroker.  Indeed, no serve and volleyers made it to 2010’s quarterfinals.   Federer averaged net approaches on less than 15% of his total points in the tournament before elimination, averaging a measly 118 mph first serve for the tournament (well below some of Sampras 125 mph average service speed in many matches).

Wimbledon used to see the days of a hard charging Boris Becker, John McEnroe or Pat Cash coming to the net at all costs to avoid the balls skidding bounce.   Frequently the players would hit the ground before the ball, as grass tennis was a crazy form of hockey and rugby.  It wasn’t unusual for players to face off blasting volleys a few feet from each other.  You are lucky to see players get within a court length of each other in a match today and Nadal who frequently plays 10-20 feet behind the baseline remains the best all court player left in the draw.  Today’s tennis is like a basketball game where players only shoot 3 pointers.  What about using the rest of the court?  When this happened in the NBA threatening to ruin the game, they changed the rules.

Another consequence has been the advent of serving giants like Ivo Karlovic, John Isner, Tomas Berdych and Sam Querrey.  Though tennis has slowed the ball, the geometry of the game has made it easier for big men who can serve at greater angles and speed as the balls now pop up at stroke level for taller players rather than forcing them to bend to hit skidding balls.  In 2001 3 seeds were 6’4” or taller.  This year there were 10 such seeded players prior to Ivo Karlovic dropping out of the tournament.   Only Berdych, a baseliner made it to the semifinals.  Gone is the “serve and volleyer”, now we have the ”serve and rallyer”.

Other consequences are what to do as favorites begin downward progressions.  Federer is at the age where Sampras saw marked decline and has lost in successive slam quarterfinals.  Nadal at 24 is closing on the age where Borg retired (25) and is the same age when Wilander won his last slam.  Unless Nadal dramatically changes his game to reduce wear and tear and reliance on backcourt movement, it is likely that tennis will see substantial changing of the guard within the next 2 years.  And then what for the tennis brand as A32 starves its young talent of wide open draws?  Next, a framework for determining all time greats.

Unexpected Consequences of A32 Era
*		No First Seed Wins Roland Garros in 8 years.
*		Serve and Volleyers become Serve and Rallyers – Wimpledon
*		Slam Triple, Eradicated
*		Diminished New Branding Possibilities (What to do as Federer winds down and Nadal reaches 26, old age for 2 handers)
*		Super-Sized Players
*		Greater Difficulty for Older Champions to Win Tournaments