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Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2012 21:57:58 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: Re: Nish bagels Raonic
From: Joe Ramirez <josephmrami...@netzero.com>
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On Oct 9, 6:52=A0pm, Court_1 <Olympia0...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Oct 9, 6:22=A0pm, Joe Ramirez <josephmrami...@netzero.com> wrote:
>
> > On the contrary, as I've said, *most* years feature at least a few
> > "dodgy" players in the Top 10. It's the rule, not the exception, for
> > the Top 10 to be a mix of true greats, solid slam threats, and mere
> > also-rans. You can verify this easily just by looking at the lists.
>
> Yes, a few dodgy players in past top ten lists but not often 6 or 7
> out of ten!
>
> > > Just randomly look at a few years and see who was in the top ten. For
> > > example I just randomly picked the following:
>
> > > June 20,1983--Connors, McEnroe, Lendl, Noah, Vilas, Wilander.
>
> > That's not a Top 10; it's six guys. What about the *rest* of them?
>
> > > May 22, 1989--Lendl, Becker, Edberg, Wilander, Agassi, Muster, McEnro=
e
>
> > That's not a Top 10; it's seven guys.
>
> Seven guys out of the top ten who were multiple slam winners and won
> many other big ATP titles. You can't say the same about players ranked
> 5-10 today.
>
> > Your analysis is totally distorted. You are comparing the *worst*
> > players (by your lights) of today's Top 10 with the *best* players of
> > other Top 10s. What kind of approach is that? I might ask how on earth
> > Anders Jarryd, Henrik Sundstrom, and Eliot Teltscher (1984 Top 10) can
> > compare to Fed, Djoker, and Nadal. Therefore 1984 was an era dominated
> > by chumps?
>
> It is not distorted at all. I am comparing top ten players in many
> (not all) past years to today's top ten and the evidence is clear--
> today's top ten is weak compared to those years. It is not just by my
> judgement, the achievements of those past top ten players are much
> greater than today's 5-10 ranked players.

From 1973 through 2012 -- 40 years of computer rankings -- the average
(mean) number of slam winners in the year-end Top 10 has been 5.5.
This refers to players who had won at least one slam *by that point in
their careers*, including AOs won when good players didn't care about
that event and FOs won when a different one-hit-wonder clay specialist
popped up every year; future wins not counted. Also note that no year
ever exceeded eight slam winners in the Top 10.

So, an average of 4.5 players in every year's Top 10 have been players
with 0 slams on their resumes up to that point.

If you'd prefer to conduct a more elaborate analysis, perhaps looking
at slam finals as well as slams, or counting each player's number of
slams and/or slam finals, or taking future slam wins into account
somehow, be my guest. Obviously, the greater the monopolization of
slam wins by a few players, the fewer the slams available to convert
other top-tenners into slam winners.