Clay as component of open-era rivalries
Joe Ramirez
percentage of matches played on clay (red or green).
Borg-McEnroe: 0
Borg-Connors: 26
McEnroe-Connors: 12
McEnroe-Lendl: 19
McEnroe-Wilander: 31
McEnroe-Edberg: 0
McEnroe-Becker: 0
Lendl-Connors: 11
Lendl-Wilander: 45
Lendl-Becker: 5
Lendl-Edberg: 0
Wilander-Edberg: 10
Wilander-Becker: 20
Edberg-Becker: 8
Edberg-Connors: 8
Becker-Agassi: 7
Sampras-Edberg: 0
Sampras-Becker: 5
Sampras-Agassi: 15
Federer-Agassi: 0
Federer-Nadal: 56
For possible future comparisons
Federer-Djokovic: 17
Nadal-Djokovic: 41
TT
It's great that we have been fortunate to witness 2 great clay courters
in same era.
Who said h2h doesn't matter...you seem obsessed with it! :-P
TT
Lendl - Borg 50%
Joe Ramirez
It doesn't matter for *ranking* players (except as a last-ditch
tiebreaker). It can be interesting for other reasons, of course. I'd
never looked at this issue sytematically before.
Joe Ramirez
They don't meet the 10-match minimum.
kaennorsing
Interesting. This shows how clay-sided the rivalry is between Federer
and Nadal from an open are perspective and is an indication as to what
extent Nadal benefits from meeting Federer mostly on his terms (for
h2h fetishists) in relation to past rivalries.
However, I think the h2h is more than simply distorted by its
disproportional clay representation. My thinking is Federer benefits
more from the general playing conditions in the 2nd half of the year,
wherein he's only lost to Nadal once (W '08) and defeated him 5 times
(2xW, 3xYEC).
In the 2nd half of the season the courts are generally quicker, ball-
bounces lower and there are a couple of indoor courts where players
play in 'perfect' playing conditions. To illustrate Fed's 2nd half
season success: of the 97 finals Fed made in his career 54 finals came
in the 2nd half of the year (56%). This even though the first half
contains 6 months of the ATP calender whereas the 2nd half is
effectively only 4,5 months long. (source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Federer_career_statistics). Meaning
Federer is slightly more successful in the 2nd half - even though it's
clearly shorter and regardless of Nadal (which is why I chose to count
finals).
The fact they've met a grand total of 6 out of 25 times in the 2nd
half of the year (24%) further underlines the overall h2h statistic is
a stat that says more about the general playing conditions under which
they've mostly matched-up, rather than it being an indication (let
alone proof) of who's the overall better or greater player.
steve jaros
> Rivalries between open-era 6+ slam champions (10-match min.):
> percentage of matches played on clay (red or green).
>
> Borg-McEnroe: 0
> Borg-Connors: 26
> McEnroe-Connors: 12
> McEnroe-Lendl: 19
> McEnroe-Wilander: 31
> McEnroe-Edberg: 0
> McEnroe-Becker: 0
> Lendl-Connors: 11
> Lendl-Wilander: 45
> Lendl-Becker: 5
> Lendl-Edberg: 0
> Wilander-Edberg: 10
> Wilander-Becker: 20
> Edberg-Becker: 8
> Edberg-Connors: 8
> Becker-Agassi: 7
> Sampras-Edberg: 0
> Sampras-Becker: 5
> Sampras-Agassi: 15
> Federer-Agassi: 0
> Federer-Nadal: 56
Wow ... Federer/Nadal stands out like sore thumb.
--
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"steve jaros" <sja...@chill.com> wrote in message
news:iste59$51m$2...@dont-email.me...
Yeah, two clay-court greats.
Joe Ramirez
least 10 times but either *never* met on clay or played just a few
matches on it.
Pedro Dias
Well, Lendl-Wilander are not that far off quantitatively, which is
understandable. The surprise for me is McEnroe-Wilander. Not sure how
to square that with Borg-McEnroe, and with McEnroe's numbers
generally.
Shakes
The difference is striking. But I think the hidden reason/issue here
is that the surface disparity that used to exist until 10 yrs back no
longer does, which means top players can perform well across different
surfaces without having to make a lot of adjustments. Unlike today.
Today, because of the surface similarity, top guys can play the same
game on all surfaces and do reasonably well.
Guys previously, if they tried to tune their games to do well on one
surface, they were handicapped on the other surfaces. It's almost like
they had to pick either the fast surfaces or the slow surfaces.
That's why I disagree that top players today are more complete than
they were, just because they are getting into the 2nd week of all
slams.
Ted S.
> Federer-Nadal: 56
>
> For possible future comparisons
> Federer-Djokovic: 17
> Nadal-Djokovic: 41
And for the record, since the change to the Masters Series events being
mandatory (was that back in 2000?), four of the fourteen mandatory
events (28.6%) have been on clay.
--
Ted Schuerzinger
tedstennis at myrealbox dot com
If you're afraid of the ball, don't sit in the front row. --Anastasia
Rodionova
TT
> On Fri, 10 Jun 2011 06:42:43 -0700 (PDT), Joe Ramirez wrote:
>
>> Federer-Nadal: 56
>>
>> For possible future comparisons
>> Federer-Djokovic: 17
>> Nadal-Djokovic: 41
>
> And for the record, since the change to the Masters Series events being
> mandatory (was that back in 2000?), four of the fourteen mandatory
> events (28.6%) have been on clay.
>
There are 2 mandatory clay events. (+RG)
Joe Ramirez
I don't disagree with this basic observation, but it doesn't entirely
account for the data presented here. Playing the same game on all
surfaces -- without other factors at work -- would cause the
percentage of matches per surface to coincide roughly with the
percentage of events played on that surface.
Shakes
But because we are talking about higher ranked players, they would be
seeded to meet in the SF or F of most tournaments they enter. Which
means, the probability that they would get through that far is not as
high on surfaces which are not conducive to their natural game. So,
they don't actually get to play each other a whole lot on such
surfaces.
bob
a walopping left hook sent to the jaw has ramirez hoping for the
bell...
bob