15 in a row for the Big 4 at the 1000 point level, what does that say about tennis?

What we have seen is an uprecendented dominance of slams by three players in the last few years. Now at the 1000 point or Masters level formerly the top 4 guys have won the last 15 events in a row. Players like David Ferrer who is currently world number 5 has never won a masters title in his career. What does this level of dominance at the top say about the tour, is it good or bad for the game?


Many people feel that this shows a lack of depth on the tour that the players ranked from 5 on down are deficient in comparison to what they should be. Some have raised issues that the surfaces have become more similar with wimbeldon becoming slower and some of the clay court events getting faster and therefore the homogenized surfaces are also homogenizing results.

My own personal thoughts about this issue, is it that the rest of the top 20 or 30 players are weaker or homogenized surfaces are creating this unprecedented dominance among the top 3 guys at slams and now the top 4 guys at Masters? Even at the slams MUrray is a veritable lock for quarters and semis the majority of the times and has now reached 4 finals. The determinative reason why these 4 players are dominating the field is simple, and like occum's razor when a list of solutions is presented and there is some doubt go for the simplest solution. Is it as simple as Roger, Rafa, Novak, and Andy being that much better than their opposition? Well of course that is the answer and the other factors are either irrelevant or at best supporting factors in the trend.

Now one may say that this is not logical to assume that because the top 4 are of high quality that it can't be a little bit of both that the other players in the top 10 or 20 just aren't as good as they have been in the past. Well when one looks at the players who hold the 5-10 holes on the ATP rankings guys like Tsonga, Berdy, Del Po, Ferrer one has to ask ones self are they very deficient when compared to other players that made up the second tier talent in past generations? And I think the answer is clearly that they are not, when you compare their level of accomplishment with other outside top 5 guys from the past you find that they are right about where you would expect. Del Po has a slam already and an olympic medal. Tsonga has a final's appearance and a Masters. Berdych has a final's appearance and Masters title. And Ferrer has consistently been winning and reaching the quarters and semis of every slam and has 16 career titles. Despite the recent blowout at the top in terms of Masters and slams these guys have carved out some impressive accomplishments befitting players who aren't really grandslam champion material but are players that can compete and create problems for the more skilled thoroughbreds.

Now as to the bigger question, the top 4 are better than everyone else is it necessarily good for the game?

You have come along this far for the ride so continue to allow your friend Socal to enlighten you. Absofreakinglutely it is great and spectacular for the game. People are addicted to greatness, they love a winner, they also like to be familiar with the stars that they follow. In American basketball great sportsmen literally built many of their team sports, for example the NBA was almost a dead league until the great old rivalry of the Celtics v. Lakers and namely two individual stars named Larry Bird and Magic johnson revived a dying sports league. For great rivalries you need great champions to battle each other, immovable forces colliding on a sporting supernova scale. People get goosebumps for fedal matches, sports shows talk about the "The shot" from the epic Nole/Fed semi deathmatches. And Murray is very much a great in grooming I believe but he has up till this point failed to make the final breakthrough, but give the man credit he doesn't stop knocking on the door loudly. So yes it is great for the game, that is why the sport loves fedal finals, borg v. Mac showdowns, and Connors street fights. The fans by in large, most of the fans don't really care about the second tier and don't sign up to watch a lot very good guys play each other, they get that tingly feeling when the greats play other greats. We are in my mind in a very special time in tennis, Roger the best of them all is still capable all though not his best, Rafa hopefully bounces back he has a slam this year, Novak is becoming near federesque in his ability to maintain consistency over the years at a very high level, and Andy well I still maintain you would be a fool to sleep on Andy at the slams as well. So enjoy it and don't let anyone rain on your parade.

Cor, Socal, your hit your stride there, didn't you?! 852 words!

My answer will be significantly shorter!

I think this era has a particularly strong top 4. There can't have been many other periods when Murray would only be ranked 4.

Numbers 5 downward though, I don't consider remarkable. Not poor, just typical of their rankings. I don't for example think David Ferrer is better than most previous #5s in the way I think Andy is better than previous #4s.

Net result? Dominance by the top 4. And I agree, it's good for the game.

Golf is going through a spell where nobody is really dominating and almost every major is having a new winner. I think this makes it much less interesting than when there are rivalries at the top of the game.

I prefer to base my opinion on a technical valuation of the current players, which is something I probably can speak of with a bit more competence.

If I consider the top 4 as it is now I see there is:

- Federer: A 31 years old great players (5 years outside his prime age).
- Nadal: one of the best clay courter ever, but also a player technically limited.
- Djokovic: an excellent player but certainly not one all time great, as he seems to lack a real competitive advantage ( does everything well but nothing exceptionally)
- Murray: same as above, with limitations in his personality traits

If I compare, for example this set of players with the top 10 in March 1991


1 Edberg, Stefan (SWE) 3,783 0 0
2 Becker, Boris (GER) 3,599 0 0
3 Lendl, Ivan (USA) 2,624 0 0
4 Agassi, Andre (USA) 1,902 0 0
5 Forget, Guy (FRA) 1,849 0 0
6 Sampras, Pete (USA) 1,585 0 0
7 Ivanisevic, Goran (CRO) 1,534 1 0
8 Bruguera, Sergi (ESP) 1,523 7 0
9 Courier, Jim (USA) 1,508 -2 0
10 Chang, Michael (USA) 1,426 -1 0
11 Svensson, Jonas (SWE) 1,420 -1 0
12 McEnroe, John (USA)

I have no doubt which one was better.

[b] = Slam ,winners

it says the big 3 plus Murray have been able to get away with being half fit and still able to nick a few points here and there and watching the lower ranked players crumble. Del Po and Tsonga, in any other era would be taking home numerous titles per season, but thanks to racquet technology there isn't too much effort needed to put the ball back into place off a good serve. You don't need to be overly strong these days to break a big server, big servers will have to learn to make better use of placement, or they face being left out to dry in the multitude of one hit wonders. Players with poor defence will go the way of the dodo..

J_K

That was one hell of a top 12 - perhaps though worth commenting that there were really 3 generations of players in the slam winners you listed. Johnny Mac was clearly an early to mid 80s player who had a good year late in his career, the top 3 were the dominant players of the later 80s, with the 4 Americans + Goran being the up and coming players (even if Chang had already had his best result by that time).

You could quite easily cherry pick some different eras where the players from 4 to 10 were a lot weaker than those at present - as SoCal and HM describe, the current 5-10 players have achieved about the same level as you would expect for typical players of this level.

Now as for why the top 4 are so dominant, and consistently ahead of the rest, clearly there are a number of allied reasons:
1 - They are exceptionally good players. In particular Federer is a very serious GOAT contender, while Nadal is probably the best there's ever been on clay (and gives very few opportunities for anyone else to take GS or MS1000 titles on the surface). Djokovic and Murray are both outstanding hardcourt players, with Djoko also being particularly strong on clay and Andy on faster surfaces (grass and indoors).

2 - They are also exceptionally consistent at getting to the later rounds of major tournaments. Even if one or two don't there's usually still at least one of them for the likes of Ferrer or Tsonga to get past in the SF or final.

3 - The narrowing of gaps between surface performance, changes to racket technology and consequent decrease in tactical differences between surfaces mean that one gameplan fits all circumstances far better than about 10 years ago. OK, there are still some differences, and the challenge of facing Nadal on a hardcourt or Murray on clay is less than Nadal on clay or Murray on hard, but is still too much most of the time for the rest of the field. Indeed, with the exception of clay, where Murray falls to maybe 5th / 6th, the top 4 are the best 4 on all surfaces even if the order switches round a bit.

Paris 2010, IW 2010, Miami 2010?

There are 9 masters each year, so 15 is roughly 2 years. Very small window to make any judgements, when the average life span of a pro-Tennis player is 10-15 years.

If I compare, for example this set of players with the top 10 in March 1991


1 Edberg, Stefan (SWE) 3,783 0 0
2 Becker, Boris (GER) 3,599 0 0
3 Lendl, Ivan (USA) 2,624 0 0
4 Agassi, Andre (USA) 1,902 0 0
5 Forget, Guy (FRA) 1,849 0 0
6 Sampras, Pete (USA) 1,585 0 0
7 Ivanisevic, Goran (CRO) 1,534 1 0
8 Bruguera, Sergi (ESP) 1,523 7 0
9 Courier, Jim (USA) 1,508 -2 0
10 Chang, Michael (USA) 1,426 -1 0
11 Svensson, Jonas (SWE) 1,420 -1 0
12 McEnroe, John (USA)


I have no doubt which one was better.

At that precise moment in time, only the bold actually had won a Slam.

Who is to say that in 5 years time that current top 12 haven't created more Slam winners.

That list for me at that time is not by any measures any stronger than the current top 10 given their positions and achievements at that time and the current achievements of the current crop.

To answer the OP I would say that the current crop of players are by far the most interesting.

The thing is the conditions and courts offer something to everyone. Take Federer. Great shot maker and fantastic mover on the court. Plays much more on touch than mind. You have Nadal who by and large is pure energy and ball bashing brute. He does have talent, but it less imaginative than a Federer or Djokovic. Djokovic is a hybrid of the 2. He has the shots, but also the energy to compete in slug out matches. Murray is in a quandry at the moment as the achievements don't quite match his talent. I think once he breaks through and wins some Slams, I think this period (not era) for me can be judged as the strongest given that a specific brand of tennis is not one that dominates the game.

I totally agree that having stars is good for the sport. People want to see the top guys at the marquee events. That is not to say that the audience don't like to see an upset once in a while and if the domination were to continue for another five years they might well be baying for someone to make the outcome less predictable on a more regular basis - we all have a finite attention span, after all.

The thing that is a little worrying is the lack of up and coming players that seem to have the quality to trouble the top ten.

dummy_half wrote:J_K

That was one hell of a top 12 - perhaps though worth commenting that there were really 3 generations of players in the slam winners you listed. Johnny Mac was clearly an early to mid 80s player who had a good year late in his career, the top 3 were the dominant players of the later 80s, with the 4 Americans + Goran being the up and coming players (even if Chang had already had his best result by that time).

You could quite easily cherry pick some different eras where the players from 4 to 10 were a lot weaker than those at present - as SoCal and HM describe, the current 5-10 players have achieved about the same level as you would expect for typical players of this level.

Now as for why the top 4 are so dominant, and consistently ahead of the rest, clearly there are a number of allied reasons:
1 - They are exceptionally good players. In particular Federer is a very serious GOAT contender, while Nadal is probably the best there's ever been on clay (and gives very few opportunities for anyone else to take GS or MS1000 titles on the surface). Djokovic and Murray are both outstanding hardcourt players, with Djoko also being particularly strong on clay and Andy on faster surfaces (grass and indoors).

2 - They are also exceptionally consistent at getting to the later rounds of major tournaments. Even if one or two don't there's usually still at least one of them for the likes of Ferrer or Tsonga to get past in the SF or final.

3 - The narrowing of gaps between surface performance, changes to racket technology and consequent decrease in tactical differences between surfaces mean that one gameplan fits all circumstances far better than about 10 years ago. OK, there are still some differences, and the challenge of facing Nadal on a hardcourt or Murray on clay is less than Nadal on clay or Murray on hard, but is still too much most of the time for the rest of the field. Indeed, with the exception of clay, where Murray falls to maybe 5th / 6th, the top 4 are the best 4 on all surfaces even if the order switches round a bit.

Surely new technology and slowed surfaces are playing an importan role in making the current crop look more consistent in average than in others periods.

I also agree than in other eras the top 10 has been waeker than in the present.

About the generartions gap, this is something that you find in nearly any period: in the current you find for example Federer, Tsonga, Tipsy and Ferrer who are older than the Murray, Nadal and Djokovic.

One interesting point would be to check who of the top 10 in May 1991 was a competitor for slam and who, for age reason wasn't.

You find that:
- Ivanisevic: played the Wimbledon finals 1992, 1994 - Y
-Becker, Edberg, Sampras, Courier, Agassi - Y
-Brugera: won RG 1993, 1994 - Y
-Chang: USO final 1996 - Y
-Lendl: AO final 1991 - Y

As a matter of fact, looks like amongst the 12 players in the ranking above, only McEnroe was no longer a threat for slam titles.

legendkillarV2 wrote:

If I compare, for example this set of players with the top 10 in March 1991


1 Edberg, Stefan (SWE) 3,783 0 0
2 Becker, Boris (GER) 3,599 0 0
3 Lendl, Ivan (USA) 2,624 0 0
4 Agassi, Andre (USA) 1,902 0 0
5 Forget, Guy (FRA) 1,849 0 0
6 Sampras, Pete (USA) 1,585 0 0
7 Ivanisevic, Goran (CRO) 1,534 1 0
8 Bruguera, Sergi (ESP) 1,523 7 0
9 Courier, Jim (USA) 1,508 -2 0
10 Chang, Michael (USA) 1,426 -1 0
11 Svensson, Jonas (SWE) 1,420 -1 0
12 McEnroe, John (USA)


I have no doubt which one was better.

At that precise moment in time, only the bold actually had won a Slam.

Who is to say that in 5 years time that current top 12 haven't created more Slam winners.

That list for me at that time is not by any measures any stronger than the current top 10 given their positions and achievements at that time and the current achievements of the current crop.

One could argue that who, in the immediate years after 1991, became a multi-slam winner, was probably a great player even the year or few months before.......

Jeremy_Kyle wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:

If I compare, for example this set of players with the top 10 in March 1991


1 Edberg, Stefan (SWE) 3,783 0 0
2 Becker, Boris (GER) 3,599 0 0
3 Lendl, Ivan (USA) 2,624 0 0
4 Agassi, Andre (USA) 1,902 0 0
5 Forget, Guy (FRA) 1,849 0 0
6 Sampras, Pete (USA) 1,585 0 0
7 Ivanisevic, Goran (CRO) 1,534 1 0
8 Bruguera, Sergi (ESP) 1,523 7 0
9 Courier, Jim (USA) 1,508 -2 0
10 Chang, Michael (USA) 1,426 -1 0
11 Svensson, Jonas (SWE) 1,420 -1 0
12 McEnroe, John (USA)


I have no doubt which one was better.

At that precise moment in time, only the bold actually had won a Slam.

Who is to say that in 5 years time that current top 12 haven't created more Slam winners.

That list for me at that time is not by any measures any stronger than the current top 10 given their positions and achievements at that time and the current achievements of the current crop.

One could argue that who, in the immediate years after 1991, became a multi-slam winner, was probably a great player even the year or few months before.......

Very true.

Looking past the current top 3 it would be difficult to identify a multi-slam winner in the making.

Jeremy_Kyle wrote:I prefer to base my opinion on a technical valuation of the current players, which is something I probably can speak of with a bit more competence.

If I consider the top 4 as it is now I see there is:

- Federer: A 31 years old great players (5 years outside his prime age).
- Nadal: one of the best clay courter ever, but also a player technically limited.
- Djokovic: an excellent player but certainly not one all time great, as he seems to lack a real competitive advantage ( does everything well but nothing exceptionally)
- Murray: same as above, with limitations in his personality traits

If I compare, for example this set of players with the top 10 in March 1991


1 Edberg, Stefan (SWE) 3,783 0 0
2 Becker, Boris (GER) 3,599 0 0
3 Lendl, Ivan (USA) 2,624 0 0
4 Agassi, Andre (USA) 1,902 0 0
5 Forget, Guy (FRA) 1,849 0 0
6 Sampras, Pete (USA) 1,585 0 0
7 Ivanisevic, Goran (CRO) 1,534 1 0
8 Bruguera, Sergi (ESP) 1,523 7 0
9 Courier, Jim (USA) 1,508 -2 0
10 Chang, Michael (USA) 1,426 -1 0
11 Svensson, Jonas (SWE) 1,420 -1 0
12 McEnroe, John (USA)

I have no doubt which one was better.

[b] = Slam ,winners

Well I think your analysis of Djokovic and Nadal is quite harsh JK. Nadal is no more technically limited than Borg or any other great player. Mats wilander won 7 slams in the 80s DO YOU BELIEVE THAT WILANDER IS BETTER PLAYER THAN Nadal? I personally think Djoko and Nadal will finish as clear top ten players of all time with Nadal already frankly in the top 5. JK, good post but I think you are being selective, I have often said the greatest player of top notch talent we ever had was late 80s and early 90s. My thesis is that the guys from 5-10 are not better or worse than avg. I do agree that this particular list you produced from a remarkable period (the best 5-7 years) of the best depth of players we ever had. If you compare the 5-10 hole players to a number of top tens I think you will see that these guys finish somewhere in the middle. I think most would agree that Djokovic with 5 slams already is an all time great, but I appreciate you remaining as one of the last hold outs to his greatness.

dummy_half wrote:J_K

That was one hell of a top 12 - perhaps though worth commenting that there were really 3 generations of players in the slam winners you listed. Johnny Mac was clearly an early to mid 80s player who had a good year late in his career, the top 3 were the dominant players of the later 80s, with the 4 Americans + Goran being the up and coming players (even if Chang had already had his best result by that time).

You could quite easily cherry pick some different eras where the players from 4 to 10 were a lot weaker than those at present - as SoCal and HM describe, the current 5-10 players have achieved about the same level as you would expect for typical players of this level.

Now as for why the top 4 are so dominant, and consistently ahead of the rest, clearly there are a number of allied reasons:
1 - They are exceptionally good players. In particular Federer is a very serious GOAT contender, while Nadal is probably the best there's ever been on clay (and gives very few opportunities for anyone else to take GS or MS1000 titles on the surface). Djokovic and Murray are both outstanding hardcourt players, with Djoko also being particularly strong on clay and Andy on faster surfaces (grass and indoors).

2 - They are also exceptionally consistent at getting to the later rounds of major tournaments. Even if one or two don't there's usually still at least one of them for the likes of Ferrer or Tsonga to get past in the SF or final.

3 - The narrowing of gaps between surface performance, changes to racket technology and consequent decrease in tactical differences between surfaces mean that one gameplan fits all circumstances far better than about 10 years ago. OK, there are still some differences, and the challenge of facing Nadal on a hardcourt or Murray on clay is less than Nadal on clay or Murray on hard, but is still too much most of the time for the rest of the field. Indeed, with the exception of clay, where Murray falls to maybe 5th / 6th, the top 4 are the best 4 on all surfaces even if the order switches round a bit.

Correct, Dummy half point 3 in particular is one that everyone focuses on. Of course it is simple to have an all court game and performance when you can play from the baseline on grass and go for winners on clay with the racquets and strings at your disposal. However, the same balls, racquets, and conditions exist for the women and week to week you have no idea who is going to win, and that is because they haven't had two or three or 4 consistent top notch talents to win everything. So I do agree that 3 is a factor but it is not the driving force nor is it by itself necessary or sufficient to explain the results we have seen.

HM Murdoch wrote:Cor, Socal, your hit your stride there, didn't you?! 852 words!

My answer will be significantly shorter!

I think this era has a particularly strong top 4. There can't have been many other periods when Murray would only be ranked 4.

Numbers 5 downward though, I don't consider remarkable. Not poor, just typical of their rankings. I don't for example think David Ferrer is better than most previous #5s in the way I think Andy is better than previous #4s.

Net result? Dominance by the top 4. And I agree, it's good for the game.

Golf is going through a spell where nobody is really dominating and almost every major is having a new winner. I think this makes it much less interesting than when there are rivalries at the top of the game.

People love stars and celebrities and that is what we have in tennis where Fed is one of the highest endorsed sports athletes in the world, maybe number 1 or 2. Nadal and Djokovic in that order also are putting together successful endorsement deals and placing high on the list. There is one problem Murdoch with the star based approach, when the stars go you can't always replace them. And we may experience a doldrum period when Fed and Nadal retire and as Andy and Novak age. But still Tennis is all about the great matchup and great conflict between big stars. The borg v. Macs, Sampras v. Agassi, and I would posit that FEd v. Nadal and Djoko v. Fed or Nadal v. Djoko are also the same type of matchups today.