Just as a refresher before we get back into it, the rankings
from 20 up to 11 were:
Feliciano Lopez (5.0)
Gael Monfils (5.3)
John Isner (5.9)
Nicolas Almagro (6.0)
Fernando Verdasco (6.5)
Andy Roddick (7.9)
Gilles Simon (8.0)
Marin Cilic (9.2)
Richard Gasquet (9.4)
Robin Soderling (12.6)
And now, onward and (very far) upward!
Number 10: Janko Tipsarevic, Serbia (13.8)
Match record 51-25; Set record 116-61; Service game record
986-780 (.558). ATP rank: 9.
Draw: .468 W%75 (as a refresher, that’s projected service
game winning percentage by the #75 player against the same people Tipsarevic
played). 13 matches against players ranked in the top 10, but that’s out of 76
played, and at least a few of those opponents would fall out of the top 10 by
the end of the year. Tipsarevic’s set of opponents was the easiest of any
player in the top 15.
Troubles: Tipsarevic lost in the third round or earlier in
three of the four Slams, as well as a number of Masters events and smaller
tournaments. He also struggled to an extent in Davis Cup play against
not-especially-overwhelming competition, and missed both of the Masters
tournaments leading up to the French Open.
Highlights: Tipsarevic took home titles in Kuala Lumpur and
Moscow, and made finals in Delray Beach (losing to Juan Martin del Potro),
Eastbourne (withdrawing while trailing Andreas Seppi in the third set), and St.
Petersburg (losing to Cilic). He also made the US Open quarterfinals and the
semis in the Canada Masters event. Finally, he gained entry into the World Tour
Finals as an injury alternate after Andy Murray withdrew following his first
match, and after losing to Tomas Berdych, upset Novak Djokovic in three sets to
earn his biggest win of the year in his last match.
Tipsarevic played a simply massive number of events in 2011,
which is how you end up with 25 losses. (He actually lost another match as
well, in the World Team Championships the week before the French Open, but the
ATP website doesn’t have the draw for that event in a usable format for me so
it’s not considered here.) He played a pretty healthy number of excellent
players, and while he lost to most of them, his upset of Djokovic is
accompanied by a pair of wins over Berdych. Combine those victories with 48
others and five finals made, and you have yourself a top-10 player in virtually
any year.
Number 9: Mardy Fish, USA (15.1)
Match record 42-24; Set record 106-64; Service game record
912-766 (.544). ATP rank: 8.
Draw: .446 W%75, the hardest draw we’ve seen so far and the
fifth-hardest we’ll see at any point in the rankings for 2011. 12 matches
against top-10 players, including 8 against the top 5, plus a number of
faceoffs against guys who weren’t ranked highly at the time but would be by the
end of the year, most notably a pair of matches against del Potro but also one
against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, one against Tipsarevic, and two against a young and improving Milos Raonic.
Troubles: Fish’s year started poorly, with a second-round
loss in the Australian Open. He also bowed out early in the Masters tournaments
in Indian Wells, Madrid, and Shanghai, along with a few smaller events. He lost
both of his Davis Cup matches against Spain, and went 0-3 at the World Tour
Finals.
Highlights: Fish won his only title of the year in Atlanta,
but that’s far from his biggest achievement of 2011. He made the final at the
Canada Masters, and the semis in two other tournaments at that level (Miami and Cincinnati), losing to
Djokovic twice and Murray once in those events, and beating David Ferrer and Rafael Nadal.
He also upset Berdych at Wimbledon to make the quarterfinals, losing to Nadal
there.
Fish didn’t just play top-10 (and top-5) players throughout
the year. He hung in with them, and even scored a few wins. Doing that is a
good way to make significant runs at big tournaments, which in turn is a good
way to end up in the top 10 yourself.
Number 8: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, France (16.4)
Match record 54-24; Set record 131-73; Service game record
1105-948 (.538). ATP rank: 6.
Draw: .446 W%75, a hair behind Fish and therefore scoring as
the sixth-toughest of the year. Tsonga played twenty-one top-10 matches
(TWENTY-ONE), and that doesn’t include a pair of walkovers.
Troubles: Tsonga absorbed third-round losses at the
Australian and French Opens and a few other early-round defeats, though not
many. The Frenchman also scuffled in most of the Masters events, only making it
out of the round of 16 twice in nine tries. And if you want to be
extraordinarily picky, he lost four of the six finals he played in.
Highlights: Tsonga won two titles, at Metz and Vienna. He
made four other finals, with his losses in them coming to Robin Soderling
(Rotterdam), Andy Murray (Queens Club), and Roger Federer twice (Paris Masters
and World Finals). In related news, he made the last match at the World Finals,
beating Fish, Nadal, and Berdych on the way there, and the Paris Masters final.
There was also a run to the quarters at the US Open (beating Fish and losing to
Federer) and the semis at the Canada Masters (beating Federer and Almagro,
losing to Djokovic), and the Queens Club final run featured a win over Nadal.
But beyond all of that, Tsonga’s crowning achievement was the rally from two
sets down in the Wimbledon quarterfinals to beat Federer.
If you noticed the name Federer appearing a lot in the last
section, that’s because Tsonga-Federer was the most-played matchup of the year
2011, with the pair facing off in 227 total service games across eight matches.
Tsonga went 2-6 in those matches. He also played Nadal three times and won two
of them. Throw in a trio of losses between Djokovic and Murray, and you have a
4-10 record against the Big Four. That’s about as good as can be expected from
anyone who’s not a member of that vaunted club himself, and to get into
position to play them that many times in a year is rather impressive on its
own.
Number 7: Juan Martin del Potro, Argentina (20.0)
Match record 48-18; Set record 111-50; Service game record
897-686 (.567). ATP rank: 11.
Draw: .450 W%75, a schedule slightly easier than the
murderous ones faced by Fish and Tsonga but still highly challenging. Twelve
top-10 matches, and another nine against players ranked between 11-20.
Troubles: Del Potro started the year ranked outside the top
200, thanks to having missed most of 2010 with a wrist injury; an early loss at
the Australian Open cost him a huge chunk of his remaining points and forced
him to claw his way up through the rankings early on. The process was slow
enough to result in disadvantageous seedings at the Slams, which in turn kept
him from making it out of the round of 16 at any of them. His return to health was
also not entirely permanent, as he missed three Masters events and withdrew
from a fourth after two matches. Finally, the Davis Cup final saw him lose a
pair of matches to Spain’s Nadal and Ferrer – understandable defeats to be sure, especially on clay, but still not as good as victories.
Highlights: Del Potro won two titles, one at Delray Beach
(beating Fish and Tipsarevic, who were not in the top 10 at the time but were
at the end of the year) and the other at Estoril (beating Soderling and
Verdasco on the way). He also made a final in Vienna (losing to Tsonga) and
four semifinals, the most notable of which was at the Indian Wells Masters
event. Finally, he led Argentina to the Davis Cup finals, a run highlighted by
a win over Djokovic during the semis (or at least taking a set and 3-0 lead
followed by Djokovic withdrawing).
Del Potro’s 2011 season demonstrates the idea that the
rankings are often self-fulfilling prophecies. His injury recovery had him
starting out low, and that meant that he was given low enough seeds in key
events that he played Djokovic in the third round at the French Open, and Nadal
in the fourth at Wimbledon. Those early losses were a consequence of the draw,
not a negative reflection on Del Potro’s own abilities, and they served to
partially obscure a highly successful comeback year.
Number 6: Tomas Berdych, Czech Republic (20.3)
Match record 52-23; Set record 124-59; Service game record
983-752 (.567). ATP rank: 7.
Draw: .454 W%75, “only” the tenth-hardest in the world. 15
matches against top-10 players, including four against Djokovic.
Troubles: Only one title and no other finals (the Tomas
Berdych story). Seriously, the man has been one of the best tennis players in
the world for quite some time, ranked in the top 10 since Wimbledon in 2010 and
a few times before that as well; how has he only once won multiple titles in a
season (and even that time a mere total of two)? This year, he added a first-round
loss in the French Open in which he blew a two-set lead to Stephane Robert, who
was ranked 140th in the world at the time.
Highlights: Berdych’s lone title was in Beijing and featured
some wins by large margins over good players. But it generally takes more than
one title to make the top 10, and Berdych had the other deep runs required – no
fewer than eight semifinals, including the World Finals and the Cincinnati and
Paris Masters events. He also made an additional seven quarterfinals, most
significantly the Australian Open and four further Masters tournaments.
How good a year can you have while only winning one
relatively small title and not making another final? Berdych’s week-to-week
consistency pushed the boundaries of that question close to their fullest
extent, and maintained his position as one of the best players in the world.
Number 5: Andy Murray, Great Britain (31.0)
Match record 52-13; Set record 128-48; Service game record
958-681 (.585). ATP rank: 4.
Draw: .440 W%75, fourth-toughest in the world. Murray played
Djokovic 3 times, Nadal 5 times, and Ferrer 4 times; he had only two other
matches against top-10 players, but the 12 matches against the top 5 were
plenty.
Troubles: We’re really straining the definition of “trouble”
here, but Murray did lose his first match in three different Masters events
(Indian Wells, Miami, and Canada), and pulled out of the World Finals after an
opening loss to Ferrer. And that’s really it, as far as problem spots go,
unless you consider it a mark of shame to lose quite a few matches to a pair of historically great
players in their primes.
Highlights: Murray won five titles, most notably the
Cincinnati and Shanghai Masters events, as well as Queen’s Club, Bangkok, and
Tokyo. He also made the Australian Open final and the semis in all three of the
other Slams (losing to Djokovic in Australia and Nadal in all three of the
others). There were also semifinal appearances in Rome (lost to Djokovic) and Monte
Carlo (lost to Nadal).
Five titles, including two Masters. Semis in all four Slams,
and a final in one. There are many, many players for whom this would be a
career year. For Andy Murray, it was business as usual.
Number 4: David Ferrer, Spain (31.3)
Match record 59-19; Set record 146-61; Service game record
1131-815 (.581). ATP rank: 5.
Draw: .448 W%75, seventh-hardest in the world. Seventeen
matches against top-10 players.
Troubles: A few early-round losses – Rotterdam, Indian
Wells, Nice. But in large part, Ferrer’s problem in 2011 was about the same as
everyone else’s: he kept losing to the best players in the world. Seven of his
19 losses were to the Big Four.
Highlights: Surprisingly, a few of these also came against
the Big Four; Ferrer beat Nadal at the Australian Open, and Murray and Djokovic
in back-to-back matches at the World Finals. He also won a pair of titles, in
Auckland and Acapulco, and made four finals, including the Monte Carlo and
Shanghai Masters events. But his best work came in Davis Cup play, in which his
singles wins over Andy Roddick, Mardy Fish, Gilles Simon, and Juan Martin del
Potro helped propel Spain to the championship.
There’s no noteworthy difference between Ferrer and Murray
in these rankings. Murray was a better player when on the court, but Ferrer
played more, largely thanks to his Davis Cup work. This system sees those two
factors as balancing out nearly exactly. The ATP rankings see a much bigger gap
in Murray’s favor, but they also don’t weigh Davis Cup play particularly
heavily, whereas my system inherently pays more attention to best-of-five
matches, which are only present in Slams and the Davis Cup. I’m not wedded to
the placement of Ferrer ahead of Murray here, but I don’t know that it’s
necessarily incorrect either. Both players had tremendous seasons that are
worthy of note, and that’s all the numbers are really saying.
Number 3: Roger Federer, Switzerland (44.6)
Match record 61-12; Set record 149-39; Service game record
1075-734 (.594). ATP rank: 3.
Draw: .429 W%75, second-toughest in the world. Nineteen
matches against the top 10. Federer played Djokovic 5 times, Nadal 4 times,
and, as previously mentioned, Tsonga 8 times; he also faced every other player
in the top 11 on this list at least once, with the exception of Murray.
Troubles: We’re talking serious First World Problems here.
Federer skipped the Shanghai Masters event. He lost in the round of 16 in Rome
and Canada, and the quarters in Cincinnati, Monte Carlo, and Wimbledon. And he
went 1-3 against Nadal, and 1-4 against Djokovic.
Highlights: That one win against Djokovic was the Serb’s
first loss of the year, and it came in the French Open semifinals, which are in
MAY, so that’s impressive. (Moreso for Djokovic, but Federer beating him is no
small feat.) He made semis in three of the four Slams, and the French final; he
also held match points against Djokovic in the US Open semis before losing. He
opened the year with a title in Doha, and then finished with a remarkable run on
the European indoor hard courts – a title in Basel, a title at the Paris Masters, and a
clean 5-0 sweep at the World Finals that reclaimed the #3 spot for him.
Federer did not win a Grand Slam in 2011; it was his first
Slam-free year since 2002. But judged by any but the most simplistic standards,
he still held a prominent place among the absolute elite players in the world,
and his strong finishing kick set up his return to the #1 spot in the ATP
rankings for about half of 2012.
Number 2: Rafael Nadal, Spain (52.2)
Match record 68-15; Set record 169-50; Service game record
1228-825 (.598). ATP rank: 2.
Draw: .430 W%75, third-toughest in the world. Nadal played
Djokovic 6 times, Murray 5, and Federer 4. He faced a total of 27 matches
against the top 10. The only thing that makes Federer’s draw slightly tougher
is that Nadal wasn’t allowed to play himself.
Troubles, such as they were: Djokovic was responsible for 6
of Nadal’s 15 losses. He did lose in a few quarterfinals (most notably in the
Australian Open) and once earlier than that, and his three titles were his lowest
total since 2004. He also struggled to a 1-2 finish at the World Finals, which
have typically been his worst important event.
Highlights: Nadal won the three tournaments that he
literally always wins – Monte Carlo (for the seventh of what is now eight times), the French Open (sixth of eight), and Barcelona (sixth of – you guessed it – eight). He also led Spain
to victory in the Davis Cup, dropping only one set in the five live matches he
played, and made seven other finals, including two Slams and four Masters.
Because he “only” won the tournaments he always wins, it’s
easy to discount Nadal’s 2011. But losing to the 2011 version of Djokovic, even
six times, is not exactly a black mark on one’s record, especially when you go
68-9 in other matches. A year in which you make three Slam finals and win one,
make five Masters finals and win one, and lead your country to a dominant win in
the Davis Cup should not be considered anything but wildly successful. Since
Nadal did all of those things, and did them despite the presence a rival on a historic
rampage, his year should therefore be considered
wildly successful.
Number 1: Novak Djokovic, Serbia (67.1)
Match record 70-6; Set record 159-35; Service game record
1125-667 (.628). ATP rank: 1.
Draw: Since these have generally been getting harder as we've moved up the rankings, I assume you can see where this has been going, right?
Djokovic’s draw was easily the toughest in the world, with a .423 W%75. He
played 25 matches against players ranked in the top 10, plus a number of others
against people who would qualify for the top 10 before the end of the year
(notably Tsonga, Fish, and Tipsarevic). By total service games played, the
second- and third- most common matchups of 2011 were Djokovic vs. Federer (175
service games) and Djokovic vs. Nadal (172).
Troubles: Djokovic either struggled or took things easy after the US Open; he
lost his one Davis Cup match, skipped the Asian swing, lost in the Basel semis,
withdrew in the Paris quarters, and lost two out of three matches at the World
Finals. (If you take his 2011 through the US Open and combine it with his 2013
after the US Open, which featured 24 consecutive wins, you probably have
the greatest season of tennis ever played.)
Highlights: Let’s see… three Grand Slams and a semifinal in
the other, five Masters titles, 10 total titles, 41 consecutive wins to start
the year, and a 13-2 record against his three chief rivals. Does that cover it?
I feel like that covers it.
The real intrigue in dealing with Djokovic’s 2011 is not so
much seeing how he compares to the other players that year; it's extraordinarily obvious that he was the best, so the fact that the rankings agree simply means that
they aren’t blatant nonsense. No, the real test will be seeing how this season
compares to the #1 players in other years and seeing where it ranks among the
pantheon of all-time great tennis seasons. And we’ll get to that… eventually.
But first, we'll be spending a bit more time on 2011.
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