Melog Rankings: Post-Miami 2016

On the surface, it seems like nothing changed at the Miami Masters event this year. Novak Djokovic won the title again; it is his 28th Masters title, his sixth Miami title, the third consecutive year that he's won both Indian Wells and Miami, and the seventh tournament at which he's won at least three consecutive titles. (Yes, all of those are ATP records. Djokovic is starting to compile a compelling case as the greatest player ever. But that's a topic that should be explored in a full-length post, and one that comes after I've released numbers for more than four past years of the ATP.)

But underneath the Novak Wins Everything Always status quo, there was actually a pretty healthy shakeup, more of one than the ATP is accustomed to in recent years. Last year in Miami, Djokovic beat Andy Murray in the final; the other two semifinalists were John Isner and Tomas Berdych. This year, Novak's final conquest was Kei Nishikori (in the second Masters final of his career), and the other two semifinalists were David Goffin (second Masters semi, with the first having come two weeks earlier in Indian Wells) and Nick Kyrgios (first Masters semi, which pushes him into the top 20 of the ATP rankings for the first time). In 2015, Djokovic was the youngest semifinalist in Miami; this year, he was the oldest.

So let's see what kind of progress the youngsters are making in the Melog ratings.

	Player	Melog	Rank change (last update)	Melog change (last update)	Rank change (start of yr)	Melog change (start of yr)
1	Novak Djokovic	104.6	0	0.1	0	3.3
2	Roger Federer	61.5	1	0.7	1	-4.0
3	Andy Murray	60.5	-1	-2.5	-1	-5.3
4	Rafael Nadal	38.5	0	-0.1	0	-1.7
5	Kei Nishikori	31.8	1	1.5	3	0.2
6	Stanislas Wawrinka	30.8	-1	-0.1	1	-1.8
7	Tomas Berdych	28.2	0	-0.6	-2	-8.3
8	Richard Gasquet	25.2	3	2.3	1	-0.4
9	Jo Wilfried Tsonga	24.9	1	1.9	4	7.1
10	Roberto Bautista Agut	24.0	-1	0.8	1	5.5
11	David Ferrer	23.9	-3	-2.6	-5	-10.2
12	David Goffin	22.8	3	3.3	7	8.7
13	Philipp Kohlschreiber	21.5	0	0.5	3	5.7
14	Milos Raonic	20.3	0	0.6	-4	1.4
15	John Isner	19.6	-3	-2.7	-1	2.8
16	Gael Monfils	19.6	1	2.1	1	4.5
17	Marin Cilic	19.0	-1	1.0	5	6.9
18	Nick Kyrgios	18.4	1	2.4	6	7.1
19	Gilles Simon	17.8	1	1.9	-4	1.4
20	Dominic Thiem	17.0	-2	0.2	10	8.3
21	Grigor Dimitrov	16.4	0	1.1	0	3.7
22	Kevin Anderson	13.0	0	-1.0	-10	-5.2
23	Jack Sock	12.5	0	0.0	-3	-0.9
24	Pablo Cuevas	11.0	1	0.7	16	4.6
25	Fabio Fognini	10.5	1	0.7	14	3.9
26	Ivo Karlovic	9.6	2	0.7	-8	-4.6
27	Gilles Muller	9.4	3	0.7	-2	-1.7
28	Alexandr Dolgopolov	9.2	-4	-1.2	3	0.6
29	Feliciano Lopez	9.0	-2	-0.5	3	0.8
30	Bernard Tomic	8.9	-1	0.2	-7	-2.4
31	Albert Ramos	8.1	1	-0.2	5	0.7
32	Jeremy Chardy	7.9	-1	-0.4	-3	-0.8
33	Fernando Verdasco	7.8	2	0.6	-6	-1.6
34	Joao Sousa	7.7	6	0.9	8	2.1
35	Steve Johnson	7.5	1	0.4	-7	-1.5
36	Marcos Baghdatis	7.2	8	1.3	5	1.2
37	Hyeon Chung	7.1	-3	-0.1	-4	-1.0
38	Guillermo Garcia Lopez	7.0	-5	-0.3	-12	-2.5
39	Leonardo Mayer	6.9	-1	0.0	-1	0.2
40	Thomaz Bellucci	6.8	-1	0.0	6	1.7
41	Teymuraz Gabashvili	6.6	1	0.5	8	2.0
42	Andrey Kuznetsov	6.4	7	1.4	49	4.6
43	Sam Querrey	6.3	-2	-0.5	0	0.8
44	Viktor Troicki	6.1	-1	0.0	-10	-1.5
45	Guido Pella	6.0	-8	-1.0	13	2.4
46	John Millman	6.0	0	1.0	19	2.8
47	Federico Delbonis	5.9	5	1.0	9	2.0
48	Andreas Seppi	5.6	3	0.6	-13	-1.9
49	Benoit Paire	5.4	-2	0.4	-2	0.3
50	Paolo Lorenzi	5.4	-2	0.4	25	2.7
51	Lukas Rosol	5.2	-6	-0.3	8	1.8
52	Martin Klizan	4.9	-2	-0.1	25	2.2
53	Denis Istomin	4.6	8	0.7	0	0.4
54	Alexander Zverev	4.4	-1	0.0	30	2.2
55	Pablo Carreno Busta	4.3	0	0.1	13	1.3
56	Mikhail Kukushkin	4.3	-2	0.0	11	1.2
57	Marcel Granollers	4.3	7	0.6	44	3.0
58	Pablo Andujar	4.2	0	0.3	-1	0.5
59	Borna Coric	4.2	4	0.5	2	0.8
60	Robin Haase	4.0	2	0.1	14	1.3
61	Taylor Harry Fritz	4.0	-4	-0.1	11	1.1
62	Nicolas Almagro	3.9	-2	0.0	-8	-0.2
63	Yen Hsun Lu	3.8	3	0.3	-8	-0.1
64	Adrian Mannarino	3.8	-8	-0.3	-13	-0.6
65	Tommy Robredo	3.7	2	0.2	1	0.6
66	Jiri Vesely	3.7	-1	0.1	-18	-1.1
67	Vasek Pospisil	3.7	4	0.4	-23	-1.5
68	Carlos Berlocq	3.4	0	-0.1	3	0.5
69	Dusan Lajovic	3.3	1	0.0	7	0.7
70	Ivan Dodig	3.3	-1	-0.1	-18	-1.0
71	Kyle Edmund	3.2	11	0.9	28	1.8
72	Pierre Hugues Herbert	3.2	3	0.4	9	0.8
73	Dudi Sela	3.1	25	1.4	19	1.4
74	Rajeev Ram	3.1	-1	0.1	9	0.9
75	Paul Henri Mathieu	3.1	-3	0.1	10	1.0

One debatably-interesting side note: Roger Federer didn't play Miami last year, and he didn't play it this year either, and yet his rating changes a little. Part of that is that Djokovic's rating changes, which alters the strength of Federer's opposition (Federer has played 1710 service games in the last year, and 200 of them are against Novak). But part of it is also the fact that the median player, the baseline to which everyone else has compared, has moved in the last month, because more Challengers were played in March 2016 (14) than in March 2015 (10). That's been a theme so far in 2016, which has seen 35 Challengers played to date, compared to 28 starting before the end of March last year. As a general rule, more Challengers played means more qualifiers or local wild cards who wouldn't make it into other events, which means more players in the database, which in turn moves the median player slightly downward (from two updates ago, it's gone from #142 to #145, which is not a colossal effect, but it does make a detectable difference in the form of slight increases in the ratings.)

Anyway, back to young (or young-ish) Miami semifinalists. Nishikori jumps up one spot in the ratings, and joins Djokovic as the only members of the season-opening top 8 to have improved their Melog ratings so far in 2016. Goffin hops three places and has now increased his Melog rating by more than any other player in the top 75 this year; he's on the verge of joining the top 10 (in both the Melog and ATP rankings), and he'll have a chance to do so pretty soon, because he's not defending much from last year's clay season. Kyrgios's ranking improves by a comparatively tame one spot, but that's largely an artifact of a gap directly above him in the ratings, one which he's now largely bridged. (If his rating were to increase by the same amount again in the next two weeks - unlikely, since he's not playing during those two weeks - then he'd move up four spots.)

Last year's semifinalists, meanwhile, largely did not come anywhere close to defending their efforts. Andy Murray absorbed his second consecutive loss in the round of 32 of a Masters, this one to Grigor Dimitrov. He drops back behind Federer as a result. John Isner, who last year posted a respectably competitive loss to Djokovic in the semis after beating Milos Raonic and Nishikori, this year lost his first match in a third-set tiebreak (understandable) to Tim Smyczek (somewhat less understandable). Isner switched results with Goffin, and also switches places in the Melog ratings.

Tomas Berdych lost in the quarters this year rather than the semis, but that's where he faced Djokovic, so his defeat is excusable. We'll leave him alone for the moment and devote his share of the analysis to the continuing demise of David Ferrer. Last year in Miami (a tournament in which he's made the final before), Ferrer lost a competitive quarterfinal to Djokovic after reaching that stage without dropping a set (including a convincing win over Gilles Simon). This year, he also lost a close match - to young Frenchman Lucas Pouille, who is not quite as imposing a foe. He has now officially become the first player to exit the top 8 this year, and given his play so far in 2016, I'm not sure he'll be rejoining that group any time soon (if at all - he just turned 34).

There is one potential reason for Ferrer-related optimism, however: Clay season is starting. We'll check back in on the season two weeks from now, after Houston and Marrakech (two clay events that almost nobody interesting plays) and Monte Carlo (the Masters event that isn't required).