Past Melog rankings: 2013

The biggest story of men's tennis in 2013 was Rafael Nadal.

Nadal was injured at Wimbledon in 2012, and missed the remainder of the season. The ailment kept him off the court through the 2013 Australian Open, leaving him to make his comeback in February on the clay courts of South America. He reached the final in his first event back, then won the next two, highlighted by a thrashing of David Ferrer in Acapulco. The season shifted temporarily to hard courts next, and Rafa didn't miss a beat, dropping only two sets on the way to the Masters title at Indian Wells.

Up next was European clay season, and Nadal performed with typical excellence on his favorite surface; he lost the Monte Carlo final to World #1 Novak Djokovic, but rebounded with titles in Barcelona, Madrid, and Rome. He would be drawn to face Djokovic in the semifinals at the French Open, and prevailed in a classic match, 9-7 in the fifth set. He then dismissed Ferrer in perfunctory straight sets to take yet another Roland Garros title, the eighth of his career.

And then he lost to Steve Darcis in the first round at Wimbledon, and it seemed as though the second half of the season might not treat him quite so well as the first.

That impression was short-lived. Nadal charged to Masters titles in Montreal and Cincinnati, his fourth and fifth Masters crowns of the year, and then thoroughly dominated the US Open, dropping only two sets and capping his run with a victory over Djokovic in the final. He reclaimed the #1 ranking by reaching the final in Beijing (losing to Djokovic), and posted solid (albeit title-free) results of the rest of the year (semis in Shanghai and Paris and the final at the World Finals). It was enough to secure his third finish as the ATP's #1 player, all of which have come in non-consecutive years.

So let's see what Melog thinks of Rafa's resurgence. Just like last time, the table will include every player who was in either Melog's top 75 or the ATP's.

Rank	Player	Melog	ATP Rank	ATP Pts
1	Novak Djokovic	84.4	2	12260
2	Rafael Nadal	67.1	1	13030
3	David Ferrer	33.7	3	5800
4	Tomas Berdych	33.2	7	4180
5	Roger Federer	31.1	6	4205
6	Andy Murray	30.9	4	5790
7	Juan Martin Del Potro	28.4	5	5255
8	Stanislas Wawrinka	27.4	8	3730
9	Richard Gasquet	22.8	9	3300
10	Tommy Haas	20.3	12	2435
11	Jo Wilfried Tsonga	20.1	10	3065
12	Nicolas Almagro	16.1	13	2290
13	Milos Raonic	15.9	11	2860
14	Ernests Gulbis	14.6	24	1393
15	Mikhail Youzhny	12.4	15	2145
16	Grigor Dimitrov	11.3	23	1520
17	Gael Monfils	10.4	31	1230
18	Kei Nishikori	10.4	17	1915
19	Marin Cilic	10.3	37	1130
20	Ivan Dodig	10.2	33	1190
21	Tommy Robredo	9.3	18	1810
22	Fabio Fognini	9.0	16	1930
23	John Isner	8.6	14	2150
24	Radek Stepanek	8.5	44	970
25	Kevin Anderson	8.2	20	1685
26	Philipp Kohlschreiber	8.0	22	1525
27	Fernando Verdasco	7.2	30	1235
28	Jarkko Nieminen	6.2	39	1090
29	Andreas Seppi	5.9	25	1360
30	Jerzy Janowicz	5.7	21	1615
31	Gilles Simon	5.4	19	1790
32	Dmitry Tursunov	4.9	29	1244
33	Julien Benneteau	4.8	35	1160
34	Florian Mayer	4.8	40	1065
35	Juan Monaco	4.6	42	1015
36	Feliciano Lopez	4.5	28	1310
37	Federico Delbonis	4.4	55	836
38	Michael Llodra	4.4	105	541
39	Nikolay Davydenko	4.4	53	890
40	Lleyton Hewitt	4.2	60	780
41	Carlos Berlocq	4.2	41	1020
42	Bernard Tomic	4.2	51	910
43	Denis Istomin	4.1	45	965
44	Benoit Paire	4.1	26	1345
45	Robin Haase	4.0	43	977
46	Yen Hsun Lu	3.7	65	730
47	Alexandr Dolgopolov	3.7	57	825
48	Daniel Brands	3.4	54	836
49	Nicolas Mahut	3.3	50	918
50	Marcos Baghdatis	3.2	87	605
51	Sam Querrey	3.0	46	960
52	Igor Sijsling	3.0	70	697
53	Janko Tipsarevic	2.9	36	1130
54	Roberto Bautista Agut	2.9	58	810
55	Edouard Roger Vasselin	2.7	52	908
56	Jeremy Chardy	2.5	34	1175
57	Tobias Kamke	2.3	74	663
58	Vasek Pospisil	2.1	32	1219
59	Filippo Volandri	2.0	71	694
60	Joao Sousa	2.0	49	934
61	Jiri Vesely	2.0	85	616
62	Donald Young	1.9	96	569
63	Pablo Carreno Busta	1.9	64	739
64	Albert Ramos	1.9	83	617
65	Marcel Granollers	1.9	38	1110
66	Guillermo Garcia Lopez	1.8	62	768
67	Marinko Matosevic	1.8	61	774
68	Michael Berrer	1.8	143	397
69	James Blake	1.6	153	335
70	Jurgen Melzer	1.5	27	1315
71	Daniel Gimeno Traver	1.5	77	650
72	Matthew Ebden	1.5	68	706
73	Potito Starace	1.5	152	338
74	Viktor Troicki	1.4	75	660
75	Daniel Evans	1.3	150	346
77	Mikhail Kukushkin	1.3	67	721
81	Lukas Rosol	1.1	47	956
88	Dudi Sela	0.9	73	681
106	Santiago Giraldo	0.5	69	703
108	Adrian Mannarino	0.5	59	784
135	Albert Montanes	0.1	63	766
149	Horacio Zeballos	0.0	56	835
155	Pablo Andujar	0.0	48	946
174	Michal Przysiezny	-0.2	66	730
229	Lukasz Kubot	-0.6	72	686

Why yes, that is Novak Djokovic still firmly planted in the top spot. (And yes, there is a LOT of disagreement further down the rankings as well. We'll get to all of that.)

Nadal won two Slams and a record-tying five Masters events in 2013; Novak won one and three, respectively. Both systems agree that they were clearly the two best players in the world - but why does Melog have Djokovic ahead?

Here are the reasons, at least as far as I can tell:

Head-to-head performance. Yes, Nadal won both of the Grand Slam matches the pair played in 2013, and that's what people will generally remember - but their match record was actually an even 3-3.

The Slam matches were best-of-5, though, so Nadal probably won more sets, right? Actually no - Novak did, 10 sets to 8. (In fact, he won more sets on both surfaces that they played on - 4-3 on clay, 6-5 on hard). And the same was true of service games (Melog's preferred measurement), albeit very narrowly; Novak comes out ahead 91-89 for the year. Really, we can call that even and move on to performance against other people.

Grand Slam performance. Nadal won more Slams - but there's more to it than that. His pair of titles were accompanied by a first-round loss and a DNP; Novak won just one Slam, but made two other finals and a semi that may as well have been a final. He went 24-3 in Slam matches for the year to Nadal's 14-1; it's an open question as to which of those records is more impressive. (Especially since Djokovic's three losses were to high-level competition - Nadal and Murray - while Nadal's defeat came at the hands of the aforementioned Steve Darcis, notable for his complete absence from the ranking table above.)

SECRET Grand Slam performance. Yes, the historical record will tell you that Djokovic won only one Grand Slam in 2013 - but there were two events during the year in which he won seven best-of-five matches and went unbeaten. The first was the Australian Open. As for the second, here are his results, round by round:

1R: Def. Olivier Rochus in 3 sets

2R: Def. Vasek Pospisil in 3 sets

3R: Def. Sam Querrey in 4 sets

4R: Def. Radek Stepanek in 3 sets

QF: Def. John Isner in 3 sets

SF: Def. Milos Raonic in 3 sets

F: Def. Tomas Berdych in 3 sets

The name of this unnoticed Slam? The Davis Cup. Djokovic led the Serbian team to the final with a perfect 7-0 record in best-of-5 singles matches, against a pretty impressive set of opponents - exactly what's required to win a Slam. The ATP rankings count this as less important than a Masters title; based on the dominant nature of the results against high-quality opposition, Melog disagrees.

Speaking of quality of competition... Here are the number of service games Djokovic and Nadal played against the rest of the top 9 (Djokovic listed first; players listed in Melog order, though the ATP and Melog agree on the membership of the top 9):

David Ferrer: 47/135

Tomas Berdych: 148/97

Roger Federer: 58/86

Andy Murray: 75/0

Juan Martin del Potro: 165/47

Stan Wawrinka: 148/88

Richard Gasquet: 65/48

Djokovic faced five of the seven more frequently than Nadal did, and played 205 more total games against the group. If you include their matches against each other as well, Novak played just over 40% of his service games against the best players in the world, to Nadal's 36% and change.

All of those factors contribute to Melog's decision, but the final numbers always come down to three quantities: how much you played, how well you played, and how tough your opponents were. Djokovic and Nadal played the same number of matches in 2013 (83 each), but as noted, Djokovic played 34 best-of-5 matches to Nadal's 16, and as a result, he played just over 300 extra service games (2186-1876). Djokovic won 61.5% of those games to Nadal's 61.4%, a very small edge but an edge nonetheless. And he did that despite a tougher slate; the median player is projected to win 40.8% of games against Novak's foes, as compared to 41.4% against Nadal's.

In short, Novak comes out ahead in all three categories. Which is why he wins. And given that he reclaimed the ATP's #1 spot in 2014 and has stayed there ever since, it seems like Melog may be on to something.

All right, on to all of the other players in the world! Same deal as last time; we'll look at players whose ranking in one system is at least 1.5 times as high as their ranking in the other.

Melog likes:

Player	Melog	ATP	2013 Age	2014 ATP
Michael Llodra	38	105	33	269
James Blake	69	153	34	RETIRED
Michael Berrer	68	143	33	128
Potito Starace	73	152	32	163
Novak Djokovic	1	2	26	1
Daniel Evans	75	150	23	305
Marin Cilic	19	37	25	9
Radek Stepanek	24	44	35	68
Gael Monfils	17	31	27	18
Tomas Berdych	4	7	28	7
Marcos Baghdatis	50	87	28	85
Ernests Gulbis	14	24	25	13
Ivan Dodig	20	33	28	95
Donald Young	62	96	24	57
Lleyton Hewitt	40	60	32	50

Remember how last time I said we should keep an eye on young players who Melog liked? That doesn't work so well this time around, since there aren't any. There were six players age 33 or higher on the list of 15 (one of whom was already retired at the end of 2013, and four more of whom declined significantly, which happens when athletes get old), and none under 23.

But if you keep it to players in their 20's, Melog looks OK this time around; it pretty well nailed Monfils, Gulbis, Young, and Djokovic, and also recognized that Cilic was likely to grade out higher with a full season (he was suspended for half of 2013). The misses were Berdych, Baghdatis, Dodig, and Evans.

ATP likes:

Player	Melog	ATP	2013 Age	2014 ATP
Pablo Andujar	155	48	27	41
Lukasz Kubot	229	72	31	170
Horacio Zeballos	149	56	28	123
Michal Przysiezny	174	66	29	174
Jurgen Melzer	70	27	32	113
Albert Montanes	135	63	33	108
Rafael Nadal	2	1	27	3
Adrian Mannarino	108	59	25	44
Vasek Pospisil	58	32	23	53
Lukas Rosol	81	47	28	31
Marcel Granollers	65	38	27	46
Benoit Paire	44	26	24	118
Jeremy Chardy	56	34	26	29
John Isner	23	14	28	19
Gilles Simon	31	19	29	21
Santiago Giraldo	106	69	26	32
Andy Murray	6	4	26	6

Hits: Kubot, Zeballos, Przysiezny (whose 2014 ATP ranking landed exactly on his 2013 Melog ordinal ranking, which means nothing but is amusing), Melzer, Nadal, Pospisil, Paire, and Murray. (Kubot would have been an easy call for anyone who followed the 2013 season; his ranking was mostly based on one of the flukiest Grand Slam quarterfinal runs of all time, in which he benefited from a walkover and faced only one seeded opponent, and that was the #25.)

Misses: Andujar, Mannarino, Rosol, Granollers, Chardy, Simon, and Giraldo.

In between: Isner and Montanes.

So with a two-year sample, I think we can safely conclude that Melog is not necessarily a great forward-looking predictor, as compared to the ATP rankings. (At least in terms of predicting the ATP rankings themselves. I may or may not be looking at other types of predictions as a project this year.)

It's probably worth addressing Andy Murray here... 2013 is the year Murray won Wimbledon, which was kind of a big deal (something about how no British man had done it since the '30s or whatever, I guess it was a thing). Given that, he has no particular reason to care about my rankings, or probably anything else that happened that year. Mostly, what else happened that year was he missed time with injuries; he skipped the French Open, and shut it down for the year shortly after the US Open with back trouble that also hampered him at the beginning of 2014 (hence his #6 finish in the ATP rankings that year). When on court, he was the third-best player in the world, but Ferrer (for instance) played over 50% more service games than Murray did and was very nearly as good when on court, and so Melog pushes him ahead.

Much as in 2013, the race for World #1 in 2012 remained unresolved until the last event of the year. On our next trip to the past, we'll check on whether Melog disagrees with the ATP on another close finish.