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Greatest Tennis Players of the Open Era - by Surface (Year-End 2020)

5.7K views 72 replies 20 participants last post by  talicnitom  
#1 · (Edited)
This is an update of last year's rankings, which you can find here:
Greatest Tennis Players of the Open Era - by Surface (Year-End 2019) | Mens Tennis Forums

Methodology follows the first table.
GOAT list - all surfaces (active players are highlighted in green):


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Top movers in 2020
The biggest movers of the year were Djokovic (1 slam + 2 masters + extra weeks at number 1), Dominic Thiem (moved from 48th place to 34th!), Medvedev (from 84th place to 59th!), and Nadal (1 slam):

358989


Methodology:
The focus was to try and be as objective as humanly possible.

1. Screening: only players who have won at least 1 grand slam, or 1 Masters 10000, an ATP finals title, or an Olympic Gold Medal are screened in.
2. Criteria were decided such that they were 1) generally recognized as important records, and 2) unambiguously positive/good (example: number of weeks in 2nd place doesn't count as unambiguously good, because 2nd place isn't as good as first), 3) not too nichey (number of slams won without losing a set is somewhat nichey), 4) not based on timing at all (e.g. no number of consecutive titles, or CYGS) and 5) in the Open Era.
3. Two lists are compiled with all the criteria, and each player's score.
4. There are 5 GOAT lists (a total one, and one for each surface:
GOAT lists: The first list, which I am calling the "GOAT" list, measures players' greatness mostly based on their achievements, putting a lot of weight on Grand Slams and other big titles. This is done by surface - so there are 5 of these lists. There is one overall list, and one for each surface (hard courts, clay, grass, and carpet)

Criteria for GOAT list:
Number of Grand Slams: 50 points
Number of World Tour Finals: 25 points
Number of Olympic Gold Medals: 25 points
Number of Masters 1000: 10 points
Number of ATP 500 tournaments: 4 points
Number of ATP 250 tournaments: 2 points
Peak Elo rating: 50 points per every standard deviation above the minimum (approximately 50 GOAT points per 135 Elo ranking points above the minimum of 1910)
Winning percentage in Grand Slams: 50 points per standard deviation above the minimum
Winning percentage against Top 5 players: 50 points per standard deviation above the minimum
Total weeks at Number 1: 1 point per week
Number 1 bonus: 50 bonus points to any player who has ever been Number 1

PS: note that for the lists by surface, there are a couple of methodological differences compared with the overall GOAT list. First, there are no ATP rankings by surface, so to compute the weeks at number 1 by surface, I use the Elo rankings provided by Ultimate Tennis Statistics - Rankings Table. The second difference is that instead of using the winning percentage in Grand Slams, I use the winning percentage in Big Titles - that's mainly because the Carpet surface never had a Grand Slam, so I wanted to keep things consistent.

Here are the tables by surface:

HARD COURT GOAT:
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CLAY COURT GOAT:
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GRASS COURT GOAT:
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CARPET COURT GOAT:
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If you spot a mistake, please let me know.

All data are taken from Ultimate Tennis Statistics, so thank you to them!
 

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#7 ·
Methodology follows the first table.
You can compare with the UTS scale at the bottom of the page.

Everyone can make their own table according to the goat of their choice :)

 
#12 ·
Thanks for your hard work on this!

To respond to the other posters, I'm happy with the weighting for two reasons: firstly, in terms of assessing "greatness", grand slams are much more memorable than MS events (certainly more than "twice" as memorable) and there are fewer so a 5x importance seems about right; secondly, the list passes the eyeball test - in order words it "feels" about right. Maybe you could argue about one or two places here or there but for the most part everyone is in a reasonable place on the all-time ranking list.

Happy to see other people's attempts at this if they feel strongly otherwise!

:)
 
#15 · (Edited)
Ranking points should prevail over ranking position for the obvious reason. Position X in week A sometimes takes better performance than Position X-1 in week B. I would recommend you to rule out weeks at 1 criteria and use ranking points per Grand Slam/Masters/WTF/ATP500/etc and in total.

The idea is plain and simple: a good player who competed with a very good rival should not stay below than an average player who competed with a bad rival.

UPD: The tournament performance criteria need improvements as well. Getting nothing from a Grand Slam final while getting points from ATP 250 title looks weird.
 
#24 ·
Thanks for the feedback. I get your point but I specifically did not want to reward players too much for consistency and focus more on glory. So no points for reaching a final.
However, that's not exactly true because I do give a lot of points for grand slam win percentage. So if someone goes deep in grand slams they get a lot of points this way. They also get a lot of points for beating players in the top 5. For example Medvedev gained a huge number of points from improving his GS win percentage and beating top 5 players...
 
#39 ·
It's a cold (and cool :) )rational accounting average that excludes the emotional factor.
You have to take it that way.

For example, there is no added value for Federer's AO 2017 at 35 than for one of his 5 US Open in a row at the heart of his domination.

Or for Borg's 5th WImbledon 80 anthology vs McEnroe compared to one of his RG, 78 for example in his rocking chair.

Rather than seeing Djokovic in front of Nadal, we could discuss more about seeing, for example Murray in front of Wilander and Rosewall, this proves that it is difficult to establish a fixed scale according to the eras, in particular Rosewall who like Laver, despite his Grand Slam is a victim of the Before, After Open Era hyphenation.

On the other hand, I'm not shocked to see Lendl in front of Borg, although Borg sticks in people's minds ahead of Lendl, of course, that also does Lendl justice for his remarkable presence at the top, his summit and his consistency.

Lendl, the champion who nobody cares about .. but the numbers don't care about those who don't care .
 
#48 ·
Player Slams WTF 1000s Olympics 500s Elo Weeks #1 Total

Points 2000 1500 1000 750 500 500 # weeks x 10

Federer 20 6 28 0 24 2nd 310 92,100

Nadal 20 0 35 1 21 2nd 209 88,340

Djokovic 17 5 36 0 14 1st 296 87,960


I worked out the above just looking at the Big 3. I used the actual points awarded by ATP for slams, WTF, Olympics, and so on. I took out Masters 250 tournaments because they seem irrelevant to the GOAT debate and I don't think any of the Big 3 are playing them now. However, they are still playing 500 tournaments and so I included them. I gave Djokovic a 500 bonus for highest ELO score and none for the Federer or Nadal who are virtually tied in their ELO scores. I multiplied the weeks times 10 points because I think the weeks are important but not that important (could have multiplied by 1 or 100).

I think these numbers with the exception of ELO and weeks #1 are consistent with how the ATP currently views the value of the events. It is interesting how close the numbers are which is sort of confirmed by the vigor with which people argue for their favorite. Federer is ahead, but has been playing longer. He is likely to be passed by both Nadal and Djokovic assuming they play for a few more years.
 
#53 · (Edited)
...
I multiplied the weeks times 10 points because I think the weeks are important but not that important (could have multiplied by 1 or 100).

I think these numbers with the exception of ELO and weeks #1 are consistent with how the ATP currently views the value of the events. It is interesting how close the numbers are which is sort of confirmed by the vigor with which people argue for their favorite. Federer is ahead, but has been playing longer. He is likely to be passed by both Nadal and Djokovic assuming they play for a few more years.
It is a lot harder to have 100 weeks at no.1 than to win a slam, though, and here you have 200 weeks = 1 slam or 2 masters, although just six players have managed to amass 200+ weeks in the open era and just two 300+ weeks.
 
#65 ·
It’s difficult to factor in non-point achievements like Weeks #1 to point related achievements where the ratio is set. To a point where I think it’s futile. Surely 100 weeks at #1 is a far bigger GOAT achievement than winning 1 Masters. But of course being 100 weeks at number 1 means you won Masters along the way. Maybe weeks at number one should just be a multiplier factor to the existing points. Since it’s way harder and GOAT-like to win tournaments while you’re protecting your #1 as well. Same with ELO and breaking/holding records.
 
#66 ·
It’s difficult to factor in non-point achievements like Weeks #1 to point related achievements where the ratio is set. To a point where I think it’s futile. Surely 100 weeks at #1 is a far bigger GOAT achievement than winning 1 Masters. But of course being 100 weeks at number 1 means you won Masters along the way. Maybe weeks at number one should just be a multiplier factor to the existing points. Since it’s way harder and GOAT-like to win tournaments while you’re protecting your #1 as well. Same with ELO and breaking/holding records.
Mind: lost.
 
#72 ·
It doesnt matter that its bof5 or bof3 because it is like that for both players, so it wont make it easier or harder.

also i dont think small tournaments should be counted (500s and 250s). Competition are much easier there and some players just dont play them at all, giving advantage to others (exemple: Federer and Novak)