Victory Points - Djokovic vs Connors, Lendl vs Sampras

Novak Djokovic has just won his 63^rd main tour title with his victory in Miami last week.  It seems like a lot of tournaments and is almost as many as Nadal has won with 67... or Sampras with 64.  But it’s still a lot less than Jimmy Connors’ open era record of 109 titles. 

Here’s the title list for the top 20 of the Open Era (since 1968 when professionals were allowed to play with amateurs).

109 Connors
94 Lendl
88 Federer
77 McEnroe
67 Nadal
64 Sampras
64 Borg
63 Djokovic
62 Vilas
60 Agassi
58 Nastase
49 Becker
46 Laver
44 Muster
41 Edberg
37 Smith
35 Murray
34 Chang
33 Ashe
33 Wilander

That list may or may not agree with various lists published on the ATP website or Wikipedia, and that’s because there was a fair bit of confusion in the early days of the open era (1968-1973) about what tournaments counted and which were exhibitions.  Some supposed ‘tournaments’ had draws of only four players or were ‘invitational’.  But after weighing all the evidence and relying mostly on the judgment of others, I think the above list is fairly good and would be accepted by most.

But I got to wondering if Novak’s 63 titles were actually a bigger accomplishment than Connors’ 109.  Just looking at the total, Connors seems much better, but I’ve been under the impression that titles were a lot easier to win back in the 1970’s.  Some of the tournaments were small or had very weak fields.

There wasn’t one united ATP tour back then like there is now.  There was something called the Grand Prix Tour that became the ATP, and then there was the WCT (World Championship Tennis) tour that actually predated the Open era slightly and lingered in various forms right up to 1990.  There was also the National Tennis League (NTL) and the US Indoor Circuit.  And then there was the ITF, which took over the Grand Prix (kind of) for a while and controlled the slams.

It was a mess.  Eventually in 1990, the ATP united the remnants of these tours (mostly the Grand Prix) and created the tour structure that we are still enjoying to this day.

Since I love finding structure and unpacking numbers, I wondered if it would be possible to weight all tournaments of the Open Era along the lines of today’s tour structure with tournaments worth 2000, 1000, 500, and 250 points.  I thought that if I could do that, I could assign a point value to all of Connors’ tournament victories and compare them to the point value of Djokovic’s tournaments.  Then I could see if Djokovic’s 63 tournaments (so far) were actually a bigger accomplishment numerically than Connors’ 109... comparing the ‘Victory Points’ from the tournaments won.

Of course, there’s bound to be flaws in my system.  In addition to suffering from probably incomplete information, it’s pretty tough to say if Connors victory at Tempe, AZ in 1974 should be a 500 or a 250 tournament.  I basically resolved this by looking at the ranking points assigned by the old tournaments when these were available.  When they weren’t available, I looked at the prize money for the event in comparison to prize money for other events of the same year.

It’s interesting that there were actually many MORE tournaments on the ‘main tours’ back in the 1970’s than there are now.  This meant there were a whole bunch of smaller tournaments.  I don’t know if the top pros were trying to keep all the tournaments alive by spreading themselves out over all these tournaments or if they were trying to avoid playing each other, but it was pretty typical that each tournament would only have 1 or 2 top players in the draw.  This meant that the top players played each other much less frequently than they do now.  The top two might meet only 1-3 times per year instead of the 5-8 times they typically face off per year now.  In my opinion that would make it easier to win a lot of tournaments, like Connors did, since he frequently wasn’t facing a lot of other top players.

So the first thing I compared was the big 4 from today:  Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray.  At last count (Apr 6, 2016),

	2000’s (slams)	1500’s (WTFs)	1000’s	500’s (& Olym)	250’s
Federer	17	6	24	27	14
Nadal	14	0	27	18	8
Djokovic	11	5	28	12	7
Murray	2	0	11	9	13

Multiplying this out, Federer would have

2000 x 17 = 34,000 from slam victories
1500 x 6 = 9,000 from WTFs
1000 x 24 = 24,000 from 1000 level tournaments
500 x 27 = 13,500 from 500’s
250 x 14 = 3,500 from 250’s.

His total then is 84,000 victory points.  It’s important to realize that this number comes from tournament victories only.  It does not in any way account for runner-up performances, or how deep a player goes at any event.  Only wins count in this number.

Here are the totals for the Big Four:

84,000  Federer
66,000  Nadal
65,250  Djokovic
22,750  Murray.

It’s interesting to see how close Djokovic is to Nadal, only 750 points back.  Since Djokovic has won fewer tournaments, that means Djokovic must be averaging more points per tournament won – on average Djokovic is winning bigger tournaments.  Here are the averages:

Average points per tournament won:
1036  Djokovic
985  Nadal
955  Federer
650  Murray

Clearly, Djokovic is leading the pack in points/tournament, but perhaps that changes over the course of a career.  Drilling a little deeper into Federer’s tournaments, now that he is older and not ranked has highly, he is playing and winning more 250’s than he did in his prime.  In the five years from 2005-09, Federer won only two 250 events, whereas in the last 5 years, he’s won five.  Similarly, Djokovic has won only two 250’s in the last five years, but perhaps that will change if he becomes no longer able to claim all the slams and 1000’s he’s winning now.  Other than one 500, all the tournaments Djokovic won last year were at the 1000 level or higher (ten of them).  Nadal won no 250’s at all from 2006-2012, despite racking up 38 bigger tournaments.

Now what about other players from the open era?  I went through the records of the other leading players and assigned them all point values (250, 500, 1000, etc).  This was reasonably easy for Sampras and Agassi, since the point structure hasn’t changed much since their day (other than doubling).  For the Becker, Edberg, Wilander, Lendl generation, I started having to get more interpretive.  And by the time I was considering McEnroe, Borg, Connors, and Vilas I was digging deep into old tour money lists.  For what it’s worth here’s what I got.

	2000’s	1500’s	1000’s	500’s	250’s	Total pts	Avg pts/ tournament
Federer	17	6	24	27	14	84,000	955
Lendl	8	5	22	46	13	71,750	763
Nadal	14	0	27	18	8	66,000	985
Djokovic	11	5	28	12	7	65,250	1036
Connors*	8	1	17.5	35	48	64,500	589
Sampras	14	5	11	23	11	60,750	949
McEnroe	7	3	19	38	10	59,000	766
Borg	11	2	15	21	15	54,250	848
Agassi	8	1	17	13	21	46,250	771
Becker	6	3	13	25	2	42,500	867
Vilas*	4	1	7.5	18	32	34,000	544
Murray	2	0	11	9	13	22,750	650

* Monte Carlo 1981 final was unfinished between Connors and Vilas

It’s interesting that Federer has the highest total points despite having less total tournaments than Lendl or Connors.  It’s also interesting that Connors and Vilas have the lowest average points per tournament.  It means that the tournaments these two won tended to be lower ranking tournaments.  However, in the end, I think the ‘Total Points’ may be the best measure of a player’s accomplishment.    Here’s the list again with just total points, (to make it easier to read).

84,000  Federer
71,750  Lendl
66,000  Nadal
65,250  Djokovic
64,500  Connors
60,750  Sampras
59,000  McEnroe
54,250  Borg
46,250  Agassi
42,500  Becker
34,000  Vilas
33,750  Nastase (for Nastase, sub-1000 tournaments were split 50-50 between 500’s and 250’s)
33,250  Edberg

Of course point allocation is not completely fair.  The Australian Open for example counts as 2000 points no matter when a player won it.  But before 1983, it was a relatively easy tournament to win – probably more like a 500 today. 

In fact, in the early open era, the status of the slams in general was uncertain.  Were they really the biggest, or were the US Pro Championships in Boston more important? or the WCT finals?  Because of the various wars between the different circuits like the WCT, the Grand Prix, and the ITF, most of the top 10 did not play the 1970 French Open, the 1971 US Open, 1972 French, 1972 Wimbledon, and 1973 Wimbledon (or most of the Aus Opens to 1983).  The biggest tournaments in these years may have been the WCT tournaments.  Furthermore, anyone playing World Team Tennis in 1974-78 was banned from the French Open in the same year – which led to some weak French draws.

But gradually the four slams rose again in importance and with them the Grand Prix circuit, so that by the mid 1980’s the tour was starting to look a lot like it does now and was ready for the takeover by the ATP tour that happened in 1990.  So all slams get 2000 points no matter when they were played.

In 1970 the Grand Prix decided to promote 9 of their tournaments as the “Group One” tournaments, that later came to be called the “Super Series” in 1978.  These 9 tournaments eventually evolved into the 1000 level tournaments of today, and there have always been 9 each year since 1970.  Although in the big picture they were not nearly as important or difficult to win in the early years as they are now, for the sake of consistency I have awarded 1000 points to the winner since their inception.  Further, I have not given any more than 500 points to any other tournaments, even WCT tournaments that may have offered more prize money than the early Super Series.  I justify this in part because often the WCT tournaments had very small draws of 4 to 16 players.

It’s kind of amazing that Borg amassed 54,000 points and retired at age 25.  Just for fun I looked at what other players had amassed by the end of the year in which they turned 25.

Year player turned 25 – points accumulated from tournament wins:
54,250  Borg
48,750  McEnroe
46,500  Nadal
42,250  Federer
38,500  Sampras
35,000  Lendl
34,000  Connors
33,000  Becker
31,500  Djokovic

And here’s the list of what players accumulated after the year they turned 25:
41,750  Federer (so far)
36,750  Lendl
33,750  Djokovic (so far)
30,500  Connors
27,500  Nastase
24,500  Agassi
22,250  Sampras
19,500  Nadal (so far)

This gives me a renewed appreciation for Federer who is the only one to score more than 40,000 points both before and after 25.  Next highest on both lists is Lendl.  Many players who score highly up to age 25, then taper quickly and have few points after 25:  like Borg, McEnroe, Wilander, and Nadal.  Looking at the percent split of a player’s points, players tend to be either early point getters, or more evenly split.  Nastase is unusual in amassing a large majority of his victory points after age 25.

Percent up to age 25 – percent after 25
Quick Starters
100 – 0  Borg
99 – 1  Wilander
96 – 4  Chang
83 – 17  McEnroe
82 – 18  Edberg
78 – 22  Becker
70 – 30  Nadal
63 – 37  Sampras

Balanced
55 – 45  Vilas
53 – 47  Connors
50 – 50  Federer
49 – 51  Lendl
48 – 52  Djokovic
47 – 53  Agassi

Late Bloomers
19 – 81  Nastase
6 – 94  Wawrinka

Last year, Djokovic claimed 14,000 points from tournament victories, and he has already claimed 4,250 this year.  If he stays on this pace for two more years he will have another 24,000 points after age 25 and will tip his balance to 35-65.  He may end up looking more like Nastase in his distribution.

I started this post wondering if Djokovic’s 63 tournament victories were more significant than Connors’ 109.  As of today, they are approximately equal 65,250 vs 64,000.  Despite 46 more tournaments for Connors, I think this assessment of equality is probably pretty fair since so many of Connors victories came in tournaments without many (or any) other top 10 players.  Meanwhile, the majority of Djokovic’s victories have been against fields featuring virtually all of the top players – his title victories in slams, WTFs, and 1000’s number 44.

Inadvertently, I think this also serves as a reasonable proxy for determining the greatest players of the Open era.  Right off the bat we can exclude the earliest Open era players who played significant parts of their career before 1968 – like Laver, Rosewall, and Newcombe.  But for the Connors and Vilas generation, and even the Nastase and Smith generation, and everything that came after, this method is one possible way to look at a player’s overall accomplishments. 

Connors didn’t play 17 slam tournaments at the height of his career (1972-85), which shows that they didn’t have the same importance they do now.  But he played a lot of other tournaments instead.  I’m not comfortable looking at Connors’ 8 slam victories and saying that is the measure of his greatness – I think that underestimates him.  On the other hand, looking at his 109 tournament victories, the greatest of the Open era, probably overestimates him, especially compared to the talent-dense draws today’s top players face.  The truth is something else, and I think weighting the tournament victories according to the method I’ve used, may get us closer to being able to compare Open era records of the top players.  Here’s the list again:

84,000  Federer
71,750  Lendl
66,000  Nadal
65,250  Djokovic
64,500  Connors
60,750  Sampras
59,000  McEnroe
54,250  Borg
46,250  Agassi
42,500  Becker
34,000  Vilas
33,750  Nastase
33,250  Edberg

There are two real surprises on this list, Lendl at #2 and Sampras at only #6.  Is this reasonable?  Afterall, Sampras is often mentioned as a contender for the greatest player of all time, whereas Lendl is almost never on that shortlist.

Sampras’ claims to greatness rest on his sterling record in slams with 14 titles.  But what’s less obvious is how poorly he fared in 1000 events.  He has only 11 titles, the same as Murray.  The bread and butter of his 64 titles were the 500 events where he has 23 titles.  That is a fine accomplishment but pales next to Lendl who doubles Sampras in both 500 and 1000 output with 46 and 22 titles, respectively.

Another way to look at their records is to consider the yearend Top 10 from the ATP computer.  Records start in 1973.  I have made something I call the ‘Top Ten Index’.  This awards from 1 to 10 points for each year a player finishes in the yearend top 10.  A #1 finish is worth 10 points, #2 is worth 9, etc, down to 1 point for a #10 finish.  Here’s the list for yearend computer rankings, since 1973.

130  Connors
121  Federer
105  Lendl
96  Nadal
96  Sampras
94  Agassi
81  Djokovic
81  McEnroe
79  Becker
74  Edberg
69  Borg
61  Vilas
57  Murray

In this list Lendl is ahead of Sampras.  Lendl was in the top 10 for 13 years and Sampras for 12 years, so they are close in that regard.  Sampras was in the top 3 for 9 years, Lendl was in the top 3 for 10 years – also close.  But overall, Lendl sustained a high level of excellence just a little longer than Sampras.  So thinking of Lendl as Sampras equal does not seem unreasonable.  Lendl was certainly more successful at winning tournaments than Sampras, both in sheer number and in tournament ‘victory points.’

I’m not going to ignore that Connors leads the Top 10 Index with 130 points, but I will say I think that number is exaggerated.  On the computer, Connors was yearend #1 for 1974-78.  But few observers think he was actually #1 for 1975 (Ashe), or 1977-78 (Borg).  But the computer calculation was not as refined then as it is now.  Basically, since 1990 when the ATP restructured the tour, the computer yearend #1 has been what most observers feel is ‘correct’.  But this was not the case before 1990.

I have compiled another series of yearend Top 10s, based on the published lists of journalists, panels, and other observers.  It goes all the way back to 1877 when the first Wimbledon was played and it produces a Top 10 Index that looks like this:

170 Rosewall  166 Tilden  154 Gonzales  128 Budge
121  Federer
117  Connors
110 Laver  109 Larned  107 WRenshaw  104 Perry  104 Kramer  103 Riggs
103  Lendl
100  Agassi
100 Segura  98 Johnston  97 Brookes  96 Kovacs
96  Nadal
96  Sampras

This list is probably better for considering players ranked before 1990, and again, Lendl is ranked slightly ahead of Sampras.  At the end of the day I’m not saying Lendl was better than Sampras.  Sampras clearly came through on the really big day – in the slam finals, whereas Lendl demonstrated more excellence on the day to day grind. 

I think the Top 10 Index is an interesting tool for looking at the greatest players of the open era, but I don’t think it’s perfect.  The ‘Victory Points’ ranking I’ve put forward might be a little better.  Although it will not resolve the question of who is best of the Open era, I hope it provides some interesting food for thought.