2017 ATP Recap and Look into 2018

2017 ATP Recap and Look into 2018

What to Expect
Tennis fans the globe over are salivating at the thought of a 2018 full of former champions facing off against the increasingly restless young guns of tennis.  With Federer and Nadal dominating 2017 and the return of Djokovic, Murray, and Wawrinka, as well as Raonic, and Nishikori, there are sure to be fireworks.  Especially when this accomplished septet encounters 2017’s breakout stars like Alexander Zverev, Grigor Dimitrov, Dominic Thiem, David Goffin, and the likes of Kyrgios, Sock, Carreno Busta, and even young Shapovalov.  It looks like a battle royale about to unfold!

But wait…

What if none of this happens?

Last year’s injured stars might not experience great success when they come back to the tour, if they come back at all.  Yes Federer and Nadal had phenomenal returns to form in 2017, but that is no guarantee other players will do the same.  The signals at the start of 2018 are increasingly discouraging.

Secondly, how ready, actually, is the crop of up and comers?  Are there really 8 or 10 future slam champions in the current top 100?  History would argue against it, especially recent history.  In the last 10 years, there have been precisely five new slam champions:  Djokovic, Murray, Del Potro, Wawrinka, and Cilic.  Chances are good that in my list of 8 breakout stars, only 2 or 3 will ever become slam champions, and even that might be optimistic.  But before we speculate on whom they might be, let’s review 2017.

Recap of 2017

Aus Open Swing

The year started off looking like a continuation of the Murray-Djokovic show that dominated 2016.  Djokovic defeated Murray in the Doha final in the first week of the year, and Dimitrov, in a sign of things to come, won Brisbane.

There was a lot of speculation about how Federer would fare at the Australian Open after six months away.  The first real test was against perennial top-tenner Tomas Berdych in the third round and opinion was split close to 50-50 as to whom would win.  Fed sailed through and then fought through five-setters against Nishikori and Wawrinka to get to the final.  Meanwhile, Nadal faced a stiff test in the third round against Alexander Zverev, before battling past Monfils, Raonic, and Dimitrov, to scratch his way into the final.

The final was hyped as determining bragging rights for GOAT – or greatest of all time.  That is far too much weight to put on any single match.  It was the first time Nadal and Federer had met in a slam final since 2011.  The pressure was high and the excitement was great.  Federer displayed his ‘new’ backhand, which basically meant he was hitting less slice and going for more topspin at judicious moments.  It was a key strategy in this matchup since it seemed that Nadal had often won by bludgeoning Federer’s backhand side.

The match see-sawed back and forth with Federer taking the first and third sets, while Nadal won the second and fourth.  Much seemed to depend on Federer’s confidence to assert the backhand.  The fifth set was one for the ages.  As expected, Nadal proved mentally tougher to start the set, capitalizing on a loose service game from Federer, and then withstanding a barrage of Federer attacks.  Given the history of Nadal’s mental superiority, it seemed all but over with Nadal up and break and leading 3-1 in the fifth.  But Federer would have none of it.  He elevated his game to perfection with an ideal mix of patience and aggression to reel off the last five games, while the delirious Federazzi proclaimed him the undisputed GOAT.

In retrospect, the match WAS pretty important, even though not goat-determining.  At the end of the year, Nadal was still three slams behind Federer, but had this gone the other way, the difference would only be one.  More importantly, it seemed to set a winning tone for Federer that he carried throughout the year.  It was probably one of the three best men’s matches I’ve watched live, along with the 2008 Wimbledon final and the 1984 French final.  Immediately after the match I predicted that Nadal would be #1 by year’s end, which turned out to be a lucky guess.

Indian Wells / Miami Swing

Thiem, AZverev, Dimitrov, and Sock all won tournaments in February.  It was a precursor, as they all finished in the yearend top ten.  Nick Kyrgios ended Djokovic’s run of six straight titles in Indian Wells and Miami, but then gave Federer a walkover in the quarters of Indian Wells.  Two weeks later, the two faced off in the semis of Miami in one of the best matches of the year, a three tie-break encounter that Federer eked out.  Federer took Indian Wells over Wawrinka, and Miami over Nadal. 

Roger had won the three biggest titles of the year thus far and looked on a sure path to #1.  Federer had previously never beaten Nadal more than twice in a row, but now had done it four times.  However he didn’t play again until the grass court season, and that allowed Nadal an unassailable lead in the points race.

Roland Garros Swing

It was remarkable that Djokovic and Murray had made almost no dent on the year through March.  The dominant actors of the previous two years were struggling.  As for Nadal, having already made two important finals at Melbourne and Miami, he was rounding into ominous form for the European clay swing.

Rafa did not disappoint, taking Monte Carlo, Barcelona, and Madrid, before nabbing an incredible 10^th cup at the French Open.  Almost unbelievably, Nadal lost only 35 games at Roland Garros, his most dominant set of victories there to date.

Also of note during the clay season were the performances of Alexander Zverev and Dominic Thiem.  Thiem made the semis of Roland Garros for the second time and, notably, beat Nadal in Rome.  That cleared the way for Zverev to win his second clay event of the year and first Masters 1000 title, at Rome.

Wimbledon Swing

Perennial grass favourites Murray and Federer both lost their first grass match of the season, opening the door for some wild speculations as to whom the Wimbledon winner might be.  Murray lost in the quarters at the Big W and didn’t play again all year.  Meanwhile Federer won two tournaments and 12 matches in a row on grass to open his lead over Nadal to four in the slam derby.  Federer finally broke the tie with Pete Sampras and William Renshaw to stand alone with eight Wimbledon men’s singles titles.  The Wimbledon finalist was Marin Cilic, who had a fine year that ended with a #6 yearend rank. 

US Open Swing

Alexander Zverev proved he was for real by taking the 500 title in Washington and the 1000 in Montreal over Federer in the final, his second 1000 of the year.  It catapulted him to #3 in the rankings, although he had settled to #4 by year end. 

However tennis received a massive jolt of electricity from a teenage Canadian named Denis Shapovalov.  Barely 18, he repeated last year’s first round win at the Canadian Open, and then took out Del Potro in the second.  Canadians were on high alert for his third rounder against Nadal.  Much to their delirious delight, ‘Shapo’ pulled off the miracle in a dramatic match that ended with a tiebreaker in the third.  He toughed out one more match before losing two close sets to AZverev in the semis.  It made Shapovalov the youngest Masters 1000 semi-finalist since the series began in 1990.

Federer looked like he sustained an injury during the Montreal final, and didn’t play the 1000 in Cincinnati.  Nadal played but lost to Kyrgios in the quarters.  It came down to Kyrgios and Dimitrov with the winner to take their maiden 1000 title.  Dimitrov left little doubt in a straight set victory.

Anticipation was high as the US Open dawned that if the winner were Nadal or Federer it would probably determine #1 for the year.  Meanwhile the consecutive victories over Del Potro and Nadal had caught the imagination of the public and boosted Shapovalov’s ranking into the 60’s.  There was some booing about not giving him a wildcard into the US Open main draw, but after winning through qualifying he ran through to the fourth round, including an eye-opening dismantling of Tsonga in the second round. 

When Murray withdrew and then Cilic and Zverev lost early, the bottom half opened right up and some were predicting Shapovalov for the final.  However he lost to Carreno Busta who made a very nice run to the semis before losing to surprise finalist, Kevin Anderson.  Anderson exceeded expectations in returning to form after an injury-plagued 2016.

At the same time Del Potro made a miraculous comeback against Thiem in the fourth round before taking out an injured-looking Federer in the quarters. However he was no match for Nadal in the semis.  Then Nadal overwhelmed Anderson in the final, all but cementing his place at #1 for the year and lifting his slam total to 16.

Yearend Swing

Nadal’s good form continued as he took the 500 in Beijing, and then made the 1000 final in Shanghai, taking out Dimitrov and Cilic.  But there he met Federer, fresh off avenging his loss to Del Potro at the US Open.  Federer straight-setted Nadal, to establish 4-0 head-to-head for the year, his fifth straight victory over the Spaniard.  It was a first for Federer, although Nadal had previously won five straight from Federer on three different occasions.

With just a few tournaments left, Nadal had a modest lead over Federer in the points race, but it looked like Federer could still become #1 by taking the 500 in Basel, the 1000’s in Shanghai and Paris, and the World Tour Finals in London.  Roger won Shanghai and Basel sure enough, but then withdrew from Paris citing injury fears as more important than the #1 yearend ranking.  Nadal assured himself the #1 ranking by winning a match in Paris, but then withdrew in the quarters and played only one match in London, a loss to David Goffin.

With Nadal and Federer out of Paris, and untimely losses from favourites Zverev, Dimitrov, Cilic, and Del Potro, the draw opened wide to produce a final between 16^th seed Jack Sock and qualifier Filip Krajinovic.  Krajinovic won the first set before succumbing. 

The unexpected victory vaulted Sock into one of the eight elite spots in the tour Finals in London.  He seized opportunity and won two matches in the round robin to make the semis.  Leading up to the event, David Goffin had played back into form after a nasty ankle injury at Roland Garros.  Goffin won back to back fall events in Shenzhen and Tokyo, then shocked Nadal in his first match of the Finals in London.  The surprises continued when he beat Federer in the semis, ending in the minds of many the legitimacy of Roger’s quest for yearend #1, in spirit if not in points.

Goffin’s opponent in the final was Dimitrov, who finished the year with four tournament victories.  It was a close three-setter with Goffin taking only the middle set.  The title was Dimitrov’s greatest, surpassing the 1000 he won in Cincinnati.  It pushed him to a yearend finish of #3 behind only Nadal and Federer.  Dimitrov will be a force not to be overlooked in 2018.

The Final Act of the year was the Davis Cup which was won by France.  Goffin was heroic in winning both singles matches he played for Belgium.  Although Jo-Wilfried Tsonga won four tournaments this year and the Davis Cup, he finished at #15, his lowest yearend rank in 10 years.  But that will be dwarfed by the satisfaction of finally claiming the International Trophy.

Who is #1?

So who is yearend #1?  The computer says 1. Nadal, 2. Federer.  Number three is Dimitrov who has barely half the points of Federer.  Clearly the year belonged to Nadal and Federer.  Both won two slams.  It’s the first time in the open era (meaning, since 1968) that the four slams have been split between two players.  And remarkably, it happened only once in the 90 years before the Open Era, in 1967.

Both Federer and Nadal won two slams, but Nadal won more points on the ATP tour, so why isn’t it obvious that he is #1?  There are a few objections to this simple answer.  One is that Federer has a better match winning percentage, another is that he won more tournaments, and more big tournaments than Nadal.  And another is that he dominated the head-to-head with Nadal in 2017.  Are these objections legitimate?

There is little doubt that Roger dominated Rafa in 2017.  Federer won all four meetings.  It makes it a little difficult to think that Nadal is #1 for the year when someone else was clearly better every time they played.  I won’t say there isn’t some validity to this argument, and it’s the one Nadal fans have used for years to say that Federer is not the GOAT. 

At the end of 2017, with Nadal ahead 23-15 in the overall head-to-head, the record doesn’t look very unbalanced – had only four matches gone the other way, they would be all tied up at 19-19.  But let’s not forget that at the start of the year it was 23-11, which doesn’t look balanced, and yet Fed fans were even then claiming their man was the GOAT.  The reason is that one match-up doesn’t determine accomplishment.  Maybe Nadal usually beats Federer, but there are other opponents that give Nadal trouble, and if he can’t get past them, he can’t win titles.  So instead of individual head-to-head matchups, tennis has a history of looking at tournament wins a player accumulates as their measure of greatness. 

That is why Roger’s fans take the slam count so seriously.  If he wins the most slams he must be the GOAT, right?  Actually, I have reasons for disagreeing with that metric from an all-time perspective (because there were times in the past where slams were not so important), but it’s not bad for judging the last 30 years of the Open Era.  At the end of the day, for 2017, I don’t think Roger’s dominance over Rafa is decisive in making him #1, but it is a factor that weighs in Federer’s favour.

So if it comes down to titles, then Roger had a more impressive year than Rafa in 2017, right?  This one is tough to argue against.  In the end Roger won 7 titles, and Rafa won 6.  That’s only one different, so perhaps they are about equal…  But if we look at the value of the titles Roger won, we discover that he won two slams (worth 2000 points each), three 1000’s, and two 500’s, for a total of 8000 points.  Meanwhile, Nadal won two 2000’s, two 1000’s, and two 500’s, for a total of 7000 points.  Granted, it’s close, but again, undeniably, Federer has the edge.

However when we look at other points, like runner-up showings, Federer has only one 1000 runner-up worth 600 points.  At the same time, Nadal was runner-up at a 2000, two 1000’s, and a 500 for a total of 2700 points.  But if we’re counting points, we might as well count all ATP points, and here without doubt, Nadal wins.  He has 10,645 points by the complicated point formula of the ATP, whereas Federer has only 9,605 points.  This method validates the computer ranking system, which the ATP has gradually tweaked over the decades and now regards as the fairest method for ranking available.  Advantage Nadal.

Another number we can look at is the match-winning ratio for the year.  In 2017, Federer lost only five times all year, and won 52 matches for a ratio of 52/5 or 10.4.  Nadal’s win/loss was 67/11 for a ratio of 6.1.  Advantage Federer.  Something that strikes me about this is that Nadal lost 11 times during the year, more than twice the number of times that Federer lost.  Nadal won a few more matches, but overall, he was almost twice as likely to lose as Federer in 2017.  This is a significant point in Federer’s favour in my mind.

Federer didn’t play the clay season.  If he had he might have picked up enough points to carry him to #1 by year end.  On the other hand, had he played more, he might have won less points at the tournament he did well at.  It’s impossible to know.  I think Federer was #1 for the year, although not too strongly.  I understand why the ATP points system validly proclaims that Nadal was #1.  However, at the end of the day, I think the other players had more to fear from Federer when he stepped on the court, and I think he accomplished more than Nadal, and with fewer matches.

2017 Top Ten

Aside from numbers 1 and 2, for the rest of the top ten I follow the ATP computer rankings.

	Charles 2017 Ranking		ATP 2017 Ranking
1	Federer (3)	1	Nadal
2	Nadal (7)	2	Federer
3	Dimitrov (>16)	3	Dimitrov
4	AZverev (13)	4	AZverev
5	Thiem (11)	5	Thiem
6	Cilic (8)	6	Cilic
7	Goffin (12)	7	Goffin
8	Sock (<16)	8	Sock
9	Wawrinka (4)	9	Wawrinka
10	Carreno Busta (>16)	10	Carreno Busta

Last year’s predictions in brackets

Top Ten Prediction for 2018

Looking into the crystal ball for 2018 there are many possible futures.  I think Murray and Djokovic are going to struggle to come back, and that it will be very, very tough for Dimitrov, AZverev, and Thiem to break into the slam winners circle.  So that means another year of Federer and Nadal domination, along with some big moments for Stan Wawrinka.

I think Nadal will battle injury during the year, and that could undermine his confidence.  Five straight losses to Federer also have him second-guessing himself.  Put this all together and it would seem that Federer should be #1 next year.  The main reason to think that won’t happen is the limited schedule Federer is likely to play.  Will he be able to accumulate enough points to be #1 at year end?

I am tempted to predict that we will have a new #1 for 2018.  Someone not from the Big Four.  That would be an event that hasn’t happened since Andy Roddick and Juan Carlos Ferrero in 2003.  But honestly, I don’t see Zverev or Dimitrov or Wawrinka being able to pull off that consistency.  Nadal and Federer are the two best candidates, and I think Nadal will struggle enough to allow Federer to grab the top spot, despite his abbreviated schedule.

#1 Federer
#2 Nadal

I think the four next best players will be very close in 2018.  I was quite impressed with Dimitrov for taking a 1000 and the yearend Finals, and equally with AZverev for capturing two 1000 events.  But I was also impressed with Goffin’s end of season charge and his defeats of Nadal and Federer.  Throw Stan Wawrinka into the mix, and it’s very tough to pick among these four great talents.  They are about equally likely to win a slam title in my estimation, and could do damage at the 1000’s and 500’s.

I think Dimitrov will be the most consistent of these four, and I think Zverev will finally break through to the final 8 or better at a slam in 2018.  That could be just the confidence boost he needs to challenge for the very top.  Goffin has beefed up his game and seems more confident.  And Wawrinka is always dangerous.

#3 Dimitrov
#4 Wawrinka
#5 AZverev
#6 Goffin

Marin Cilic made a second slam final in 2017, and played well through most of the year.  He’s a legitimate top 10 player who could rise up at any tournament and steal the trophy if the chips fall right.  Dominic Thiem’s yearend ranking has improved every year for the last seven years.  If he’s to do it again he will need to finish higher than #5 in 2018.  I have my doubts but I said that last year too.  He’s a real threat at the French Open, but that’s behind Nadal and Wawrinka, not to mention a healthy Djokovic or Murray.  He may gain consistency on surfaces other than clay but overall I don’t see him doing too much better than last year.

#7 Cilic
#8 Thiem

Juan Martin Del Potro finished just outside of the top 10 at #11 for 2017.  He’s still extremely dangerous when he’s healthy and he’s been making noises about working on his fitness this year.  If he does, it should propel him to a top ten spot.  He won his 20^th title in 2017, putting him into the top 40 tournament winners of the open era.

#9  Del Potro

There are a host of legitimate contenders for the final spot in 2018’s top ten.  Sam Querrey and John Isner have been close before and still seem capable of top flight tennis.  Tsonga won a career best four tournaments in 2017.  Lucas Pouille has been ranked as high as 13 and is entering his prime at age 23. Twenty year-old Andrey Rublev jumped over 100 spots in the rankings to finish in the 30’s.  He will probably go higher.  Jack Sock looked like a new player in the last two tournaments of the year, winning his first 1000 and making the semis of the tour Finals.  Kevin Anderson had a banner year by making the US Open final.  That could push him to further greatness.  Pablo Carreno Busta showed consistency and determination in nailing down the last spot in 2017’s top ten. 

But as good as those players are, there are five more that would seem like shoo-ins for a top ten slot.  Nick Kyrgios has obvious talent and sports a superlative 7-11 record against the Big Four-plus-Wawrinka.  Will he finally harness that talent?  Milos Raonic was on the injury team in 2017 but finished the previous year at #3.  Kei Nishikori also struggled with injury after three consecutive years in the top ten.  Any of these three seem like obvious picks for the top ten.

And then there’s Andy Murray to consider.  If he were healthy, he could battle for #1.  But I suspect his injuries are chronic and not easily fixed.  He could still do some serious damage to any draw, but I don’t think he will have the consistency to gain enough points and predict he will fall just short of the top ten in 2018.  That leaves Novak Djokovic.  It’s hard to know how serious his elbow injury is.  Of more concern perhaps is his mental toughness.  He has been a shell of himself since winning the French Open in 2016.  Will he find the desire to fight again?  I have a feeling he will find it in fits and starts and will sputter into the top ten.

#10 Djokovic

Rank	Charles’ Prediction for 2018
1	Federer
2	Nadal
3	Dimitrov
4	Wawrinka
5	AZverev
6	Goffin
7	Cilic
8	Thiem
9	Del Potro
10	Djokovic

Outside of the elite group, I expect that Hyeon Chung and Denis Shapovalov will continue to make advances in 2018, but not large ones.  Ditto Karen Khachanov.  Coric will probably continue on for a fourth year in the 40’s.  Diego Shwartzman might creep higher up the rankings.  Frances Tiafoe should move into the top 50, and I expect Felix Auger-Aliassime to make significant gains.  I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds.