We simply look at performance across the three main kinds of tournaments:
Grand Slams, Masters Series 1000, World Tour Finals (Year-End Championships)
Multiplying weights are based on the point system (e.g. 1200 points for runner-up in a Grand Slam and 2000 points for the winner means 1200/2000 = 0.6 coefficient for GS Runner-Up in the formula below). We look at performance from two perspectives: firstly the percentage of tournaments where he won or reached a certain round (e.g. SF), and secondly the total number of accomplishments. A player's QF% equals the percentage of tournaments where he reached the quarterfinals, and the number of quarterfinals in Grand Slams are also counted and weighted separately. We only count semifinal appearances as significant in the other tournaments. This leads to a neat mathematical rating that ranges from around 5 to 10 for the top 25-30 players of the last 40-50 years since the Open Era began in 1968. However, statistical data for players from the 1970s and earlier is harder to find, so I have avoided ranking some of the professionals who also played in the 1960s like Rod Laver. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Bjorn Borg each registered a numerical rating that is just slightly above 10. Based on my calculations, they are the three most dominant tennis players since 1970.
Because 720 points are awarded to a Grand Slam semifinalist (36% of the 2000 given to the champion), and half of 720 (18% of 2000) goes to a GS quarterfinalist, we get the multiplying coefficients .36 and .18 for those results. Similarly, the year-end champion usually gets 1300 or 1500 points, depending on whether or not he goes undefeated. This number ranges from 65% to 75%, but I felt that for the sake of simplicity and the relatively smaller impact of this tournament compared to Masters 1000 and Grand Slams, I would stick with the higher percentage of 75%.
Masters championships (1000 points) are worth 50% of Grand Slam wins (2000 points), and since I divide the number of Grand Slam titles by a fixed divisor (100), the accumulated total of Masters titles are divided by twice that amount (200) to decrease their measuring significance in evaluating the player to half that of his Grand Slams. In other words, his Grand Slam titles are counted two times more than his Masters titles.
{
[ [GS Titles + (GS Runner-Ups × 0.6) +
(GS Semifinals × 0.36) + (GS Quarterfinals × 0.18)] ÷ GS Tournaments ] +
[ [(Year-End Wins × 0.75) + (Masters Titles × 0.5) +
(Year-End Runner-Ups × 0.5) + (Masters Runner-Ups × 0.3) +
(Year-End Semifinals × 0.2) + (Masters Semifinals × 0.18)] ÷
[Year-End Tournaments + Masters Tournaments] ] +
(GS Titles ÷ 100) +
(GS Runner-Ups ÷ 167) +
(GS Semifinals ÷ 278) +
(GS Quarterfinals ÷ 556) +
(Year-End Wins ÷ 150) +
(Year-End Runner-Ups ÷ 200) +
(Year-End Semifinals ÷ 500) +
(Masters Titles ÷ 200) +
(Masters Runner-Ups ÷ 333) +
(Masters Semifinals ÷ 556)
} x 10
Rafael Nadal has won 14 major titles, 27 Master Series titles, but only two runner-ups in the ATP World Tour Finals. His record is 14-6 in GS Finals, with an additional 3 semifinal and 4 quarterfinal appearances out of 39 GS tournaments. In Masters 1000 finals, he holds an amazing 27-13 record, and also reached 14 semifinals (where he lost) out of 83 total singles draws in the Masters series. Plugging these numbers into our formula we get:
{
[14 + (6 × 0.6) + (3 × 0.36) + (4 × 0.18)] ÷ 39]
[(0 × 0.75) + (27 × 0.5) + (2 × 0.5) + (13 × 0.3) + (2 × 0.2) + (14 × 0.18)] ÷ [6 + 83]
(14 ÷ 100) + (6 ÷ 167) + (3 ÷ 278) + (4 ÷ 556) + (0 ÷ 150) + (2 ÷ 200) + (2 ÷ 500) +
(27 ÷ 200) + (13 ÷ 333) + (14 ÷ 556)
} x 10
= 11.44 for Rafael Nadal
Total Win% across Grand Slam, Year-End, and Masters Series 1000 (Grand Prix) tournaments and Win-Loss Diff across these three categories make up the second part of the formula. Nadal is 187-25 across Grand Slams, 281-55 in the Masters Series 1000, and 13-11 in World Tour Finals for a total win-loss of 481-91 (84.1% winning percentage), and so Rafa has triumphed in 390 more contests than he has been defeated in (481 subtracted by 91). We take these two statistics and get a secondary rating based on his career win-loss:
(Total Win% x 10) + (Win-Loss Diff ÷ 1000) = (.841 x 10) + (390 ÷ 1000)
= 8.80 for Rafael Nadal
Average of these two ratings gives us a final rating. Thus: (11.44 + 8.80) ÷ 2 = 10.12 for Nadal
It is quite impossible to have a final rating much higher than 10 because Total Win% rarely exceeds 80% over all three tournaments. Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, Borg, McEnroe, and Lendl are the only six players to accomplish this in the history of the Open Era. Connors and Sampras came close and they round out the top eight players since the 1970s.
Grand Slams, Masters Series 1000, World Tour Finals (Year-End Championships)
Multiplying weights are based on the point system (e.g. 1200 points for runner-up in a Grand Slam and 2000 points for the winner means 1200/2000 = 0.6 coefficient for GS Runner-Up in the formula below). We look at performance from two perspectives: firstly the percentage of tournaments where he won or reached a certain round (e.g. SF), and secondly the total number of accomplishments. A player's QF% equals the percentage of tournaments where he reached the quarterfinals, and the number of quarterfinals in Grand Slams are also counted and weighted separately. We only count semifinal appearances as significant in the other tournaments. This leads to a neat mathematical rating that ranges from around 5 to 10 for the top 25-30 players of the last 40-50 years since the Open Era began in 1968. However, statistical data for players from the 1970s and earlier is harder to find, so I have avoided ranking some of the professionals who also played in the 1960s like Rod Laver. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Bjorn Borg each registered a numerical rating that is just slightly above 10. Based on my calculations, they are the three most dominant tennis players since 1970.
Because 720 points are awarded to a Grand Slam semifinalist (36% of the 2000 given to the champion), and half of 720 (18% of 2000) goes to a GS quarterfinalist, we get the multiplying coefficients .36 and .18 for those results. Similarly, the year-end champion usually gets 1300 or 1500 points, depending on whether or not he goes undefeated. This number ranges from 65% to 75%, but I felt that for the sake of simplicity and the relatively smaller impact of this tournament compared to Masters 1000 and Grand Slams, I would stick with the higher percentage of 75%.
Masters championships (1000 points) are worth 50% of Grand Slam wins (2000 points), and since I divide the number of Grand Slam titles by a fixed divisor (100), the accumulated total of Masters titles are divided by twice that amount (200) to decrease their measuring significance in evaluating the player to half that of his Grand Slams. In other words, his Grand Slam titles are counted two times more than his Masters titles.
{
[ [GS Titles + (GS Runner-Ups × 0.6) +
(GS Semifinals × 0.36) + (GS Quarterfinals × 0.18)] ÷ GS Tournaments ] +
[ [(Year-End Wins × 0.75) + (Masters Titles × 0.5) +
(Year-End Runner-Ups × 0.5) + (Masters Runner-Ups × 0.3) +
(Year-End Semifinals × 0.2) + (Masters Semifinals × 0.18)] ÷
[Year-End Tournaments + Masters Tournaments] ] +
(GS Titles ÷ 100) +
(GS Runner-Ups ÷ 167) +
(GS Semifinals ÷ 278) +
(GS Quarterfinals ÷ 556) +
(Year-End Wins ÷ 150) +
(Year-End Runner-Ups ÷ 200) +
(Year-End Semifinals ÷ 500) +
(Masters Titles ÷ 200) +
(Masters Runner-Ups ÷ 333) +
(Masters Semifinals ÷ 556)
} x 10
Rafael Nadal has won 14 major titles, 27 Master Series titles, but only two runner-ups in the ATP World Tour Finals. His record is 14-6 in GS Finals, with an additional 3 semifinal and 4 quarterfinal appearances out of 39 GS tournaments. In Masters 1000 finals, he holds an amazing 27-13 record, and also reached 14 semifinals (where he lost) out of 83 total singles draws in the Masters series. Plugging these numbers into our formula we get:
{
[14 + (6 × 0.6) + (3 × 0.36) + (4 × 0.18)] ÷ 39]
[(0 × 0.75) + (27 × 0.5) + (2 × 0.5) + (13 × 0.3) + (2 × 0.2) + (14 × 0.18)] ÷ [6 + 83]
(14 ÷ 100) + (6 ÷ 167) + (3 ÷ 278) + (4 ÷ 556) + (0 ÷ 150) + (2 ÷ 200) + (2 ÷ 500) +
(27 ÷ 200) + (13 ÷ 333) + (14 ÷ 556)
} x 10
= 11.44 for Rafael Nadal
Total Win% across Grand Slam, Year-End, and Masters Series 1000 (Grand Prix) tournaments and Win-Loss Diff across these three categories make up the second part of the formula. Nadal is 187-25 across Grand Slams, 281-55 in the Masters Series 1000, and 13-11 in World Tour Finals for a total win-loss of 481-91 (84.1% winning percentage), and so Rafa has triumphed in 390 more contests than he has been defeated in (481 subtracted by 91). We take these two statistics and get a secondary rating based on his career win-loss:
(Total Win% x 10) + (Win-Loss Diff ÷ 1000) = (.841 x 10) + (390 ÷ 1000)
= 8.80 for Rafael Nadal
Average of these two ratings gives us a final rating. Thus: (11.44 + 8.80) ÷ 2 = 10.12 for Nadal
It is quite impossible to have a final rating much higher than 10 because Total Win% rarely exceeds 80% over all three tournaments. Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, Borg, McEnroe, and Lendl are the only six players to accomplish this in the history of the Open Era. Connors and Sampras came close and they round out the top eight players since the 1970s.
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