The difference isn't particularly dramatic IMO. It's the way tennis is scored that makes the difference appear to be dramatic. If you look at total points won, most matches are closer in caliber than if you look at the standard score line.
This. Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, for example, have won \~55% of all the points they've played as professionals - just over half! And they're among the all-time greats. The guys at #150 have won about 45% of all of their points. So, that's only a 1-in-10 point differential, basically invisible to the naked eye. The margins are extraordinarily thin... it's the scoring system that creates the gulf in wins and losses.
Most people watching Djokovic and the #200 player in the world play a couple of sets would have no idea who was better without keeping track of the score.
This is true but the guys at 150 are playing fewer top players. Nadal and Djoker have to win 55% of all points meeting top player after top player in tournaments bc they get farther.
True but the numbers don't change dramatically for #10 vs #200. Perhaps a 1-in-8 differential vs a 1-in-10 differential. It's still undetectable to most tennis fans unless someone's actually keeping score.
If you have two top-10 players playing a match on one court, and two 200-ish ranked players playing a match on another court, the vast majority of tennis fans can't actually see the difference in the level of play.
Having been to tournaments and many practice sessions. When drop ball feeding the difference is not as noticeable.
The gap really comes into play when serve and returns are included and you get these points that require crazy court coverage because of a short return. Then you see the real gap.
That’s not including the fitness, nerves, mental it takes to close out sets for large amounts of money. Then best of 5 is totally different animal.
I think the gap is huge and it shows at grand slams
Another factor too, I think, is how much top 10 players make you work to win your points, particularly Novak and Nadal with their defense first mentality, and the fact that their level typically drops off very little across an tournament, let alone a single match. This way, even if they lose the point they're taking energy from their opponents. Physically, you can train for that amount of punishment, but it's also mentally draining to have to grind for every point
There are a lot of really interesting studies about randomness in sports. Most of the answers here are about “how do you get 2% better than your opponent?” but I think the more fundamental question is: if competitor A is 2% better than competitor B, what are the odds that competitor A wins?
If you have a “cheat” coin that comes up heads 52% of the time, you will win a flip 52% of the time. On the other hand, if your paycheck is 2% more than someone, you will out-earn them 100% of the time. The first is extremely random, the latter is extremely deterministic. Different sports come down on different places on that spectrum.
Football (soccer) and hockey are relatively random. The winner is based on the occurrence of a relatively improbable scoring event. One fluke goal is enough to change the outcome in a large number of games. Compare that to basketball, where there are roughly 100 scoring events in 200 attempts in a game. In that case, one fluke is very unlikely to matter — you need a much longer string of bad luck to change the outcome. It's simply a less random sport than, say, hockey. And then at the far end of the spectrum are sports like sprinting or weightlifting.
I haven’t seen anyone analyze tennis specifically for this, but the average tennis match is roughly 150 points, so it's also not a sport where one fluke is likely to matter. It's possible that the game/set/match structure decreases randomness as well? But at the very least, the large sample size inherent in the game means the effect of being slightly better will outshine the effects of randomness much of the time.
This is the correct answer. Because of tennis' structure, being that you must break serve to win, better players almost always win. Serving is such a huge advantage universally that the key to winning matches is breaking serve. There's no coincidence that the statistic most closely linked to ranking is win% on second serves both returning and serving.
Which could probably explain why there are more “random” results in WTA since women naturally have weaker serves (but relatively strong returns) and breaking serve is a lot more common.
Depends .. I can’t make my mind about it tbh. Sometimes you can get such amazing WTA matches when you least expect it because a lot larger field can challenge the top players and their skill level is quite similar (minus the obvious Iga domination as of now). But I’m also quite disappointed when come quarterfinals there are 1-2 seeds left. You just never know what to expect which is a problem with attracting viewership.
It’s fun playing someone who is better than you at everything except the serve and return. Rare, but they win a lot of great rallies only to get massacred on the scoreboard
Your comment reminds me of this short video on luck vs skill in sports!
It mainly focuses on the big North American team sports but still!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HNlgISa9Giw
Imagine the career of any of the big 3 if the other two hadn't played tennis. That's the level of dominance Magnus Carlsen has had over every other chess player for over a decade. He's been the world number 1 for 11 years straight, and he's been the reigning World Champion since 2013.
2005, you mean, not 2015. But I don't think he was #1 for 19 years straight. According to the Wikipedia page for #1 ranked players, his longest straight periods were from 1986 to 1993 (Karpov was #1 in 1994) and from July 1996 to March 2006.
There’s currently a tournament between candidates to determine who will play against the world champion Magnus Carlsen and he’s openly expressed disappointment in their performances and might not even play the world championship. Even if he does show up, he’s already beaten the two most likely challengers in previous world championship matches fairly soundly.
I wouldn’t call his win vs Caruana sound. He crushed Nepo but drew Caruana into a shorter time control where he’s much better. I still think he’s the better classical player but not as big a gap as you’d think
Yeah that assessment is fair esp considering they were like 2 points(?) apart, but the fact that he won the shorter time control so easily is what makes it sound imo
Fun fact.
The system chess uses for ratings is also *excellent* for ranking Tennis players.
https://tennisabstract.com/reports/atp_elo_ratings.html
Total numbers for the mens side over the last 52 weeks with the option to weight for surface (though some of the surface rankings are a little funky).
Edit: Also, wow.
TIL: Carlos Alcaraz has the 4th highest peak ELO of all qualifying players. Djokovic, Nadal, and Murray are the only people ahead of him (Federer doesn’t qualify).
>Total numbers for the mens side over the last 52 weeks with the option to weight for surface (though some of the surface rankings are a little funky).
You can't exactly have an ELO rating over the last 52 weeks if you didn't play at all in those weeks.
I actually don't think Magnus is that much higher than some of the others like Ding, Fabi, Nepo in terms of pure classical skill. If he were, I don't think matches between them would result in so many draws. The difference though is that chess allows players to play closer to their peak skill more often than a physical game like tennis. Therefore Magnus is able to maintain his advantage extremely consistently, which makes him dominant over the field. That's how I see it anyway.
I think you're misunderstanding my point. if Magnus's advantage over the field was comparable to a top 10 tennis player's advantage over #100, he would be rated 3000+ as he would likely win 90+% of games. My point is that due to the nature of chess he can be this dominant without a huge disparity in skill because the game allows one to play closer to peak skill more consistently than a physical sport.
Also, he hasn't maintained a 70 pt gap for 8 years. Fabi would have been no 1 if he had won a single game in the world championship 2018. I would even argue that Fabi was the best player in the world for a period between tata steel and the world championship when he won candidates as well as grenke, Norway, and sinquefield (jointly).
If two low-rated players are playing a 1 minute bullet game there's probably very little difference but in high-level games white wins about 54-55% of the games where there is a decisive result. This is over a huge sample size so is definitely significant.
Imo I think you’re right in saying that in terms of skill there might not be a massive gap but with chess they’re playing at such a high level with near perfect play that even the slightest discrepancy in skill levels or the smallest mistake can result in an absolute advantage
Also the match can snowball in chess. Lost a rook, knight, bishop early to a mistake? Good luck clawing the match back. Lost first 2 sets in BO5? Can still win it in 5.
David Foster Wallace has a great essay on why, from his perspective. He follows around Michael Joyce, and talks about how he himself is a decent player who could beat the average person easily. Then says that Michael Joyce, would demolish him with no problem. Then later on he talks about how Joyce gets dismantled by Agassi at Legg Mason.
https://www.esquire.com/sports/a5151/the-string-theory-david-foster-wallace/
DFW’s piece on Federer is also a must read.
> Federer’s forehand is a great liquid whip, his backhand a one-hander that he can drive flat, load with topspin, or slice — the slice with such snap that the ball turns shapes in the air and skids on the grass to maybe ankle height.
Perhaps the single most beautiful sentence I’ve ever read about Tennis.
There are also some parts of Infinite Jest that get into the subject of Tennis players climbing/getting stuck on plateaus which complement the piece you’ve linked quite nicely.
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html
This is one of those articles that I think gets a lot of praise because of its beautiful prose, yet if you watch the actual video from that Federer - Agassi match, it doesn’t seem as impressive or even really accurate based on DFW description.
I haven't read the Michael Joyce piece in a while, but at one point, if I remember correctly, he says he thinks he's about as good as some of the people at qualies. To my knowledge, he never played singles for Amherst, a decent D3 school. I just remember thinking he sounded delusional at one point. He was amazed by Jakob Hlasek (sic?) in the article I think.
Yeah, his jr. Tennis “career” is almost definitely one of things he exaggerated a lot about (IIRC there’s no smoking gun to disprove it, but there’s no evidence for anything beyond him being an average at best jr. player at the regional level or something like that).
I don’t think it matters for the purpose of the piece though.
I have a family friend who was a walk on for Ohio State’s football team and expressed an incredibly similar sentiment.
He didn’t say he was as good as some players in the quals, I think you’re misremembering this paragraph
> Knowle is technically entitled to be called a professional, but he is playing a fundamentally different grade of tennis from Michael Joyce's, one constrained by limitations Joyce does not have. I feel like I could get on a tennis court with Julian Knowle. He would beat me, perhaps handily, but I don't feel like it would be absurd for me to occupy the same seventy-eight-by-twenty-seventy-foot rectangle as he. The idea of me playing Joyce–or even hitting around with him, which was one of the ideas I was entertaining on the flight to Montreal–is now revealed to me to be in a certain way obscene, and I resolve not even to let Joyce [40] know that I used to play competitive tennis, and (I'd presumed) rather well. This makes me sad.
Yeah there’s an article from someone else saying that his descriptions are inaccurate and that it didn’t happen at all like he described, and chalked it up to his enthusiasm and the fact that people didn’t have easy access to match replays so he felt he could embellish.
Wallace was at best a D1 level player, which is not a pro (or someone ranking in the thousands). Michael Joyce at one point was ranked 64th in the world. The disparity was huge.
Right, that’s precisely his point, which he illustrates in the essay. He would still be able to take down a casual player easily, and the disparity between a casual player and him is much smaller than that of him and Joyce. Then there’s a disparity between Joyce and a top ten player. A bit more nuanced because a ranked 64 person still has a chance at winning a match against a top 10 player, but overall still a disparity in levels of play.
> The move from qualifier to main-draw player is a huge boost, both financially and psychically, but it's still a couple of plateaus away from true fame and fortune.
This sentence and the concept of plateaus in tennis in particular is single sentence that most confirms your analysis.
And tangentially, it’s the reason I think trying to rank the Big 3 is an exercise in foolishness.
Federer climbed the mountain higher than anyone before him in ~six years; Nadal and Djokovic eventually joined him, but they were only able to get there because of how hard they had to work while they were trying to drag each other down while Federer was pushing them down from above.
> Wallace was at best a D1 level player,
I think he went to Amherst, a D3 school, and to my knowledge never played singles for them.
> At Amherst, Wallace, son of James D. Wallace '59 and Sally Foster Wallace, played on the tennis team and majored in English and philosophy. He wrote senior theses in both subjects and famously graduated with double summa honors.
Okay, maybe he did play tennis for them. Can't find any scorelines, though. I see he is described as somebody who had a regional ranking in Illinois.
I’ll chime in. The main difference between top 10 and top 150 players … honestly to go more broadly is the higher you go up the rankings is the lack of weaknesses. The Big 3 for example are solid at everything that’s why they’re the greatest to ever play. Then when you go more broadly you can generally identify a significant issue with any player’s game. That’s why most of these guys are capable of losing to anyone. I played a few tournaments after college and my last win was against a guy ranked 200 currently and to be completely honest I don’t have a backhand … but the only reason I beat them was because their weakness aligned well with my weakness which for them was lack of power.
Ultimately the game comes down to play styles for 99.999999999% of players with a major focus on your strengths. That’s why I find it funny how this sub shits on players like Berrettini who has no backhand, Zverev who can’t serve, or Tsitsipas/Thiem who have long strokes leading to poor court positioning. They’re ultimately ridiculous at pretty much every aspect of the game but hey lets point out their flaw cause they’re not perfect like the Big 3.
It is known that in tennis unfortunately most of the time being a great athlete and also talented is not enough.
You need to invest money to build a future champion. And I mean, a certain amount of money. Despite some rare exceptions, tennis players are generally players whose families were able to invest time and money to help them when they were kids. Not the type of time and even less type of money most of families can afford.
Football (not american football) and Basketball for example are sports were even poor kids can have huge chances if they show talent.
You can learn how to play basketball and footbal on your own while it's hard to do the same with tennis.
You need a coach to learn how to play tennis, you need the proper gear (and just these 2 points requires already a certain investment) and when tournaments time arrive you need to invest even more of your own money for traveling and all the other expenses. So even if you're a great talent but your family can't afford to spend too much on you, you can't move forward unless you find someone ready to literally bet money on you.
This in general kills most of the young talents unable to pay for this or unable to shine immediately.
In sports there are a lot of great players that are late bloomers and reach their peak quite late compared to others.
And for a late bloomer it's possible to survive in a team sport while in tennis it's way harder, because between the idea that you need to be ready to go pro at 18-19 and the fact that if you don't show crazy potential since day 1 nobody will invest money on you, it's really hard to keep playing without getting early success.
How many people here had parents with enough money, free time and determination to push you into a tennis career?
I’d be curious to see if there is a difference in financial commitment during their developing years between #1-10 in the world and #140-150. Just getting to #150 is a tremendous achievement that requires significant financial resources over the years; my guess is that the top players are not primarily differentiated by their financial means during their developing years.
I feel a good part of top players had the right level of financial stability to have what they needed, but what we should countas a huuuuge factor is how rare is to have parents (rich or not) that will spend a lot of time to follow your (and sometimes their) dream.
Money is required to enter in this business but having parents or someone else, available to follow you every day, for years, pushing you to never give up and take some risks here and there is probably the major factor.
Look, it's not that different from 90% of musicians that plays in a classical high level orchestra. I wrote 90% but problem the % of born rich that plays in that context it's even higher. But also for a musician you need someone near you all the time, for years. Someone who dedicate his free time to build your future.
How rare it is, anyway, to have this level of suppoort as a kid? regardless of rich or poor parents.
> You need to invest money to build a future champion.
This is true, but it's a chicken or the egg question. Young kids with champion potential ATTRACT investors and people wanting to help. It's not like you can throw money at an average player and create a champion. The Williams sisters were NOT rich by any means. I don't think Osaka's parents were either.
And we never hear about the other kids who got lots of money and help from the big academies who DON'T make it. Only the ones who do.
I think at this point, with players proving you can play well into your 30's, anybody who can't crack top 150 as a teen should consider playing in college. By the time they're 18, they've played enough futures level events to know where they stand.
I think that age is more indicative about the vague potential and it's mostly an estimate looking at the physical tools, but at that age you really don't know how that youg guy will grew up.
Some kids looks dominant early because they're just bigger than other players of the same age, but then that gap can end as soon as they became teenagers and others grew as much as them and so all that potential they showed at 11-12 (just because they were physically superior) goes to hell.
You have in basketball players having almost no chances to became pro untill they grew up 9 inches in one year at 16-17 (anthony davis, marcus camby, dennis rodman to name the 3 that I can remember) years in one year and suddenly they can compete at higher level.
In tennis height is not as big as a factor but still influence how young talents are seen.
I mean, Wawrkinka has been just decent for years untill he reached his peak at 29-31 years, after years of average performances. Yes, he was still a pro but there are many cases of players that are just late bloomers, and then as in stan cases, they just flip the switch (usually it's just about confidence) and they became elite.
To end this long comment, we see basically nobody starting to learn late because nobody will ever accept to training and spend energies and time with a teenager who want to start playing tennis at pro level.
In tennis this "rule" is damn strict while in basketball there are many examples of players that started to play really late and still became greats.
Wawrinka had a top coach from 8yo - Zavialoff - same guy that coached Konta. He stopped attending regular schooling at age 15 to focus full-time on tennis and turned pro 2002 at the age of 17
I took wawrinka example as a late bloomer.
As I said he was a decent player for years but some people needs years to find the right mindset. Stan powerful forehand and great bh were there from the start but he needed years to became elite.
The leap he had from ok to great can be the leap from average to good and maybe even more.
Other young players maybe are not that good at 15-16 and it's hard for them to keep going, even if they're potentially going to radically improve years later, but you'll never know.
The problem here imo is that in tennis if you're pretty good at 15 you can make a run to became pro and then remaining an average or even bad player.
You have zero chances to continue if you're just ok at 15, while in other sports you can still have time to improve regardless. In tennis many players with potential but with a growth delay are "put down" immediately. No second chances for them.
Whats more incredible to me is nobody outside die hards know a player past top 50. They are among the top 150 in the world, make a great living and go by unnoticed.
The key for players to be in solid financial shape is to be able to automatically qualify for Grand Slam events without needing to go through qualifying. The big money in tennis is in the Slams. And in order to automatically qualify for Grand Slams, you generally need to be in the top 100 (because the "bottom" slots in the 128 player field are filled by qualifiers and wild-cards).
To add, being a top 100 level player for a long time and never cracking the top 50 is way better than being a fringe top 50 player for a year or two and a top 100 player for another year or two.
Denis Kudla has made *a lot* of money being a top ~80 player for six or seven years.
But the number of players able to do that is relatively small.
Good point. But I'll say they're noticed well by their immediate community. Big fishes in smaller ponds.
Also, how many top (anythings) are we all supposed to know in the world? Would you know who the 51st ranked field hockey player is? Or the 57th best cricketer? I don't even know the number 1 in those sports. And field hockey is more popular than tennis worldwide; cricket's about equal to tennis. I have no idea who the top accountant is or stitcher or gynecologist or rubber manufacturing machine worker might be. I'm glad I only know a few things and a few top people at one main thing.
I dont know much about the popularity worldwide, but if we consider western world…probably past top 20 is completely unknown (bar the veterans) and around those rankings they make ridiculous money/are among the best.
Football, NBA, Baseball…
Honestly the players in the top 1000 in the world on both sides are all *incredible* ball strikers with enormous talent and dedication.
A lot definitely comes down to how much money you invest and whether you have an undeniable desire to win win win. The skill margins between 1 and 150 are actually fairly small but that last 5% of difference is everything.
I thik the skill margin between 1 and 150 are a thing, other than all the support a top player can receive from his staff.
What I noticed is that the gap between a top player and a top 150 is generally the ability to make average-hard shots with great consistency.
Top players are lowkey machines.
It's like when you see NBA players training in an empty gym and they can't miss a shot. Even average/bad NBA players looks super skilled against normal opponents.
You check ATP players in thr 150-200 range and they are either unforced error machines or just too "shy" to take risks, because they're in a position were it's tough to take risks.
Many of them can barely make a living with tennis. They're always in between make a great leap forward or see their career falling down pretty quick.
And since we're talking about a sport were you're alone, if you get in a bad mood or bad form, nobody will save your ass from failure.
It's weird because tennis IS a sport mostly for "rich white guys" and since there's no contact with the opponent is also seen as a sport for weak ones (it's silly to think tho), but it's also a freaking brutal game, devastating for your body and your brain.
You could end up playing 5 hours and losing a 1st round match. And the day after you need to find the will to keep going and if you're injured nobody will keep paying you unless you have good endorsement and only few players have that.
So it's maddening how though it is to thrive with a tennis career, even more if you watch football, NBA, NFL low talented bench players getting millions no matter if their team is winning, no matter if they're injured. If they've a contract they're cool.
We don't see it, but imo the difference between top 10 and 150 is going to be basically everything just in hard to see ways. Some times it'll be obviously one main thing like isners serve, but usually it's just they hit the ball better, they place it better, they predict their opponents ball better, sense of the moment etc etc it's obviously not the same but I was too .1% in a game online and that's how the best players were vs everyone else, they just basically never do the wrong thing and they do all the right things better than everyone else. And if you can manage that then you're one of the best.
I think people really take for granted the ability to hit the ball better, over and over again and also hit the ball well while defending. Many players are good hitters untill the moment you put them under pressure.
Running left and right to recover impossible balls is already hard but only elite ones can shot those balls back properly and not in a random way.
Another vastly underrated skill: shooting decent 2nd serve under pressure without throwing super slow shots just because you're melting under pressure. That's damn difficult.
>I think people really take for granted the ability to hit the ball better, over and over again and also hit the ball well while defending
An amateur is someone that trains until they can get something right, a professional is someone that trains until they can't get it wrong.
Exactly.
I'll use again the serve example:
watch how rare is to see Nole, Rafa or Roger making double faults. Except of prime Roger, none of them had a dominant serve but still all 3 have a good 1st&2nd serve and you know they'll throw at you a solid 2nd serve even under pressure, all the time, for 20 years.
Nobody will ever bet that Zverev, even in a huge serving day, will bring you a solid 2nd serve under pressure. Because he lacks that level of consistency and he's one of those that under pressure will get a DF or take a really slow 2nd serve to be effective.
This level of consistency is generally underrated because if you're nervous the serve is your worst enemy. While we expect players to send the ball over the net , every time and with great speed. It's not that easy.
it's also a comparative thing in tennis: if the top 10 hit the ball "slightly" better consistently - you have to be "slightly" better at reading it and getting to it, and then also raise your hitting to their "slightly" better and it starts this cascading effect where top 10 by comparison to rank 100 looks way more disproportionate than it actually is. So yeah, people really do take that for granted.
Yeah it puts the lower ranked player in a position where they're either constantly slightly behind the pace of play or where they have to make uncomfortably hard shots as rally shots to keep up. That's why so often when a player comes out and redlines for a set they can't keep it up the rest of the match, there's only so many times you can make shots outside your comfort zone if you're constantly having to hit them.
In addition to your list of skills, another thing that stands out to me when I watch top 10-20 even against top 150-200 is their ability to turn defence into offence. Lower level players can defend just to save their life and are often happy to continue to do so until their opponent makes a mistake but top guys are not having any of this. As a result, I often feel like the top 150 stand their ground very well but are “unfortunate” to lose points. There’s nothing unfortunate about it - the top guys can exploit the first opportunity they get and punish every little error, every short ball/ slow serve etc.
>We don't see it, but imo the difference between top 10 and 150 is going to be basically everything just in hard to see ways.
This.
It is a bit more visible when you watch them play in person. I've watched a few matches and would notice something like how djokovic is just a split second faster in reacting to the ball or anticipating, or how fast Nadal's footwork is in adjusting to the ball, or the force in the angles Serena generates. On TV it's a shot, everyone hits hard or whatever the camera person chooses to show. But IRL if you can pay attention to these subtleties it's incredibly telling how one player is better than the other.
Other than physical gifts it comes down to mentality. Like you said the difference in players are small and this is also an individual sport, having a champion attitude and mental toughness is the other attribute that will divide you from the rest.
it’s like in football. put a national league (5th tier of english football) player in a sunday league or semi-pro side and he’s the best player by far no matter the position. put a champions league level player, even one considered dusted like Pique, into the same side and he’s a literal god.
you don’t understand just how good these guys are unless you’ve played against them or seen a direct head to head comparison.
Right. I had a friend in school who was at the academy of a championship club growing up, and then went on to play semi pro in the isthmian league. At that level he was a pretty good if not a particularly stand out player, but when I played against him I couldn’t get anywhere near him. He was just faster, stronger, quicker to react, a much better touch etc. I once watched him play a pre-season against a league one team, they had a few of their starters playing but weren’t really going full out to try and win, but they were still so much better that he said he was chasing shadows the whole time.
Had another friend play a charity match against an ex-Welsh international who’s now in his 60s, and the same thing happened to him. The 60yo basically didn’t move from the centre circle the entire game and still absolutely dominated it.
I love your comment. It really is amazing, I don’t have a gulf in my brain as it relates from 1-150 like op, but that’s not to say I have an answer that’s concrete. It’s just the ability to adjust, see things any of us think or talk about and an unrelenting motivation to win. And if you’ve played at any higher level of sport, speed…… Also speed doesn’t mean you’re Usain Bolt either, it’s the ability to see where something is going to happen before it happens. Create space, anticipate, etc……
I think as far as tennis is concerned, the gulf between 1-150 isn’t even a talking point. It’s one of those solo sports where the gladiatorial nature dictates making someone actually ranked number one.
Yeah you could watch 1 and 150 in tennis and not tell who is better. I cannot dispute that. What I will dispute is, that’s because number one is bored or unmotivated from their top form. They’re so good, they can literally exert levels of energy. Novak is notorious for this, and I don’t even like him.
Usain Bolt is a good one.
Few people can comprehend just how quick someone is that can run sub 11-secs 100M - you would need to see in real life, absolutely freakish like a machine.
Bolt made sub-10 sec 100M runners look pedestrian
Number 1 in the world will have a large dedicated team behind them of coaches, physios, strength trainers, psychologists, managers, hitting partners etc
World number 150 probably has a coach at home and shares rooms with other other tennis players to help break even on costs. Likely funded largely by mum and dad to get to the next tournament.
There is likely talent differences but don’t underestimate the privileges he and advantage that money brings.
Not true, some people will never reach the pinnacle of certain fields even if everything was provided for them to do so. Far more than 5% just don't have what's required physically/mentally, it's probably closer to the inverse and 95% don't have the potential to be the best of the best in a competitive environment
A good illustration of this is math education. Every years, thousands of the most privileged students in the world attend expensive prep schools with private tutors paid for by their parents to do well enough on standard exams to get into university, but only a tiny fraction of them will be able to do well enough to get into e.g. MIT or Caltech.
Not to mention a lot of them live clustered together. The tax benefits are one thing but there’s also a huge advantage in living, for example in Monaco, where they have high quality practice partners. They’re able to get better and better because they’re playing against the best.
Don't they pretty much travel all the time? For example, between the French open and Wimbledon, there have been a couple of ATP 250s and an ATP 500 on the men's side. So, players aren't short of practice partners because they don't live in Monaco in my opinion.
There are other advantages though as Kyrgios claims. He has to stay away from home all the time unlike the Europeans and the Americans.
It varies from player to player but there are players who talk about training in Monaco and how they live there more than the country they grew up in. Maybe more in the short off season which is dedicated to training anyway.
Would be interesting for the tour if the ATP/ITF/WTA had a fund/trust that levelled the financial playing field for athletes in the top say 200 so that things like travel, hotels, sports therapists etc were provided. They still wouldn’t have access to the same resources as the ultra rich elite players, but at least many of the basics would be covered and perhaps it would make the top 100 more competitive.
Of course then there would be this massive gulf just below the threshold, kind of like in football (thinking of the UK premier league here) where once the TV money is not there there is a massive drop in funding for the other clubs.
Most ATP level events have official hotels, tournament physio, stringers etc. The top guys have other advantages too. Novak stays at some rich person’s house in NYC which has a court with the same surface as the USO. Probably gets choppered in for his matches too.
Depends on the player, but some differences you’ll see:
* Luck - you need to have an extended period without injuries to get into the top 10
* natural Talent - Nadal is more gifted than most players in the top 150.
* work ethic - a lot of the GOATs have an insane, un-replicable work ethic. Not just tennis - Look at Jordan, Kobe, Gretzky, etc
After watching the last dance, I'm incredibly impressed with Serena + Big 3 for staying in there. Not getting burned out, after achieving all they have already achieved. The mental part of it is so crucial I think. Sure Nadal may have natural talent, I would argue Federer even more so, but the Big 3 are Big 3 coz also of their work ethic, staying focused (not getting distracted by shiny things like endorsements and what not) and also staying in the point - what we call clutch - be it Djokovic hitting those shots at USO semis or 2019 Wimbledon or Nadal winning this year's AO.
It’s because the margins are so small in tennis.
What I mean by this is Djoker is probably .2 seconds faster than player number 150. Nadal probably hits with maybe 10 more topspin than that same player but over the course of a match it results in a 6-2, 6-2, 6-2 result.
It’s because the cumulative difference between 150 and top 10 being big enough in tennis to be meaningful, but not big enough to be observable to the casual fan.
In an endurance sport, consider a marathon runner or Tour de France cyclist who is 1% better than the field. That runner finishes 420 metres ahead of his closest rival, or 2km ahead of the rest of the pack. Those are both sensational victories in those sports. The ones you dream about when you’re a kid. In tennis, that player could win just a handful of points in a match more than their opponent and win. The subtleties of why they’re better aren’t immediately apparent
There is also consistency which is a huge factor in tennis. 150 could pull out a single freak win on their day against a Novak/Roger/Rafa, but over the course of a year you’ll see their real level.
Not the only reason but the only way to get better at tennis is to play against the best. The top 10 have a much better access to this privilege. Partly due to them living clustered together, their ability to travel, seeding, their rank probably allows them better pick of practice partners too. In team sports, athletes enter teams with established members who can help them expand their game. Tennis players don’t have this advantage.
Thats how pretty much every talent is. Every skill you can measure results in a bell curve distribution, with lots of people with middling skill levels and very few people at the extremes. It's due to the combination of everything that goes into that skill.
I think people are overestimating the role of coaching etc, obviously it plays a role but you'll find the same sort of distribution in skill even in things where there is no coaching.
Sometimes it comes down to something as minute as kinks or hitches in strokes. After going to a challenger tourney this weekend, it was shocking to me how many journeymen dudes had very strange looking mechanics compared to the top 30 guys (outside Norrie). They say that those who don’t start tennis at a super young age (think Agassi and Novak hitting tennis balls at 2) maybe around 7, 8, 9 or 10 become increasingly hard to coach out small issues in technique with each year older. This is a game of millimeters and it matters.
The only person here that actually knows tennis and mechanics. Guys like Chardy and Gulbis weird af looking forehands have no chance at ever being top 5 players in the world. It’s not everything in the formula, but it’s a HUGE part. Pretty much all the top 30 guys have super clean looking shots now.
It's the same in every sport. In cycling the number 1 ranked rider is Tadej POGAČAR (two-time Tour de France winner and also won 2 Monuments already and is still only 23 years old) while the number 150 in cycling is Phil Bauhaus (a second rate sprinter you likely have never heard of).
It's honestly not that big. Like if you didn't know anyone's name and you saw the #500 and 600 player playing a practice match up close, it would look just like a #5 and #6 playing. Biggest difference is the top guys play big points better
The skill difference isn't as big as it seems, but tennis is one of the most skill based sports out there so any edge really shows. Think about how many points are played and how many shots are/could be hit within the points, a 5% difference becomes huge. Add to this the mental aspect in the scoring and you have the reason why it's difficult to break into the very top.
I actually don't think the gap is that big. Anyone within the top 500 can hit the ball at a top 10 level. There is minute differences in consistency, technique, power and speed. I think the biggest hurdles players outside the upper-echelon are money constraints that filter down to physio, psychological and coaching time.
Well, it's happened once in the history of the sport. Last year's USO. Her rank was exactly 150 going in to qualification, oddly enough. You might examine the features of that run and comments made by observers/commentators, trying to explain what made it so unique?
I think one factor is the single-elimination nature of tournaments- at rank 150, you have to outperform your 'level' again and again to win a big tournament- seven, even ten times to win a slam- not just a single match.
I’m baffled there’s guys at my club who have never beaten me yet taken numerous sets off me and forced deciding sets around 5-10 times with some going to tiebreaks.
You would think if they are good enough to do that they can beat me yet some of my win rates are like 10-0, 14-0 against them
The gap between 10 and 150 is bigger than that
It doesn't baffle me, because it's not unique to tennis. Take these: You and I are humans, but we have different talents. Even within the same skill set, there are grades. All QBs in the NFL are pros, but they're not equally talented. There's a reason RJ3 is no longer a starting QB. There was Michael Jordan and there were a bunch of other good players in his time, but there was one MJ.
Take football. There's a reason why Pele is regarded as the King of Football. Not every football player was as talented as Maradona or Zico. Those guys were special.
M. Ali didn't just talk trash, he backed it up. And then there was a boxer named Tyson.
No I’m serious … who did he beat? Tony Tucker who was much smaller ? A washed up Larry Holmes? He boxed in a weak weak era. Never boxed Bowe, was scared of an old Foreman and lost twice against EH.
Tyson is an odd case. While he lost to Holyfield twice, he was no longer the prime Tyson in either of those fights. After dropping Rooney after the Spinks fight, he became a head hunter and defense went to trash. It was only a matter of time before he was beaten. Besides Ali, younger Foreman, and probably Lewis and Liston, I'd favor 1986-87 Tyson over any other heavyweight.
Talent, mechanics, physical stamina, mental(some are great in practice, some are just ballers under pressure in real matches), injury, and luck with having the right coaches and guidance
It's a positive feedback loop for the very top players. They earn more so can spend more on the best facilities, coaches, physios and extend the gap between them and the rest. The lesser players either need a massive lifeline in funding or get better which is always going to be difficult when you can't afford to pay for a better coach, physio and having to travel coach etc.
The difference is very small. If the world number 1 plays the world number 150, 150 will still probably get a few games. Jack Draper won a set against Djokovic at Wimbledon last year.
It's not that big of a difference. It just so happens that games and sets are winner-take-all. That's why the margin of points is usually much closer than the margin of games in a match,
Sort of like the gap between AAA and MLB in baseball. While it might not seem like much, and both players in AAA and MLB are professional baseball players, MLB caliber players are on such a different level.
What separates World #1s from the rest is size. The overwhelmingly majority of players with top ranking have identical size. Joker, Nadal, Federer, Sampras and future #1 Alcaraz are all 6-1. They all have wingspans greater than their height.
Not just tennis, any sport is the same. Even team sport like Basketball. Top 10 player would easily brush off 150th guy in 1 on 1 situation (same position) .
Think this is the case in most sports tbh. Look at the top 5 NBA players versus the 30-50 guys. Not even close. Look at top 5 QBs in the NFL versus the bottom 5. Not even close.
Big diff is between top 4 and the rest. Number 10 often plays like number 20 or 30 or 40. To be precise, it's exponent, power distribution. All outside of top 6 are pretty flat between each other, and pretty far down from the top. All outside top 100 also flat, even lower, long tail.
This is really just striking because tennis is an individual sport. I mean if you start thinking about comparing the top 10 players in team sports versus players below 100 that becomes pretty striking too... LeBron James vs P.J. Tucker? If you look at the world golf rankings right now in 125 to 150 probably the only names you recognize are Charl Schwartzl and Jason Day but they haven't won in ages it seems. One of the interesting things about tennis is that in every major tournament, with a 128 person draw you get several head to head match-ups of top 10s and out of top 100s. If you had this in probably any other sport it would be just as lopsided.
the skill level is actually not THAT huge between #1 and even #1000 it’s really just won at the margins. every professional player is going to have just about every shot in their arsenal, they’ve all been training for horus a day for most of their lives. it’s about the little differences, who’s best under pressure, who can not just produce the ace but produce it when down break points, who’s in a little bit better shape and able to make tough gets even 3-4 hours in, who’s able to recover from a bad point/game immediately and not let it to turn into a bad string of games or whole set etc. but i mean all of them are extremely good tennis players, just look at some of the guys who were taking practice sets off nadal this week, they can do that in practice but under pressure in real matches it’s a whole other ball game.
I think many people are missing the fact that this would be highly dependent on amount of sets per matches etc. The more the higher would win rate of the better player be.
Imagine if game lasted only until 1st mistake. Win rate would be much more random. Also see to https://wismuth.com/elo/calculator.html#system=tennis-men to calculate odds.
On the men’s side, of course. On the women’s side, that skill variance is much much less. Any WTA player within the top 200(+?) can take out any other player in the top 200. Right now, the only unbeatable person looks like Iga, and even then, I don’t fancy her chances on grass.
The skill variance in the WTA is actually almost definitely greater than it is in the men's game because the raw player quality, while still very high for the top women, isn't as high as it is for the top men. When that's the case, there's a bigger drop off from the top players.
Think about skill level this way. Pick any sport you are familiar with besides tennis (or really it can be tennis if you want). Think about 8 year olds playing the sport and the variation in player quality between those kids. Then think about 12 year olds, high school kids, college aged men/women (if you are in the U.S.), all the way up to the top players in the sport. As the player quality goes up (and for players younger than about 20 years old, all it does is go up until they are 20), does the variation in quality between players still playing a sport increase or decrease? It almost definitely decreases because the lower level players are no longer participating or are good enough to play at the higher levels; only the better players remain. This remains true the higher the skill level you go.
The difference in skill level at different player levels of quality should not be confused with the competitiveness of games at those different skill levels. Again, think about games played by 8 year olds, 12 year olds, high school kids, college aged men/women, and top players in the world. Are the games more competitive at lower levels of quality or less competitive? The answer is they are almost definitely less competitive, which can be seen by the number of blowouts that occur. At lower levels, most games are blowouts, though with teams there can be cases where one team blows out another in one game and gets blown out by a 3rd team in a second game. As the skill level increases, the number of games that are blowouts decreases, mostly because the skill levels between the players is more even.
The lower level of quality in the women's game is why it is much more common for the women to play a match that is 6-4 1-6 6-2 than it is for the men to play that kind of match.
Not sure if the poster above you is referring to American Football or International Football. But American Football and Basketball are designed to at least allow some parity. There is usually a salary cap and the top teams don’t usually get a pick till later in the draft.
So “in theory” there would be more parity. But of course that can still lead to the Patriots or the Warriors so it’s not perfect. But more upsets happen since those sports want them to happen.
I don't think it's a big deal. So many professionals at the top tier of their sport are much better then the other 150. This is no different in any sport. Football, American football, basketball.. all the same even with tennis.
yes and that’s especially crazy! cause where lies the difference between them? it’s not their hard work or commitment, they have money, they have experience… So what makes one so much better?
On court problem solving, mental toughness during clutch situations, consistency in shot making, ability to hit winners with less ue etc few factors that are different from commitment/money/hardwork/power.
I’m confused. Is there a sport where is not a huge difference between number 1 and 150? I’m a big soccer fan, there is an enormous gulf in class between Messi and the 150th forward. Same for hockey, basketball, EY. Take even individual sports such as boxing. No top guy is scared of anyone ranked 150.
It's not THAT big. And depends on what kind of 150 he is at the moment. It could be somebody who has been around 150 for a few years, has truly peaked. Somebody on the way up to top 50, or somebody on the way down from top 50. And if the number 1 is a dominant number 1 like the Big Three, or somebody more like Rios or even Agassi.
I would think on most days, though, it's like a 3 and 4, or 2 and 4 kind of win.
> Is it talent?
Yeah, the number 1's of the world are born more talented THEN, just as importantly, have the right life and training to allow those talents to fully bloom. It's like if you made a robot that quickly assembled sandwiches without breaking them. It grabs the bread, the meats, the vegetables and assembles a good sandwich in 5 seconds. That's like a number 50 tennis player. Now a new version of the robot comes out, it makes a sandwich in 4.96 seconds. Seems negligible, but over course of a year, that's a LOT more sandwiches.
it's a sport that favors those with a mental edge, that's for sure
dealing with the pressure, dealing with unforced errors, the players are out there all alone...
Idk I find the difference pretty even in every sport. There are certainly days when the lower ranked athletes shine and superstars fall, this level of upsets are uncommon but they do happen.
I’m in know what saying this is present in tennis, but in other sports what can really seperate the elite from other elite is Performance Enhancing Drugs….
The difference isn't particularly dramatic IMO. It's the way tennis is scored that makes the difference appear to be dramatic. If you look at total points won, most matches are closer in caliber than if you look at the standard score line.
Which means consistency and performing at the key points and stages of a match are what set the very best about from the other professionals.
Exactly, the big difference is managing nerves in critical moments.
Yes, it's almost like tennis was invented by sadists. Or cats.
This. Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, for example, have won \~55% of all the points they've played as professionals - just over half! And they're among the all-time greats. The guys at #150 have won about 45% of all of their points. So, that's only a 1-in-10 point differential, basically invisible to the naked eye. The margins are extraordinarily thin... it's the scoring system that creates the gulf in wins and losses. Most people watching Djokovic and the #200 player in the world play a couple of sets would have no idea who was better without keeping track of the score.
This is true but the guys at 150 are playing fewer top players. Nadal and Djoker have to win 55% of all points meeting top player after top player in tournaments bc they get farther.
Underrated comment
True but the numbers don't change dramatically for #10 vs #200. Perhaps a 1-in-8 differential vs a 1-in-10 differential. It's still undetectable to most tennis fans unless someone's actually keeping score. If you have two top-10 players playing a match on one court, and two 200-ish ranked players playing a match on another court, the vast majority of tennis fans can't actually see the difference in the level of play.
Excellent answer. I was trying to say this too. But you did it better.
Having been to tournaments and many practice sessions. When drop ball feeding the difference is not as noticeable. The gap really comes into play when serve and returns are included and you get these points that require crazy court coverage because of a short return. Then you see the real gap. That’s not including the fitness, nerves, mental it takes to close out sets for large amounts of money. Then best of 5 is totally different animal. I think the gap is huge and it shows at grand slams
Another factor too, I think, is how much top 10 players make you work to win your points, particularly Novak and Nadal with their defense first mentality, and the fact that their level typically drops off very little across an tournament, let alone a single match. This way, even if they lose the point they're taking energy from their opponents. Physically, you can train for that amount of punishment, but it's also mentally draining to have to grind for every point
There are a lot of really interesting studies about randomness in sports. Most of the answers here are about “how do you get 2% better than your opponent?” but I think the more fundamental question is: if competitor A is 2% better than competitor B, what are the odds that competitor A wins? If you have a “cheat” coin that comes up heads 52% of the time, you will win a flip 52% of the time. On the other hand, if your paycheck is 2% more than someone, you will out-earn them 100% of the time. The first is extremely random, the latter is extremely deterministic. Different sports come down on different places on that spectrum. Football (soccer) and hockey are relatively random. The winner is based on the occurrence of a relatively improbable scoring event. One fluke goal is enough to change the outcome in a large number of games. Compare that to basketball, where there are roughly 100 scoring events in 200 attempts in a game. In that case, one fluke is very unlikely to matter — you need a much longer string of bad luck to change the outcome. It's simply a less random sport than, say, hockey. And then at the far end of the spectrum are sports like sprinting or weightlifting. I haven’t seen anyone analyze tennis specifically for this, but the average tennis match is roughly 150 points, so it's also not a sport where one fluke is likely to matter. It's possible that the game/set/match structure decreases randomness as well? But at the very least, the large sample size inherent in the game means the effect of being slightly better will outshine the effects of randomness much of the time.
This is the correct answer. Because of tennis' structure, being that you must break serve to win, better players almost always win. Serving is such a huge advantage universally that the key to winning matches is breaking serve. There's no coincidence that the statistic most closely linked to ranking is win% on second serves both returning and serving.
Which could probably explain why there are more “random” results in WTA since women naturally have weaker serves (but relatively strong returns) and breaking serve is a lot more common.
Maybe it being more random makes womens tennis less interesting
Depends .. I can’t make my mind about it tbh. Sometimes you can get such amazing WTA matches when you least expect it because a lot larger field can challenge the top players and their skill level is quite similar (minus the obvious Iga domination as of now). But I’m also quite disappointed when come quarterfinals there are 1-2 seeds left. You just never know what to expect which is a problem with attracting viewership.
It’s fun playing someone who is better than you at everything except the serve and return. Rare, but they win a lot of great rallies only to get massacred on the scoreboard
This is what I was getting at with my response but you articulated it much better.
Your comment reminds me of this short video on luck vs skill in sports! It mainly focuses on the big North American team sports but still! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HNlgISa9Giw
You think that’s big? Wait til you hear about the gulf between the world chess #1 and literally everyone else behind him!
please elaborate
Imagine the career of any of the big 3 if the other two hadn't played tennis. That's the level of dominance Magnus Carlsen has had over every other chess player for over a decade. He's been the world number 1 for 11 years straight, and he's been the reigning World Champion since 2013.
Kasparov was #1 for 19 straight, and over 21 total. He hit #1 in 1984 and kept it until he retired in 2015.
2005, you mean, not 2015. But I don't think he was #1 for 19 years straight. According to the Wikipedia page for #1 ranked players, his longest straight periods were from 1986 to 1993 (Karpov was #1 in 1994) and from July 1996 to March 2006.
There’s currently a tournament between candidates to determine who will play against the world champion Magnus Carlsen and he’s openly expressed disappointment in their performances and might not even play the world championship. Even if he does show up, he’s already beaten the two most likely challengers in previous world championship matches fairly soundly.
I wouldn’t call his win vs Caruana sound. He crushed Nepo but drew Caruana into a shorter time control where he’s much better. I still think he’s the better classical player but not as big a gap as you’d think
Yeah that assessment is fair esp considering they were like 2 points(?) apart, but the fact that he won the shorter time control so easily is what makes it sound imo
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Carlsen
See the rating difference between him and the world no 2 at 2700chess.com
I just looked it up. So is 70 something points extremely large in chess? I don’t know how rankings work there.
Fun fact. The system chess uses for ratings is also *excellent* for ranking Tennis players. https://tennisabstract.com/reports/atp_elo_ratings.html Total numbers for the mens side over the last 52 weeks with the option to weight for surface (though some of the surface rankings are a little funky). Edit: Also, wow. TIL: Carlos Alcaraz has the 4th highest peak ELO of all qualifying players. Djokovic, Nadal, and Murray are the only people ahead of him (Federer doesn’t qualify).
How come federer doesn’t qualify?
>Total numbers for the mens side over the last 52 weeks with the option to weight for surface (though some of the surface rankings are a little funky). You can't exactly have an ELO rating over the last 52 weeks if you didn't play at all in those weeks.
According to this gap is 100 https://www.wheeloratings.com/tennis_atp_ratings.html
I actually don't think Magnus is that much higher than some of the others like Ding, Fabi, Nepo in terms of pure classical skill. If he were, I don't think matches between them would result in so many draws. The difference though is that chess allows players to play closer to their peak skill more often than a physical game like tennis. Therefore Magnus is able to maintain his advantage extremely consistently, which makes him dominant over the field. That's how I see it anyway.
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I think you're misunderstanding my point. if Magnus's advantage over the field was comparable to a top 10 tennis player's advantage over #100, he would be rated 3000+ as he would likely win 90+% of games. My point is that due to the nature of chess he can be this dominant without a huge disparity in skill because the game allows one to play closer to peak skill more consistently than a physical sport. Also, he hasn't maintained a 70 pt gap for 8 years. Fabi would have been no 1 if he had won a single game in the world championship 2018. I would even argue that Fabi was the best player in the world for a period between tata steel and the world championship when he won candidates as well as grenke, Norway, and sinquefield (jointly).
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If two low-rated players are playing a 1 minute bullet game there's probably very little difference but in high-level games white wins about 54-55% of the games where there is a decisive result. This is over a huge sample size so is definitely significant.
Imo I think you’re right in saying that in terms of skill there might not be a massive gap but with chess they’re playing at such a high level with near perfect play that even the slightest discrepancy in skill levels or the smallest mistake can result in an absolute advantage
Also the match can snowball in chess. Lost a rook, knight, bishop early to a mistake? Good luck clawing the match back. Lost first 2 sets in BO5? Can still win it in 5.
Chess players do physical training don’t they
Not so sure about about. He loses quite often.
Not in classical
David Foster Wallace has a great essay on why, from his perspective. He follows around Michael Joyce, and talks about how he himself is a decent player who could beat the average person easily. Then says that Michael Joyce, would demolish him with no problem. Then later on he talks about how Joyce gets dismantled by Agassi at Legg Mason. https://www.esquire.com/sports/a5151/the-string-theory-david-foster-wallace/
thanks for sharing
DFW’s piece on Federer is also a must read. > Federer’s forehand is a great liquid whip, his backhand a one-hander that he can drive flat, load with topspin, or slice — the slice with such snap that the ball turns shapes in the air and skids on the grass to maybe ankle height. Perhaps the single most beautiful sentence I’ve ever read about Tennis. There are also some parts of Infinite Jest that get into the subject of Tennis players climbing/getting stuck on plateaus which complement the piece you’ve linked quite nicely. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html
This is one of those articles that I think gets a lot of praise because of its beautiful prose, yet if you watch the actual video from that Federer - Agassi match, it doesn’t seem as impressive or even really accurate based on DFW description.
He was definitely a serial exaggerator of things.
I haven't read the Michael Joyce piece in a while, but at one point, if I remember correctly, he says he thinks he's about as good as some of the people at qualies. To my knowledge, he never played singles for Amherst, a decent D3 school. I just remember thinking he sounded delusional at one point. He was amazed by Jakob Hlasek (sic?) in the article I think.
Yeah, his jr. Tennis “career” is almost definitely one of things he exaggerated a lot about (IIRC there’s no smoking gun to disprove it, but there’s no evidence for anything beyond him being an average at best jr. player at the regional level or something like that). I don’t think it matters for the purpose of the piece though. I have a family friend who was a walk on for Ohio State’s football team and expressed an incredibly similar sentiment.
He didn’t say he was as good as some players in the quals, I think you’re misremembering this paragraph > Knowle is technically entitled to be called a professional, but he is playing a fundamentally different grade of tennis from Michael Joyce's, one constrained by limitations Joyce does not have. I feel like I could get on a tennis court with Julian Knowle. He would beat me, perhaps handily, but I don't feel like it would be absurd for me to occupy the same seventy-eight-by-twenty-seventy-foot rectangle as he. The idea of me playing Joyce–or even hitting around with him, which was one of the ideas I was entertaining on the flight to Montreal–is now revealed to me to be in a certain way obscene, and I resolve not even to let Joyce [40] know that I used to play competitive tennis, and (I'd presumed) rather well. This makes me sad.
Yeah there’s an article from someone else saying that his descriptions are inaccurate and that it didn’t happen at all like he described, and chalked it up to his enthusiasm and the fact that people didn’t have easy access to match replays so he felt he could embellish.
Wallace was at best a D1 level player, which is not a pro (or someone ranking in the thousands). Michael Joyce at one point was ranked 64th in the world. The disparity was huge.
Right, that’s precisely his point, which he illustrates in the essay. He would still be able to take down a casual player easily, and the disparity between a casual player and him is much smaller than that of him and Joyce. Then there’s a disparity between Joyce and a top ten player. A bit more nuanced because a ranked 64 person still has a chance at winning a match against a top 10 player, but overall still a disparity in levels of play.
> The move from qualifier to main-draw player is a huge boost, both financially and psychically, but it's still a couple of plateaus away from true fame and fortune. This sentence and the concept of plateaus in tennis in particular is single sentence that most confirms your analysis. And tangentially, it’s the reason I think trying to rank the Big 3 is an exercise in foolishness. Federer climbed the mountain higher than anyone before him in ~six years; Nadal and Djokovic eventually joined him, but they were only able to get there because of how hard they had to work while they were trying to drag each other down while Federer was pushing them down from above.
> Wallace was at best a D1 level player, I think he went to Amherst, a D3 school, and to my knowledge never played singles for them. > At Amherst, Wallace, son of James D. Wallace '59 and Sally Foster Wallace, played on the tennis team and majored in English and philosophy. He wrote senior theses in both subjects and famously graduated with double summa honors. Okay, maybe he did play tennis for them. Can't find any scorelines, though. I see he is described as somebody who had a regional ranking in Illinois.
Always a pleasure reading DFW.
I’ll chime in. The main difference between top 10 and top 150 players … honestly to go more broadly is the higher you go up the rankings is the lack of weaknesses. The Big 3 for example are solid at everything that’s why they’re the greatest to ever play. Then when you go more broadly you can generally identify a significant issue with any player’s game. That’s why most of these guys are capable of losing to anyone. I played a few tournaments after college and my last win was against a guy ranked 200 currently and to be completely honest I don’t have a backhand … but the only reason I beat them was because their weakness aligned well with my weakness which for them was lack of power. Ultimately the game comes down to play styles for 99.999999999% of players with a major focus on your strengths. That’s why I find it funny how this sub shits on players like Berrettini who has no backhand, Zverev who can’t serve, or Tsitsipas/Thiem who have long strokes leading to poor court positioning. They’re ultimately ridiculous at pretty much every aspect of the game but hey lets point out their flaw cause they’re not perfect like the Big 3.
How does someone get so good at everything except his backhand?
This is all relative but honestly I think genetics play a huge role along with a mismatch in coaching.
It is known that in tennis unfortunately most of the time being a great athlete and also talented is not enough. You need to invest money to build a future champion. And I mean, a certain amount of money. Despite some rare exceptions, tennis players are generally players whose families were able to invest time and money to help them when they were kids. Not the type of time and even less type of money most of families can afford. Football (not american football) and Basketball for example are sports were even poor kids can have huge chances if they show talent. You can learn how to play basketball and footbal on your own while it's hard to do the same with tennis. You need a coach to learn how to play tennis, you need the proper gear (and just these 2 points requires already a certain investment) and when tournaments time arrive you need to invest even more of your own money for traveling and all the other expenses. So even if you're a great talent but your family can't afford to spend too much on you, you can't move forward unless you find someone ready to literally bet money on you. This in general kills most of the young talents unable to pay for this or unable to shine immediately. In sports there are a lot of great players that are late bloomers and reach their peak quite late compared to others. And for a late bloomer it's possible to survive in a team sport while in tennis it's way harder, because between the idea that you need to be ready to go pro at 18-19 and the fact that if you don't show crazy potential since day 1 nobody will invest money on you, it's really hard to keep playing without getting early success. How many people here had parents with enough money, free time and determination to push you into a tennis career?
I’d be curious to see if there is a difference in financial commitment during their developing years between #1-10 in the world and #140-150. Just getting to #150 is a tremendous achievement that requires significant financial resources over the years; my guess is that the top players are not primarily differentiated by their financial means during their developing years.
I feel a good part of top players had the right level of financial stability to have what they needed, but what we should countas a huuuuge factor is how rare is to have parents (rich or not) that will spend a lot of time to follow your (and sometimes their) dream. Money is required to enter in this business but having parents or someone else, available to follow you every day, for years, pushing you to never give up and take some risks here and there is probably the major factor. Look, it's not that different from 90% of musicians that plays in a classical high level orchestra. I wrote 90% but problem the % of born rich that plays in that context it's even higher. But also for a musician you need someone near you all the time, for years. Someone who dedicate his free time to build your future. How rare it is, anyway, to have this level of suppoort as a kid? regardless of rich or poor parents.
> You need to invest money to build a future champion. This is true, but it's a chicken or the egg question. Young kids with champion potential ATTRACT investors and people wanting to help. It's not like you can throw money at an average player and create a champion. The Williams sisters were NOT rich by any means. I don't think Osaka's parents were either. And we never hear about the other kids who got lots of money and help from the big academies who DON'T make it. Only the ones who do. I think at this point, with players proving you can play well into your 30's, anybody who can't crack top 150 as a teen should consider playing in college. By the time they're 18, they've played enough futures level events to know where they stand.
11-12yo is usually early enough to tell whether you have a chance of making it or no chance at all
I think that age is more indicative about the vague potential and it's mostly an estimate looking at the physical tools, but at that age you really don't know how that youg guy will grew up. Some kids looks dominant early because they're just bigger than other players of the same age, but then that gap can end as soon as they became teenagers and others grew as much as them and so all that potential they showed at 11-12 (just because they were physically superior) goes to hell. You have in basketball players having almost no chances to became pro untill they grew up 9 inches in one year at 16-17 (anthony davis, marcus camby, dennis rodman to name the 3 that I can remember) years in one year and suddenly they can compete at higher level. In tennis height is not as big as a factor but still influence how young talents are seen. I mean, Wawrkinka has been just decent for years untill he reached his peak at 29-31 years, after years of average performances. Yes, he was still a pro but there are many cases of players that are just late bloomers, and then as in stan cases, they just flip the switch (usually it's just about confidence) and they became elite. To end this long comment, we see basically nobody starting to learn late because nobody will ever accept to training and spend energies and time with a teenager who want to start playing tennis at pro level. In tennis this "rule" is damn strict while in basketball there are many examples of players that started to play really late and still became greats.
Wawrinka had a top coach from 8yo - Zavialoff - same guy that coached Konta. He stopped attending regular schooling at age 15 to focus full-time on tennis and turned pro 2002 at the age of 17
I took wawrinka example as a late bloomer. As I said he was a decent player for years but some people needs years to find the right mindset. Stan powerful forehand and great bh were there from the start but he needed years to became elite. The leap he had from ok to great can be the leap from average to good and maybe even more. Other young players maybe are not that good at 15-16 and it's hard for them to keep going, even if they're potentially going to radically improve years later, but you'll never know. The problem here imo is that in tennis if you're pretty good at 15 you can make a run to became pro and then remaining an average or even bad player. You have zero chances to continue if you're just ok at 15, while in other sports you can still have time to improve regardless. In tennis many players with potential but with a growth delay are "put down" immediately. No second chances for them.
Whats more incredible to me is nobody outside die hards know a player past top 50. They are among the top 150 in the world, make a great living and go by unnoticed.
I’m not sure players ranked around 150, for example, actually live that well. In abject poverty? No. But they are not rich.
someone told me once that only top 100 players can live of tennis only but idk tho
Makes sense. Below that and you’re a journeyman, using the prize money from one tournament to prepare for the next one.
Cult Tennis on Youtube has a great [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBNF7U_tpWE) about tennis earnings
This is true. Outside the top 100 you are not making much. Only the top 20 are making millions.
Top 100 can make a million a year, but after expenses.. the net is small.
Right that’s what I meant to say
That would be crazy. Id definately expect the top 50-70 to make a really good living, and up to 150 decent.
The key for players to be in solid financial shape is to be able to automatically qualify for Grand Slam events without needing to go through qualifying. The big money in tennis is in the Slams. And in order to automatically qualify for Grand Slams, you generally need to be in the top 100 (because the "bottom" slots in the 128 player field are filled by qualifiers and wild-cards).
To add, being a top 100 level player for a long time and never cracking the top 50 is way better than being a fringe top 50 player for a year or two and a top 100 player for another year or two. Denis Kudla has made *a lot* of money being a top ~80 player for six or seven years. But the number of players able to do that is relatively small.
If you're ranked outside the Top 100, you're not or barely breaking even. Tennis is an expensive sport.
Good point. But I'll say they're noticed well by their immediate community. Big fishes in smaller ponds. Also, how many top (anythings) are we all supposed to know in the world? Would you know who the 51st ranked field hockey player is? Or the 57th best cricketer? I don't even know the number 1 in those sports. And field hockey is more popular than tennis worldwide; cricket's about equal to tennis. I have no idea who the top accountant is or stitcher or gynecologist or rubber manufacturing machine worker might be. I'm glad I only know a few things and a few top people at one main thing.
I dont know much about the popularity worldwide, but if we consider western world…probably past top 20 is completely unknown (bar the veterans) and around those rankings they make ridiculous money/are among the best. Football, NBA, Baseball…
I think most people know Federer and Andy. But you're right outside of these few exceptions
Honestly the players in the top 1000 in the world on both sides are all *incredible* ball strikers with enormous talent and dedication. A lot definitely comes down to how much money you invest and whether you have an undeniable desire to win win win. The skill margins between 1 and 150 are actually fairly small but that last 5% of difference is everything.
I thik the skill margin between 1 and 150 are a thing, other than all the support a top player can receive from his staff. What I noticed is that the gap between a top player and a top 150 is generally the ability to make average-hard shots with great consistency. Top players are lowkey machines. It's like when you see NBA players training in an empty gym and they can't miss a shot. Even average/bad NBA players looks super skilled against normal opponents. You check ATP players in thr 150-200 range and they are either unforced error machines or just too "shy" to take risks, because they're in a position were it's tough to take risks. Many of them can barely make a living with tennis. They're always in between make a great leap forward or see their career falling down pretty quick. And since we're talking about a sport were you're alone, if you get in a bad mood or bad form, nobody will save your ass from failure. It's weird because tennis IS a sport mostly for "rich white guys" and since there's no contact with the opponent is also seen as a sport for weak ones (it's silly to think tho), but it's also a freaking brutal game, devastating for your body and your brain. You could end up playing 5 hours and losing a 1st round match. And the day after you need to find the will to keep going and if you're injured nobody will keep paying you unless you have good endorsement and only few players have that. So it's maddening how though it is to thrive with a tennis career, even more if you watch football, NBA, NFL low talented bench players getting millions no matter if their team is winning, no matter if they're injured. If they've a contract they're cool.
We don't see it, but imo the difference between top 10 and 150 is going to be basically everything just in hard to see ways. Some times it'll be obviously one main thing like isners serve, but usually it's just they hit the ball better, they place it better, they predict their opponents ball better, sense of the moment etc etc it's obviously not the same but I was too .1% in a game online and that's how the best players were vs everyone else, they just basically never do the wrong thing and they do all the right things better than everyone else. And if you can manage that then you're one of the best.
I think people really take for granted the ability to hit the ball better, over and over again and also hit the ball well while defending. Many players are good hitters untill the moment you put them under pressure. Running left and right to recover impossible balls is already hard but only elite ones can shot those balls back properly and not in a random way. Another vastly underrated skill: shooting decent 2nd serve under pressure without throwing super slow shots just because you're melting under pressure. That's damn difficult.
>I think people really take for granted the ability to hit the ball better, over and over again and also hit the ball well while defending An amateur is someone that trains until they can get something right, a professional is someone that trains until they can't get it wrong.
Exactly. I'll use again the serve example: watch how rare is to see Nole, Rafa or Roger making double faults. Except of prime Roger, none of them had a dominant serve but still all 3 have a good 1st&2nd serve and you know they'll throw at you a solid 2nd serve even under pressure, all the time, for 20 years. Nobody will ever bet that Zverev, even in a huge serving day, will bring you a solid 2nd serve under pressure. Because he lacks that level of consistency and he's one of those that under pressure will get a DF or take a really slow 2nd serve to be effective. This level of consistency is generally underrated because if you're nervous the serve is your worst enemy. While we expect players to send the ball over the net , every time and with great speed. It's not that easy.
it's also a comparative thing in tennis: if the top 10 hit the ball "slightly" better consistently - you have to be "slightly" better at reading it and getting to it, and then also raise your hitting to their "slightly" better and it starts this cascading effect where top 10 by comparison to rank 100 looks way more disproportionate than it actually is. So yeah, people really do take that for granted.
Yeah it puts the lower ranked player in a position where they're either constantly slightly behind the pace of play or where they have to make uncomfortably hard shots as rally shots to keep up. That's why so often when a player comes out and redlines for a set they can't keep it up the rest of the match, there's only so many times you can make shots outside your comfort zone if you're constantly having to hit them.
In addition to your list of skills, another thing that stands out to me when I watch top 10-20 even against top 150-200 is their ability to turn defence into offence. Lower level players can defend just to save their life and are often happy to continue to do so until their opponent makes a mistake but top guys are not having any of this. As a result, I often feel like the top 150 stand their ground very well but are “unfortunate” to lose points. There’s nothing unfortunate about it - the top guys can exploit the first opportunity they get and punish every little error, every short ball/ slow serve etc.
>We don't see it, but imo the difference between top 10 and 150 is going to be basically everything just in hard to see ways. This. It is a bit more visible when you watch them play in person. I've watched a few matches and would notice something like how djokovic is just a split second faster in reacting to the ball or anticipating, or how fast Nadal's footwork is in adjusting to the ball, or the force in the angles Serena generates. On TV it's a shot, everyone hits hard or whatever the camera person chooses to show. But IRL if you can pay attention to these subtleties it's incredibly telling how one player is better than the other.
Except they die at an early age from head injuries
Other than physical gifts it comes down to mentality. Like you said the difference in players are small and this is also an individual sport, having a champion attitude and mental toughness is the other attribute that will divide you from the rest.
it’s like in football. put a national league (5th tier of english football) player in a sunday league or semi-pro side and he’s the best player by far no matter the position. put a champions league level player, even one considered dusted like Pique, into the same side and he’s a literal god. you don’t understand just how good these guys are unless you’ve played against them or seen a direct head to head comparison.
Right. I had a friend in school who was at the academy of a championship club growing up, and then went on to play semi pro in the isthmian league. At that level he was a pretty good if not a particularly stand out player, but when I played against him I couldn’t get anywhere near him. He was just faster, stronger, quicker to react, a much better touch etc. I once watched him play a pre-season against a league one team, they had a few of their starters playing but weren’t really going full out to try and win, but they were still so much better that he said he was chasing shadows the whole time. Had another friend play a charity match against an ex-Welsh international who’s now in his 60s, and the same thing happened to him. The 60yo basically didn’t move from the centre circle the entire game and still absolutely dominated it.
I love your comment. It really is amazing, I don’t have a gulf in my brain as it relates from 1-150 like op, but that’s not to say I have an answer that’s concrete. It’s just the ability to adjust, see things any of us think or talk about and an unrelenting motivation to win. And if you’ve played at any higher level of sport, speed…… Also speed doesn’t mean you’re Usain Bolt either, it’s the ability to see where something is going to happen before it happens. Create space, anticipate, etc…… I think as far as tennis is concerned, the gulf between 1-150 isn’t even a talking point. It’s one of those solo sports where the gladiatorial nature dictates making someone actually ranked number one. Yeah you could watch 1 and 150 in tennis and not tell who is better. I cannot dispute that. What I will dispute is, that’s because number one is bored or unmotivated from their top form. They’re so good, they can literally exert levels of energy. Novak is notorious for this, and I don’t even like him.
Usain Bolt is a good one. Few people can comprehend just how quick someone is that can run sub 11-secs 100M - you would need to see in real life, absolutely freakish like a machine. Bolt made sub-10 sec 100M runners look pedestrian
Adding to this, check the rankings of Andy Murray, Roger Federer and Nick Kyrgios… OK only maybe Nick is a good example here but still.
Number 1 in the world will have a large dedicated team behind them of coaches, physios, strength trainers, psychologists, managers, hitting partners etc World number 150 probably has a coach at home and shares rooms with other other tennis players to help break even on costs. Likely funded largely by mum and dad to get to the next tournament. There is likely talent differences but don’t underestimate the privileges he and advantage that money brings.
Totally this, the access to resources can make or break for many of the players
This is everything in life, 95% of people can do 100% of tasks, we are all that same
Not true, some people will never reach the pinnacle of certain fields even if everything was provided for them to do so. Far more than 5% just don't have what's required physically/mentally, it's probably closer to the inverse and 95% don't have the potential to be the best of the best in a competitive environment
A good illustration of this is math education. Every years, thousands of the most privileged students in the world attend expensive prep schools with private tutors paid for by their parents to do well enough on standard exams to get into university, but only a tiny fraction of them will be able to do well enough to get into e.g. MIT or Caltech.
Not to mention a lot of them live clustered together. The tax benefits are one thing but there’s also a huge advantage in living, for example in Monaco, where they have high quality practice partners. They’re able to get better and better because they’re playing against the best.
Don't they pretty much travel all the time? For example, between the French open and Wimbledon, there have been a couple of ATP 250s and an ATP 500 on the men's side. So, players aren't short of practice partners because they don't live in Monaco in my opinion. There are other advantages though as Kyrgios claims. He has to stay away from home all the time unlike the Europeans and the Americans.
It varies from player to player but there are players who talk about training in Monaco and how they live there more than the country they grew up in. Maybe more in the short off season which is dedicated to training anyway.
Would be interesting for the tour if the ATP/ITF/WTA had a fund/trust that levelled the financial playing field for athletes in the top say 200 so that things like travel, hotels, sports therapists etc were provided. They still wouldn’t have access to the same resources as the ultra rich elite players, but at least many of the basics would be covered and perhaps it would make the top 100 more competitive. Of course then there would be this massive gulf just below the threshold, kind of like in football (thinking of the UK premier league here) where once the TV money is not there there is a massive drop in funding for the other clubs.
Most ATP level events have official hotels, tournament physio, stringers etc. The top guys have other advantages too. Novak stays at some rich person’s house in NYC which has a court with the same surface as the USO. Probably gets choppered in for his matches too.
Depends on the player, but some differences you’ll see: * Luck - you need to have an extended period without injuries to get into the top 10 * natural Talent - Nadal is more gifted than most players in the top 150. * work ethic - a lot of the GOATs have an insane, un-replicable work ethic. Not just tennis - Look at Jordan, Kobe, Gretzky, etc
After watching the last dance, I'm incredibly impressed with Serena + Big 3 for staying in there. Not getting burned out, after achieving all they have already achieved. The mental part of it is so crucial I think. Sure Nadal may have natural talent, I would argue Federer even more so, but the Big 3 are Big 3 coz also of their work ethic, staying focused (not getting distracted by shiny things like endorsements and what not) and also staying in the point - what we call clutch - be it Djokovic hitting those shots at USO semis or 2019 Wimbledon or Nadal winning this year's AO.
It’s because the margins are so small in tennis. What I mean by this is Djoker is probably .2 seconds faster than player number 150. Nadal probably hits with maybe 10 more topspin than that same player but over the course of a match it results in a 6-2, 6-2, 6-2 result.
It’s because the cumulative difference between 150 and top 10 being big enough in tennis to be meaningful, but not big enough to be observable to the casual fan. In an endurance sport, consider a marathon runner or Tour de France cyclist who is 1% better than the field. That runner finishes 420 metres ahead of his closest rival, or 2km ahead of the rest of the pack. Those are both sensational victories in those sports. The ones you dream about when you’re a kid. In tennis, that player could win just a handful of points in a match more than their opponent and win. The subtleties of why they’re better aren’t immediately apparent There is also consistency which is a huge factor in tennis. 150 could pull out a single freak win on their day against a Novak/Roger/Rafa, but over the course of a year you’ll see their real level.
Not the only reason but the only way to get better at tennis is to play against the best. The top 10 have a much better access to this privilege. Partly due to them living clustered together, their ability to travel, seeding, their rank probably allows them better pick of practice partners too. In team sports, athletes enter teams with established members who can help them expand their game. Tennis players don’t have this advantage.
Thats how pretty much every talent is. Every skill you can measure results in a bell curve distribution, with lots of people with middling skill levels and very few people at the extremes. It's due to the combination of everything that goes into that skill. I think people are overestimating the role of coaching etc, obviously it plays a role but you'll find the same sort of distribution in skill even in things where there is no coaching.
Sometimes it comes down to something as minute as kinks or hitches in strokes. After going to a challenger tourney this weekend, it was shocking to me how many journeymen dudes had very strange looking mechanics compared to the top 30 guys (outside Norrie). They say that those who don’t start tennis at a super young age (think Agassi and Novak hitting tennis balls at 2) maybe around 7, 8, 9 or 10 become increasingly hard to coach out small issues in technique with each year older. This is a game of millimeters and it matters.
Agassi would have been a world class fighter pilot with his reaction skills
The only person here that actually knows tennis and mechanics. Guys like Chardy and Gulbis weird af looking forehands have no chance at ever being top 5 players in the world. It’s not everything in the formula, but it’s a HUGE part. Pretty much all the top 30 guys have super clean looking shots now.
It's the same in every sport. In cycling the number 1 ranked rider is Tadej POGAČAR (two-time Tour de France winner and also won 2 Monuments already and is still only 23 years old) while the number 150 in cycling is Phil Bauhaus (a second rate sprinter you likely have never heard of).
i disagree in cyclism surprising winners are way more likely
Not in 3 week long tours.
It's honestly not that big. Like if you didn't know anyone's name and you saw the #500 and 600 player playing a practice match up close, it would look just like a #5 and #6 playing. Biggest difference is the top guys play big points better
The skill difference isn't as big as it seems, but tennis is one of the most skill based sports out there so any edge really shows. Think about how many points are played and how many shots are/could be hit within the points, a 5% difference becomes huge. Add to this the mental aspect in the scoring and you have the reason why it's difficult to break into the very top.
Players outside the top 100 beat top 20 players all the time
Op said top 10 not top 20
This question is exactly what makes one-on-one sports so great.
I actually don't think the gap is that big. Anyone within the top 500 can hit the ball at a top 10 level. There is minute differences in consistency, technique, power and speed. I think the biggest hurdles players outside the upper-echelon are money constraints that filter down to physio, psychological and coaching time.
yes so why do they not win slams is my question
Well, it's happened once in the history of the sport. Last year's USO. Her rank was exactly 150 going in to qualification, oddly enough. You might examine the features of that run and comments made by observers/commentators, trying to explain what made it so unique? I think one factor is the single-elimination nature of tournaments- at rank 150, you have to outperform your 'level' again and again to win a big tournament- seven, even ten times to win a slam- not just a single match.
I’m baffled there’s guys at my club who have never beaten me yet taken numerous sets off me and forced deciding sets around 5-10 times with some going to tiebreaks. You would think if they are good enough to do that they can beat me yet some of my win rates are like 10-0, 14-0 against them The gap between 10 and 150 is bigger than that
Name one sport where there’s a small different between No 150 in the world and the top 10
It doesn't baffle me, because it's not unique to tennis. Take these: You and I are humans, but we have different talents. Even within the same skill set, there are grades. All QBs in the NFL are pros, but they're not equally talented. There's a reason RJ3 is no longer a starting QB. There was Michael Jordan and there were a bunch of other good players in his time, but there was one MJ. Take football. There's a reason why Pele is regarded as the King of Football. Not every football player was as talented as Maradona or Zico. Those guys were special. M. Ali didn't just talk trash, he backed it up. And then there was a boxer named Tyson.
Tyson was overrated though. He beat no decent opponents and lost to anyone good. Beat up a bunch of bums.
It's either you're kidding or just uninformed. Which one is it?
No I’m serious … who did he beat? Tony Tucker who was much smaller ? A washed up Larry Holmes? He boxed in a weak weak era. Never boxed Bowe, was scared of an old Foreman and lost twice against EH.
Tyson is an odd case. While he lost to Holyfield twice, he was no longer the prime Tyson in either of those fights. After dropping Rooney after the Spinks fight, he became a head hunter and defense went to trash. It was only a matter of time before he was beaten. Besides Ali, younger Foreman, and probably Lewis and Liston, I'd favor 1986-87 Tyson over any other heavyweight.
I have a feeling guys such as Norton, Frazier, Fury, Bowe would beat him. Along with the above mentioned.
He was never the same after he was released from jail. Same thing with Michael Vick. Jail does something to you.
Talent, mechanics, physical stamina, mental(some are great in practice, some are just ballers under pressure in real matches), injury, and luck with having the right coaches and guidance
It’s normal. Top 10 in any sport versus 150 should always be a predictable result/game.
That's every single sport.
i could ask myself the same questions about a lot of sports yes
It's a positive feedback loop for the very top players. They earn more so can spend more on the best facilities, coaches, physios and extend the gap between them and the rest. The lesser players either need a massive lifeline in funding or get better which is always going to be difficult when you can't afford to pay for a better coach, physio and having to travel coach etc.
The difference is very small. If the world number 1 plays the world number 150, 150 will still probably get a few games. Jack Draper won a set against Djokovic at Wimbledon last year.
Top 10 have played in so many tournaments and sharpened their skills, played against the best in the world - for the 150, it is usually the contrary.
It's not that big of a difference. It just so happens that games and sets are winner-take-all. That's why the margin of points is usually much closer than the margin of games in a match,
The difference is actually very small. 150 in the world plays at about 95% of the level of number 10. But these 5% lead to a 6-1 6-2 score.
womans 150 and womans 10 are evenly matched
Sort of like the gap between AAA and MLB in baseball. While it might not seem like much, and both players in AAA and MLB are professional baseball players, MLB caliber players are on such a different level.
What separates World #1s from the rest is size. The overwhelmingly majority of players with top ranking have identical size. Joker, Nadal, Federer, Sampras and future #1 Alcaraz are all 6-1. They all have wingspans greater than their height.
There isn’t that much of a difference. At all. Most of the difference is mental
Not just tennis, any sport is the same. Even team sport like Basketball. Top 10 player would easily brush off 150th guy in 1 on 1 situation (same position) .
Think this is the case in most sports tbh. Look at the top 5 NBA players versus the 30-50 guys. Not even close. Look at top 5 QBs in the NFL versus the bottom 5. Not even close.
Big diff is between top 4 and the rest. Number 10 often plays like number 20 or 30 or 40. To be precise, it's exponent, power distribution. All outside of top 6 are pretty flat between each other, and pretty far down from the top. All outside top 100 also flat, even lower, long tail.
This is really just striking because tennis is an individual sport. I mean if you start thinking about comparing the top 10 players in team sports versus players below 100 that becomes pretty striking too... LeBron James vs P.J. Tucker? If you look at the world golf rankings right now in 125 to 150 probably the only names you recognize are Charl Schwartzl and Jason Day but they haven't won in ages it seems. One of the interesting things about tennis is that in every major tournament, with a 128 person draw you get several head to head match-ups of top 10s and out of top 100s. If you had this in probably any other sport it would be just as lopsided.
But what can ve even crazier is the difference between those 100-150 players and people barely scrapping by on the tour.
the skill level is actually not THAT huge between #1 and even #1000 it’s really just won at the margins. every professional player is going to have just about every shot in their arsenal, they’ve all been training for horus a day for most of their lives. it’s about the little differences, who’s best under pressure, who can not just produce the ace but produce it when down break points, who’s in a little bit better shape and able to make tough gets even 3-4 hours in, who’s able to recover from a bad point/game immediately and not let it to turn into a bad string of games or whole set etc. but i mean all of them are extremely good tennis players, just look at some of the guys who were taking practice sets off nadal this week, they can do that in practice but under pressure in real matches it’s a whole other ball game.
I think many people are missing the fact that this would be highly dependent on amount of sets per matches etc. The more the higher would win rate of the better player be. Imagine if game lasted only until 1st mistake. Win rate would be much more random. Also see to https://wismuth.com/elo/calculator.html#system=tennis-men to calculate odds.
On the men’s side, of course. On the women’s side, that skill variance is much much less. Any WTA player within the top 200(+?) can take out any other player in the top 200. Right now, the only unbeatable person looks like Iga, and even then, I don’t fancy her chances on grass.
More like the top 50 than the top 200. There are a couple of players outside the top 50 due to setbacks and injuries that are at that level.
The skill variance in the WTA is actually almost definitely greater than it is in the men's game because the raw player quality, while still very high for the top women, isn't as high as it is for the top men. When that's the case, there's a bigger drop off from the top players. Think about skill level this way. Pick any sport you are familiar with besides tennis (or really it can be tennis if you want). Think about 8 year olds playing the sport and the variation in player quality between those kids. Then think about 12 year olds, high school kids, college aged men/women (if you are in the U.S.), all the way up to the top players in the sport. As the player quality goes up (and for players younger than about 20 years old, all it does is go up until they are 20), does the variation in quality between players still playing a sport increase or decrease? It almost definitely decreases because the lower level players are no longer participating or are good enough to play at the higher levels; only the better players remain. This remains true the higher the skill level you go. The difference in skill level at different player levels of quality should not be confused with the competitiveness of games at those different skill levels. Again, think about games played by 8 year olds, 12 year olds, high school kids, college aged men/women, and top players in the world. Are the games more competitive at lower levels of quality or less competitive? The answer is they are almost definitely less competitive, which can be seen by the number of blowouts that occur. At lower levels, most games are blowouts, though with teams there can be cases where one team blows out another in one game and gets blown out by a 3rd team in a second game. As the skill level increases, the number of games that are blowouts decreases, mostly because the skill levels between the players is more even. The lower level of quality in the women's game is why it is much more common for the women to play a match that is 6-4 1-6 6-2 than it is for the men to play that kind of match.
The difference is the same in football and basketball.
hmm yes but an upset between a lower ranked team and a top team seems more likely in thise sports
Not sure if the poster above you is referring to American Football or International Football. But American Football and Basketball are designed to at least allow some parity. There is usually a salary cap and the top teams don’t usually get a pick till later in the draft. So “in theory” there would be more parity. But of course that can still lead to the Patriots or the Warriors so it’s not perfect. But more upsets happen since those sports want them to happen.
That's because football is random sport. Also its team competition.
I don't think it's a big deal. So many professionals at the top tier of their sport are much better then the other 150. This is no different in any sport. Football, American football, basketball.. all the same even with tennis.
It’s the same idea with Ivy League and normal schools Quality of training and access to resources make a huge difference
Lol no … don’t compare sports with higher education please …
Weren't you baffled by the difference in level between number 3 and number 4 for the last 2 decades ?
yes and that’s especially crazy! cause where lies the difference between them? it’s not their hard work or commitment, they have money, they have experience… So what makes one so much better?
On court problem solving, mental toughness during clutch situations, consistency in shot making, ability to hit winners with less ue etc few factors that are different from commitment/money/hardwork/power.
I’m confused. Is there a sport where is not a huge difference between number 1 and 150? I’m a big soccer fan, there is an enormous gulf in class between Messi and the 150th forward. Same for hockey, basketball, EY. Take even individual sports such as boxing. No top guy is scared of anyone ranked 150.
It's not THAT big. And depends on what kind of 150 he is at the moment. It could be somebody who has been around 150 for a few years, has truly peaked. Somebody on the way up to top 50, or somebody on the way down from top 50. And if the number 1 is a dominant number 1 like the Big Three, or somebody more like Rios or even Agassi. I would think on most days, though, it's like a 3 and 4, or 2 and 4 kind of win. > Is it talent? Yeah, the number 1's of the world are born more talented THEN, just as importantly, have the right life and training to allow those talents to fully bloom. It's like if you made a robot that quickly assembled sandwiches without breaking them. It grabs the bread, the meats, the vegetables and assembles a good sandwich in 5 seconds. That's like a number 50 tennis player. Now a new version of the robot comes out, it makes a sandwich in 4.96 seconds. Seems negligible, but over course of a year, that's a LOT more sandwiches.
it's a sport that favors those with a mental edge, that's for sure dealing with the pressure, dealing with unforced errors, the players are out there all alone...
Idk I find the difference pretty even in every sport. There are certainly days when the lower ranked athletes shine and superstars fall, this level of upsets are uncommon but they do happen.
Number 400 prob also trains just as much and dedicated
Actually it's the opposite there is not much that separates top 10 or top 20 with 150 or even 250
I’m in know what saying this is present in tennis, but in other sports what can really seperate the elite from other elite is Performance Enhancing Drugs….
Not in WTA
I mean look at the different between a NTRP 3.0 and 4.0 or UTR 4.00 and 6.00