Italian translation at settesei.it
As I write this, Novak Djokovic has earned himself a place in the semi-finals at the Shanghai Masters, putting him two wins away from his 32nd career ATP Masters title. A championship this week would leave him one behind Rafael Nadal, the all-time leader with 33 Masters victories. Roger Federer, also in action today in Shanghai, is not far back, with a career total of 27.
Masters tallies aren’t as important as grand slam counts, but they make up an important part of an elite player’s resume. For one thing, there are more of them, and the mix of surfaces–more clay, no grass, and an indoor event–adds to our knowledge of a player’s range of skills. It’s no surprise that Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer are miles ahead of the pack on this list, as on so many others.
But all Masters aren’t created equal. At last year’s Madrid Masters, Nadal had to defeat Djokovic, as well as clay-court giant Dominic Thiem and the ever-threatening Nick Kyrgios. Six months later in Paris, Jack Sock earned the same number of Masters titles by coasting down a path that included only one player ranked in the top 35. Like major titles, Masters championships are heavily influenced by luck, and when we focus on raw totals, we trust that fortune tends to even out.
It doesn’t even out, even for the top players who have played Masters events for more than a decade and racked up dozens of titles. To account for opponent quality and the difficulty of each title, I applied the same algorithm I’ve used in the past to rate slam titles. [1] The formula spits out a number for each Masters title, where 1 is average, less than 1 is easier than the norm, and greater than 1 is more difficult. Sock’s Paris trophy was the luckiest in recent years, clocking in at 0.39, while David Nalbandian’s 2007 Madrid title was the most difficulty, rating 1.92. These extremes nothwithstanding, almost every championship comes in between 0.5 and 1.5.
The all-time tally
Let’s start by looking at the top ten in “adjusted Masters.” The table below shows the results of my formula, alongside each player’s actual Masters count, and the average rating of the tournaments he has won:
Player Adj Masters Masters Average Rafael Nadal 35.4 33 1.07 Novak Djokovic 35.0 31 1.13 Roger Federer 28.0 27 1.04 Andre Agassi 15.0 17 0.88 Andy Murray 15.0 14 1.07 Pete Sampras 11.2 11 1.02 Thomas Muster 7.5 8 0.94 Michael Chang 6.4 7 0.91 Boris Becker 5.4 5 1.08 Jim Courier 5.0 5 1.00
Boris Becker and Jim Courier aren’t the only men to have recorded five Masters titles, but they are only ones who have done so against average or better competition. Andy Roddick won five, but the algorithm gives him credit for just under four, and it is even more harsh on Marat Safin, whose five victories translate into only 3.2 adjusted Masters.
The real story is at the top of the list, where adjusting for competition almost eliminates the gap between Nadal and Djokovic. Both men have won their titles against more difficult than average competition (often, by beating each other), but Djokovic has faced the tougher paths. If he wins on Sunday in Shanghai, he’ll overtake Nadal’s adjusted tally.
Also of note is the near-tie between Andre Agassi and Andy Murray. Agassi holds three more trophies, but won them against the weakest competition of anyone in the top ten. Murray has dealt with much of the same field that Nadal and Djokovic have, so it’s no surprise to see his difficulty rating well above 1.0.
The Paris swoon
Sock’s title last year was unquestionably weak, but not entirely out of character for Bercy. With the exception of the short-lived Essen Masters, Paris titles have come the cheapest of any other tour stop at this level:
Tournament Years Average Rating Madrid (clay) 10 1.18 Rome Masters 29 1.09 Indian Wells Masters 29 1.07 Stuttgart Masters 6 1.05 Stockholm Masters 5 1.04 Hamburg Masters 19 1.02 Miami Masters 29 1.01 Monte Carlo Masters 29 0.98 Canada Masters 29 0.97 Cincinnati Masters 29 0.97 Madrid (hard) 7 0.97 Shanghai Masters 9 0.95 Paris Masters 28 0.84 Essen Masters 1 0.80
Paris was played on carpet until 2006, and that may be a factor. When I first ran the numbers, I used carpet-specific Elo ratings, which are limited by a relatively small sample. I tried again using hard-court ratings for carpet events, and while individual numbers shifted up and down, the overall results were about the same. Bercy was particularly weak during the carpet era, and it has gotten stronger, but I’m confident this is a feature of the results in the 1990s and early 2000s, not merely an artifact of Elo rating quirks.
Still, broadly speaking, fast courts seem to result in lower ratings. I suspect that’s because at predominantly best-of-three events, early-round upsets are more likely to occur on the quickest surfaces. Fast courts, then, effectively gut the field for the eventual champion. It certainly worked for Sock last year. But it’s no guarantee–the five most difficult Masters titles all came on hard courts, and one of them took place in Paris.
Peak Nalbandian
At the end of 2007, Nalbandian enjoyed two of the most glorious weeks of tennis ever played. In Madrid, he defeated Nadal in the quarters, Djokovic in the semis, and Federer in the final, not to mention Tomas Berdych and Juan Martin del Potro in the early rounds. Two weeks later, he beat Federer and Nadal again in Paris, along with wins over David Ferrer, Richard Gasquet, and Carlos Moya. Those two titles rate 1.92 and 1.70, respectively, and are two of the three most difficult since the Masters series began.
(Oddly enough, the only man who could stop Nalbandian that fall was Stan Wawrinka, who beat him both in Vienna and Basel. Wawrinka’s slam titles rate as the most difficult in that category.)
Here are the 20 most difficult Masters titles, along with their ratings:
Year Event Surface Champion Rating
2007 Madrid Hard David Nalbandian 1.92
2014 Canada Hard Jo Wilfried Tsonga 1.78
2007 Paris Hard David Nalbandian 1.70
2007 Canada Hard Novak Djokovic 1.68
2009 Indian Wells Hard Rafael Nadal 1.61
2009 Madrid Clay Roger Federer 1.52
2017 Madrid Clay Rafael Nadal 1.52
2016 Madrid Clay Novak Djokovic 1.51
2011 Indian Wells Hard Novak Djokovic 1.50
2013 Indian Wells Hard Rafael Nadal 1.50
Year Event Surface Champion Rating
2010 Canada Hard Andy Murray 1.48
2011 Rome Clay Novak Djokovic 1.48
2012 Rome Clay Rafael Nadal 1.47
2010 Indian Wells Hard Ivan Ljubicic 1.45
2004 Hamburg Clay Roger Federer 1.44
2015 Cincinnati Hard Roger Federer 1.44
2013 Rome Clay Rafael Nadal 1.43
2015 Canada Hard Andy Murray 1.43
2008 Monte Carlo Clay Rafael Nadal 1.42
2015 Madrid Clay Andy Murray 1.42
Nalbandian and Jo Wilfried Tsonga stand out at the top, but after that, it’s a whole lot of Big Four. Even in the next ten toughest paths, Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer account for seven.
Like just about any adjustment to high-profile counting stats, tweaking Masters titles for difficulty doesn’t exactly clear up the debate over the greatest players of all time. This is only one small part of that conversation. However, seeing the wide range of challenges faced by Masters champions is a necessary reminder that not all titles are the same, even if they all count for one thousand ATP ranking points.
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[1] Here’s how I first described the algorithm:
To evaluate the overall difficulty of grand-slam titlists’ draws, I used Elo—a rating system that assesses a player’s strength based on his won-lost record and the quality of his opponents—to measure the skill of an average major champion. I then estimated the probability that such a player would have won all seven matches against the opponents that each tournament’s victor had to face. For each win, I credit the champion with the difference between one and the Elo forecast: If an average slam champion on the tournament’s surface had a 90% chance of winning the match, the player gets 0.1 points (1 – 0.9); if a typical major winner would have gone in with a 20% shot, he’s assigned 0.8. Summing all the matches for each winner and applying the algorithm to the last several decades of grand slams results in an average credit of 1.23 per titlist, so I then divided each sum by 1.23 to normalise the results.
For Masters events, it’s five or six matches instead of seven, and the final step involves dividing by 1.34 instead of 1.23.