Alone among the eight competitors in London this week, Tomas Berdych has yet to win a title this year. He reached three finals–in Marseille, Dubai, and Bangkok–but failed each time to close the deal.
This isn’t the first time Berdych has reached the Tour Finals despite lacking a title, either. In 2010, he finished the year at #6 in the rankings but lost both of the finals he played, at Wimbledon and the Miami Masters.
It isn’t easy to maintain a top-ten ranking without a single tournament win, and Berdych is one of the few players in the recent past to have done so. In the 23 seasons since 1991, only eleven times have players finished a year in the top ten without a title to their credit, and only three times has a title-less player finished in the top seven.
Twice, a player has finished at #6 without a title (Berdych in 2010 and Tim Henman in 2004), and once, a player has finished at #7 without a title (Jiri Novak in 2002). If Berdych holds off Roger Federer, Stanislas Wawrinka, and Richard Gasquet this week, he’ll add another season to the list of title-less #6’s. Unless, of course, he wins in London.
However, winning his first title of the year at the Finals would be far more remarkable than getting this far in 2013 without a championship. Berdych will be only the sixth player since 1991 to participate in the Tour Finals without a title to his credit, and it wouldn’t take much for him to outperform the previous five. None of his predecessors–Sergi Bruguera in 1997 (0-2), Novak in 2002 (1-2), David Nalbandian in 2003 (1-2), Henman in 2004 (1-1), and Berdych himself in 2010 (1-2)–have made it out of the round robin stage, winning only four matches among them.
Even if Berdych’s season ends with a poor showing in London, we can still marvel at his ability to rack up points while losing every week. In the ATP ranking system, winning a late-round match is worth much, much more than an earlier-round contest, so bunching together your successes–reaching finals and winning tournaments–is more valuable than consistently maintaining a decent but lesser level. Berdych has fallen into that consistent and mediocre category this year, but has done so better than anyone else.
In 22 tournaments this season, the Czech has reached 15 quarterfinals. Only David Ferrer played more quarterfinals this year, though Rafael Nadal (15 of 16), Novak Djokovic (13 of 15), and Andy Murray (9 of 12) reached quarterfinals at a higher rate than Berdych did.
Similarly, Berdych reached eight semifinals, better than everyone except for Nadal (15), Djokovic (11), Ferrer (11), and Juan Martin del Potro (9). It’s only past this point that he failed, reaching fewer finals than John Isner and as many as the likes of Fabio Fognini and Mikhail Youzhny.
You have to win big matches to make your presence known at the very top of the ATP. But as the Czech has shown, you can spend years in the bottom half of the top ten without posting many notable victories at all. For all his talent, Berdych’s status as the forgotten man in London is well-deserved.
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With the first two matches in the books, Wawrinka and del Potro are more likely to advance in London this week, while Berdych and Gasquet have tough roads back into contention. Here is the revised forecast, reflecting Monday results:
Player 3-0 2-1 1-2 0-3 SF F W Nadal 35% 44% 18% 3% 80.8% 48.1% 30.3% Djokovic 25% 45% 26% 5% 70.9% 43.0% 24.6% Ferrer 8% 34% 42% 16% 42.4% 16.6% 6.0% Del Potro 23% 51% 27% 0% 71.4% 37.7% 17.9% Federer 11% 37% 39% 12% 46.9% 22.8% 10.0% Berdych 0% 14% 49% 36% 16.5% 6.1% 2.3% Wawrinka 14% 49% 38% 0% 60.3% 21.8% 7.5% Gasquet 0% 11% 45% 44% 10.8% 3.9% 1.3%
(For comparison, here is the original forecast.)
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I charted the Gasquet-del Potro match today, so you can find detailed serve, return, and shot-by-shot stats by clicking here.