Italian translation at settesei.it
This afternoon, Juan Martin del Potro will take on Rafael Nadal for a place in the 2018 US Open championship match. Forgive me if this sounds familiar: It’s the third time Delpo and Rafa have squared off in Flushing’s final four. Every time the Argentine has made it this far in New York, it’s been the King of Clay waiting on the other side of the net.
Del Potro could be forgiven for wondering if he was born in the wrong era. Today is his sixth major semi-final, and his fourth against Rafa. The other two weren’t cakewalks either. His first appearance in the last four of a grand slam was at the 2009 French Open against Roger Federer, and his best-ever performance at Wimbledon gave him a semi-final meeting with Novak Djokovic. The only slight positive in all this is that he faced Federer in Paris and Nadal so often in New York. Technically, it could have been worse.
Simply reaching six major semi-finals is an achievement in itself. Since 1977, there have been only 35 players to reach five or more. For each of those players, I calculated the average surface-specific Elo of their opponents, as well as their average chances of winning. Measured by opponent Elo, Delpo has had the fourth most difficult semi-final assignments of any of these players. The table below shows each player’s number of semi-finals, number of wins, average chance of winning those matches (“Avg p(W)”) and the Elo rating of their average opponent (“Avg Opp Elo”):
Player SFs Wins Avg p(W) Avg Opp Elo David Ferrer 6 1 35% 2202 Pat Cash 5 3 22% 2194 Stan Wawrinka 9 4 35% 2163 Juan Martin del Potro 6 ? 35% 2161 Vitas Gerulaitis 7 2 36% 2146 Mats Wilander 14 11 48% 2122 Jo Wilfried Tsonga 6 1 31% 2122 Michael Chang 8 4 46% 2121 Novak Djokovic 31 22 62% 2115 Andy Murray 21 11 52% 2114
Like Delpo, many of these guys had one frequent foe. David Ferrer drew Djokovic in three semis. Pat Cash faced Ivan Lendl three times in his five chances. Vitas Gerulaitis kept earning meetings with Bjorn Borg. Stan Wawrinka hasn’t played more than two semis against any particular opponent, but that doesn’t mean his draws have been any easier: He’s faced Djokovic, Federer, and Andy Murray twice each.
Djokovic and Murray pop up at the bottom of the top ten largely because of Federer and Nadal. It’s a tough era, even if you hold a Big Four membership card. Roger and Rafa have had it easier, ranked 24th and 26th in opponent Elo*, in part due to the number of majors they contested before Djokovic and Murray had fully developed–and because they generally avoided playing each other.
* Federer’s average opponent has had an Elo of 2056, and Nadal’s has had a 2045 Elo. Michael Stich is the only player on this list whose opponents’ Elos averaged below 2000.
Today’s match gives Delpo an opportunity to put himself a bit closer to Wawrinka’s category and surpass the likes of Ferrer and Jo Wilfried Tsonga, who reached only one major final each. Based on his own Elo and those of his opponents, del Potro has had about a one-in-three chance of winning his semis. The 2018 US Open represents his sixth, meaning we’d expect two final appearances thus far. Then again, it’s one thing to run the numbers; it’s another thing to beat Rafael Nadal in a major semi-final … twice.