Yesterday, we saw that ATP tour-level wild cards are the privilege of just a small subset of top pros. If you play for a Grand Slam-hosting country, or you are a major junior prospect, you’ll get plenty. If you fit neither of those categories, you’re on your own. Donald Young gets 27 wild cards while better players work for years to earn their way into as many as 27 ATP main draws.
This discrepancy raises plenty of questions, not least the issue of whether the wild card status quo is good for tennis.
The title of this post raises another: Who used those wild cards to rocket to the top? Andy Roddick is one, having amassed a 20-9 record, including two titles and one Masters-level quarterfinal, from 11 wild cards spots in 2000 and 2001. On the flip side is Nicolas Mahut, who received 9 tour-level wild cards before his 25th birthday, winning only one match–and that one by retirement.
When players do take advantage of their wild cards and string a few wins together, what are we to make of them? Roddick was clearly on his way to the top. After winning Atlanta and Houston in back-to-back weeks in 2001, he never needed a wild card again. But other highly-touted Americans, such as Jesse Levine and Ryan Sweeting, never manage to get their ranking fully out of wild card territory. They’ll both probably receive more, taking opportunities to win a tour-level match or two that gives their rankings a boost.
The ranking effect of a tour-level win or two compounds the effects that keep down players like Grega Zemlja. First, someone like Levine or Frank Dancevic receives a substantial number of wild cards, consistent opportunities to play in a main draw that other, similarly-ranked players don’t get. Then, unless they really aren’t that good, or they get a slew of unlucky draws, they win a match or two. A mere appearance in a Grand Slam main draw is worth 10 ranking points; a single win gets you another 35. In some challenger events, you need to reach the final to earn that many points.
More ranking points, of course, lead to a higher ranking. A higher ranking leads to more direct entries into tournaments. And then, somehow, you have Donald Young in the top 50.
Thus, “taking advantage” of wild cards has strong positive and negative connotations. Guys like Roddick and Federer were ready to compete at the highest level before their rankings said they were, so they took advantage of their opportunities to the fullest. But when a player gets 10 wild cards and wins four matches, he’s made the best of his situation in a manner that exploits the inequities of the ATP tour.
After the jump, find a table that shows everyone currently in the top 200 who received at least four tour-level wild cards before their 25th birthday. (I’m using that age as a cutoff to avoid counting wild cards handed to players on the comeback trail or a retirement tour.) It’s sorted by number of wild cards received pre-25. For a sortable table, click here.
Rk Player Cty WCs Matches W L W/WC 175 Donald Young USA 27 37 10 27 0.37 26 Mardy Fish USA 24 44 21 23 0.88 61 Ryan Harrison USA 21 35 14 21 0.67 23 Sam Querrey USA 20 40 20 20 1.00 69 Jesse Levine USA 17 21 4 17 0.24 11 John Isner USA 16 35 19 16 1.19 544 Chris Guccione AUS 16 29 13 16 0.81 48 Bernard Tomic AUS 15 23 8 15 0.53 112 James Blake USA 15 19 4 15 0.27 13 Richard Gasquet FRA 14 20 6 14 0.43 332 Alex Bogdanovic GBR 14 18 4 14 0.29 127 Michael Llodra FRA 13 23 11 12 0.85 800 Prakash Amritraj IND 13 20 7 13 0.54 20 Tommy Haas GER 12 28 16 12 1.33 68 Gael Monfils FRA 12 27 15 12 1.25 146 Ryan Sweeting USA 12 19 8 11 0.67 29 Andy Roddick USA 11 29 20 9 1.82 1 Roger Federer SUI 11 22 11 11 1.00 250 James Ward GBR 11 18 7 11 0.64 101 Paul Henri Mathieu FRA 11 15 4 11 0.36 57 Brian Baker USA 11 14 3 11 0.27 3 Andy Murray GBR 10 25 15 10 1.50 91 Lleyton Hewitt AUS 10 23 14 9 1.40 289 Robby Ginepri USA 10 23 13 10 1.30 279 Andreas Beck GER 10 19 9 10 0.90 164 Jack Sock USA 10 16 6 10 0.60 62 Grigor Dimitrov BUL 10 14 4 10 0.40 139 Wayne Odesnik USA 10 13 3 10 0.30 1566 Cecil Mamiit PHI 10 11 1 10 0.10 49 Robin Haase NED 9 16 7 9 0.78 16 Kei Nishikori JPN 9 15 6 9 0.67 136 Frank Dancevic CAN 9 15 6 9 0.67 31 Marcos Baghdatis CYP 9 13 4 9 0.44 130 Thiemo De Bakker NED 9 13 4 9 0.44 85 Bjorn Phau GER 9 11 2 9 0.22 96 Alex Bogomolov Jr USA 9 11 2 9 0.22 71 Nicolas Mahut FRA 9 10 1 9 0.11 93 Rajeev Ram USA 8 13 5 8 0.63 8 Juan Martin Del Potro ARG 7 17 10 7 1.43 107 Guillaume Rufin FRA 7 14 7 7 1.00 100 Daniel Brands GER 7 13 6 7 0.86 14 Marin Cilic CRO 7 12 5 7 0.71 140 Mischa Zverev GER 7 12 5 7 0.71 162 Denis Kudla USA 7 11 4 7 0.57 73 Andrey Kuznetsov RUS 7 10 3 7 0.43 152 Bobby Reynolds USA 7 10 3 7 0.43 165 Steve Johnson USA 7 10 3 7 0.43 143 Antonio Veic CRO 7 9 2 7 0.29 174 Javier Marti ESP 7 9 2 7 0.29 160 Adrian Mannarino FRA 7 8 1 7 0.14 58 Xavier Malisse BEL 6 14 8 6 1.33 33 Jeremy Chardy FRA 6 12 6 6 1.00 38 Jurgen Melzer AUT 6 12 6 6 1.00 17 Stanislas Wawrinka SUI 6 9 3 6 0.50 60 Tatsuma Ito JPN 6 9 3 6 0.50 18 Philipp Kohlschreiber GER 6 8 2 6 0.33 46 Benoit Paire FRA 6 8 2 6 0.33 167 Peter Polansky CAN 6 8 2 6 0.33 151 Ernests Gulbis LAT 5 12 7 5 1.40 22 Andreas Seppi ITA 5 10 5 5 1.00 171 Marius Copil ROU 5 9 4 5 0.80 44 Fabio Fognini ITA 5 8 3 5 0.60 154 Ze Zhang CHN 5 8 3 5 0.60 35 Feliciano Lopez ESP 5 7 2 5 0.40 156 Igor Kunitsyn RUS 5 7 2 5 0.40 25 Marcel Granollers ESP 5 6 1 5 0.20 37 Julien Benneteau FRA 5 5 0 5 0.00 128 Evgeny Donskoy RUS 5 5 0 5 0.00 45 David Goffin BEL 4 9 5 4 1.25 124 Josselin Ouanna FRA 4 9 5 4 1.25 7 Jo Wilfried Tsonga FRA 4 8 4 4 1.00 105 Igor Andreev RUS 4 8 4 4 1.00 27 Mikhail Youzhny RUS 4 7 3 4 0.75 74 Igor Sijsling NED 4 7 3 4 0.75 90 Filippo Volandri ITA 4 7 3 4 0.75 177 Teymuraz Gabashvili RUS 4 6 2 4 0.50 181 Yuki Bhambri IND 4 6 2 4 0.50 82 Simone Bolelli ITA 4 5 1 4 0.25 115 Matthew Ebden AUS 4 5 1 4 0.25 97 Philipp Petzschner GER 4 4 0 4 0.00 186 Di Wu CHN 4 4 0 4 0.00
excellent blog, whats really stagering is the number of WC’s given to the US guys that are not even 21 yet, or have just played less than a year on the circuit. Reach out to Todd Martin, he has some very interesting comments on the subject.
Makes US men’s progress seem even worse.
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