The Goat Debate

[mick1303]

Sure. As you said, want to compare Medvedev Vs Ferrer? Go for it. Sinner Vs Berdych? Be my guest.
But if you take RRN out (I am tired of writing their names), who would you take out from the current crop? Certainly Carlos and Daniil (the only ones that hold slams), and who would be the third? Stefanos? (2 slams finals + YEC). Ruud (4 mayor finals)?

In this case the 3rd to take out will be Djokovic.

[ashkor87]

When you include doubs, McEnroe is certainly a GOAT candidate...and consider DC too for good measure.

[mick1303]

When you include doubs, McEnroe is certainly a GOAT candidate...and consider DC too for good measure.

I actually do consider DC. It participates in matches won and associated categories (win-loss percentage). Also if a player has a singles live rubber win in a Davis Cup final tie, I award him an extra tournament win. DC in my calculation does not award any ranking points and does not participate in associated categories.

[mick1303]

I've stumbled on unexpected obstacle that will delay my effort on collecting doubles results and adding them to the calculation of "G.O.A.T" in doubles and singles combined. I did collect a lot of doubles data already. Now I'm on year 1976 (going backwards) and it is moving along. Of course, it is a hobby, so I can't devote a lot of time to it. But recently I discovered that ATP themselves were not particularly meticulous in collecting data. And I'm not talking about the bunch of "Unknowns" in the draws. In many cases they took the freedom in listing the order of players in the pairing. Even within the same tournament many times they list players in the pairing in one round as "Player A/Player B" and in another round as "Player B/Player A". And it creates a bit of a mess, that I will have to untangle, because these results are getting listed twice for me in such cases. So the determining of the best ever player (numerically) is coming. But it will be somewhat delayed )))

[mick1303]

Another obstacle to my effort(( I was collecting doubles data (primarily from ATP site) and what I've noticed is that on some occasions they have "Unknowns" in the draws, while the same draws on ITF site have actual names. So I've started to look in the both places and comparing the results, giving more credibility to the final outcome. Also collecting the list of all discrepancies. But today when I was looking up players' activities on ITF site I've noticed that all results became invisible, except Davis Cup and other team competitions. IDK if this is a temporary glitch, or a conscious effort on ITF part to make archive results unavailable for general public. But at the moment it does not look good (( Calendars were not available anyway for years before 2001, but it was possible to navigate to the old results via "Activity" tab. No longer possible, at least for now.

[ashkor87]

The powers that be don't want you asking these questions, it seems!

[mick1303]

The powers that be don't want you asking these questions, it seems!

On this particular occasion conspiracy theory is not confirmed ) I wrote them email and surprisingly got a quick answer:
======
Hello Mike,
Thank you for your email, we appreciate you reaching out on this.
This is an issue we are actively trying to resolve.
Kind regards,
Harrison
Coordinator, ITF Tours and Player Pathway
International Tennis Federation
=======

And they indeed fixed the issue

[mick1303]

I'm still collecting doubles results, though there is more and more cases, when the draws are not available and I forced to put "No draw info". What is interesting besides just face value is that sometimes you stumble on such surprising combinations, that literally have to doubt your eyes )) I was considering Pancho Gonzales and Jimmy Connors as being from completely different eras. But lo and behold - they were playing together as a pair in several tourneys in 1972.

[ponchi101]

It is indeed surprising, but Pancho played well into a late age. He was that good.
But yes, I am surprised.

[mick1303]

It's a shame that Jeff Sackman basically abandoned the public presentation of his tennisabstract data collection. It was basically my last resort for WTA data, because I can still can get ATP results from ATP site (although from TennisAbstract it was so much easier). He no longer updates match results on Github (the last update was may 27th). And even on HeavyTopspin the tournament results are "temporary disabled" for a while now.

[ponchi101]

Your zest to chase down all these data is impressive. First time I hear of these sources.