Talk About Tennis 2.0

As has been said... Tennis players are not representing their country in regular tournaments. Only in Davis Cup, Fed Cup, and the newfangled 'ATP Cup' type of things is country pitted against country.
In Rome yesterday, it wasn't Poland vs. Canada, it was Swiatek vs. Andreescu, etc.

In team international competitions, almost all the time, it IS country vs. country - and therefore the team is representing the country.

I agree that removing the flag next to the Russian and Belarusian players is completely silly - it's a 'solution' I figure a 5 year old child would think of - that's how shallow it is.

Lastly... this is an odd thread to have this discussion in. I know that it began as a discussion about not awarding points for Wimbledon and other U.K. tournaments... but there have been no comments about points or rankings (the actual topic of this thread) for at least the last 15 posts.
It seems that this discussion has now evolved to be one more suited for the 'Tennis Related - Off Court Serious Issues' topic, which is where some discussion on this subject has already been had.

Is there no requirement to represent a country's tennis Federation to play on the respective tours and earn ranking points? Are the flags on websites and on scoreboards at matches a random anomaly? Why are they there?

Is there? Can any federation suspend a player from a tour, revoke their licence or similar?

the Moz wrote: ↑Sat May 14, 2022 1:05 pm Is there no requirement to represent a country's tennis Federation to play on the respective tours and earn ranking points? Are the flags on websites and on scoreboards at matches a random anomaly? Why are they there?

The flags are there to identify the country the player is from as a courtesy for those who wish to have that information. Similar to one's family name being there to identify the family the person is from.
There is a significant difference between showing a 'flag' simply for identification purposes and playing for (or to represent) your country.

As I mentioned - it's Jabeur vs. Kasatkina - that's how the matches are identified, not Tunisia vs. Russia. I therefore see no valid reason to not allow Russian and Belarusian players to play any given tournament simply based on where they were born and/or raised.

Suliso wrote: ↑Sat May 14, 2022 2:47 pm Is there? Can any federation suspend a player from a tour, revoke their licence or similar?

I don't think so and think if that was possible, then Su-Wei Hsieh wouldn't have been able to play for a very long time. It's why she has no sponsors, been on the Taiwanese Tennis Federation's (expletive) for years now.

I've always thought the flags were there as an identifying marker. It's very useful to me, but it's never led me to think I'm watching Davis Cup and they are there to representing their countries.

This is definitely a bizarre thread for this conversation to be had in. Even with ranking points at stake, doesn't feel like it makes sense for much of this to be in here.

I'm wondering where ATP and I differ in the Novak Djokovic win count. I had him at 989 wins before Rome. They say that Novak got his 1000th win after Rome semis (that is 4 wins). Therefore they had him at 996 before Rome started.
I suspect that they maybe count some early stages of Davis Cup (like zonal ties) towards his wins. I count World Group, Group I,II and playoffs. They obviously do not count challengers, so do I. Novak has 28 wins in Challengers.
They can't count wins by walkover, he has 13 of those, therefore it would've been 1002 on my count and 1009 on their count (including wins by walkover).

In my database I have the following breakdown for Novak wins:
Grand Slams - 323
YEC (WTF) - 41
MS 1000 (2009 and after) - 321
TM Series (before 2009) - 56.

This is also odd, because ATP shows total for MS = 376 - which is one less than 56+321.

International (IS 400, IS 600, 800, 1000, Inc Gold, before 2009) - 57
500 Series - 94
250 Series - 46
Davis Cup - 30
ATP Cup - 8
Olympics - 13
Total - 989

For the number of loss they have him at 203, while I'm - at 201.

Unfortunately Davis Cup site currently does not allow to show players records, all drop-lists for countries are empty ((

Could it be that they count qualification rounds? But I imagine the difference should've been larger?

mick1303 wrote: ↑Sun May 15, 2022 6:31 am

The davis cup record is 38-7 https://www.daviscup.com/en/players/pla ... =800225217

Tennis Abstract also has 376 -83 for ATP 1000 before rome https://www.tennisabstract.com/cgi-bin/ ... CareerqqC1

But tennis abstract has him with 202 loss/ career record including rome 1000 wins-202 loss

Edit : ATP has 203 losses because they also count Laver Cup in the official record. He is 0-1(2018)


For some reason Davis cup website doesn't work but if you search the players from Tennis abstract you can get the davis cup profile link https://www.tennisabstract.com/

You have been very meticulous with your counts, but I don't know if the ATP would be wrong. They can't count qualies, because those are not official wins, and at all other levels, they do not count those either.
Very odd, indeed.

Yes, the situation is more or less clear. The difference in 7 wins is (8-1). These 8 are from early round (zonal) Davis Cup ties. That "1" is the discrepancy in MS wins. This is the portion that is "less clear" ))

I found the source of discrepancy... Unfortunately this means that I will have to perform additional validation of my database. There was a glitch in the code, which I discovered 3 years ago. It resulted in the "score" field randomly displaced for each pair of winner/loser in the resulting table of the processed tournament. I thought that I weeded out all the consequences back then and corrected the data, but apparently not all... In the Madrid tournament in 2019 the scores for each match were incorrect (random score from another match of the same tournament), and Djokovic instead of walkover against Cilic had another score shown in the database. Therefore his count of wins increased by one. In reality he has 23 wins in Masters in 2019, but I was counting 24...

ti-amie wrote: ↑Sat May 14, 2022 2:10 am What's this about Sakkari being ranked #2 in time for RG?

Both Barbora and Paula won titles heading into RG last year. Paula also didn't defend points well in Madrid or make up for that in Rome. Those points will fall off allowing Maria to rise to #2. If Maria doesn't repeat her RG results, she won't hang onto #2 afterwards. Anett is the most likely candidate to overtake #2 without the others doing very, very well at RG. Ons also has a good change to reach #2.

It is starting to sound like the WTA of the 90's. "Who can reach #2?"
#1 is certain, at the moment.

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun May 15, 2022 5:11 pm It is starting to sound like the WTA of the 90's. "Who can reach #2?"
#1 is certain, at the moment.

Not sure if this was intentional or not, but yes, similar to the 90s as a question of #2 instead of #1, but for a very different reason unfortunately. I will continue to view that time with an asterisk.

I am only mentioning the similarities Seles' attack will always be part of the narrative of those years, but the 90's were a certainty. Not even the 80's were such, as at least Chrissie was a worthy opponent to Martina.
And also, as much as Iga has been impressive, it has been just a few months. I believe she has what it takes to remain on top for a while, considering the quality behind her, but the WTA changes very quickly nowadays.

When Steffi was dominant in the 90s, she was already a multi slam winning HoFer, Iga still has one slam to her name. I feel she is still much closer than her peers than Steffi was to hers. This hot streak is impressive, but still a little early for me to to be comparing her to people. I do like her though, more than I like most of the rest of the top ten