ATP & WTA rankings

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

So far all of the four 4 players recently ranked #2 are pur in Toronto. Krejcikova was out in Round 1. Badosa, Kontaveit, Jabeur exited in Round 2. None of the four won a set.

[ponchi101]

We have been talking about slumps recently, yet we have not mentioned Kontaveit's. She is also going nowhere, fast.

[Canucklehead]

Ups and downs seems the name of the game in the women's game, unless your name is Iga Swiatek in which you have stayed pretty consistent at the top. The rest of these players at the top are either new and attempting to make a name for themselves there or they are struggling to stay there.

[ashkor87]

re the Parity thing:

I do think there is parity but only outside the top. Within the top,one can see some layers, within each of which there could be some parity:

the top layer is Swiatek, all by herself
then comes Osaka, Rybakina, Halep (if she is well and fit)

Gauff is knocking at the doors of this level, though a bit tentatively

the next layer is Kasatkina, Bencic, Leylah, Jabeur, Andreescu, Collins (hope she recovers from her ailment), Ostapenko
Raducanu on a fast surface, not otherwise

then comes a layer consisting of Badosa, Sakkari, Pliskova, Anisimova, maybe Sabalenka, Kudermetova
Samsonova and Alexandrova are knocking on the doors of this layer by now.

generally speaking, a player from a given layer will not beat a player in the layer above (though there are exceptions - for instance, Ostapenko can beat anyone on a given day).
I would say this is more likely to hold than the rankings

[ponchi101]

Ok. Let's follow your idea.
How do you translate this layering into an actionable, objective method for players to enter a tournament?
To give you an example.
You know we are playing this contest called HRtNY. Of the top 15 players, Kontaveit, Muguruza and Bencic have been picked BY NO ONE. So, the opinion of about 10 players is that indeed, Kontaveit is not a #2. Nor 3, nor 4, 5, 6, etc.
But, we took Osaka and Rybakina (some did, like myself) but it was only because, I guess, they were in the B category, and were, therefore, "cheap". But there is no way I would have picked Osaka had she been a top 15 player. She has done nothing in a long time.
And I will spot you for this, which I consider a contradiction. You said Sakkari was not a top 20 player. Yet you put her in a fourth layer, with the sum of those 4 layers coming up to 19 players. Therefore, she is top 20.
And Halep as a player in the class below Iga? Sure, she won W in 2019. But she has dropped all the way to 15. That is extremely generous and it seems to me to be a fan speaking.

[Canucklehead]

Ok. Let's follow your idea.
How do you translate this layering into an actionable, objective method for players to enter a tournament?
To give you an example.
You know we are playing this contest called HRtNY. Of the top 15 players, Kontaveit, Muguruza and Bencic have been picked BY NO ONE. So, the opinion of about 10 players is that indeed, Kontaveit is not a #2. Nor 3, nor 4, 5, 6, etc.
But, we took Osaka and Rybakina (some did, like myself) but it was only because, I guess, they were in the B category, and were, therefore, "cheap". But there is no way I would have picked Osaka had she been a top 15 player. She has done nothing in a long time.
And I will spot you for this, which I consider a contradiction. You said Sakkari was not a top 20 player. Yet you put her in a fourth layer, with the sum of those 4 layers coming up to 19 players. Therefore, she is top 20.
And Halep as a player in the class below Iga? Sure, she won W in 2019. But she has dropped all the way to 15. That is extremely generous and it seems to me to be a fan speaking.

I was glancing at this theory, and primarily was looking at the player Ons Jabeur who was in one of the lower layers listed. I cannot fathom the idea that at this time, Ons Jabeur would consistently be defeated by any of those players not named Iga that have been named in layers above her.

The 3 players listed in the tier right below Iga are Osaka and Halep, both of whom have had really nice careers, but are not at that 2nd tier level in their games right now. Rybakina was the other player listed, and granted she won Wimbledon, but what has she done beyond that?

[ashkor87]

I do think Jabeur would be defeated by Osaka, Rybakina..Halep .
As for Sakkari, yes maybe she is #19 but I have probably forgotten one or two ..like Cornet, whom I would rate above Sakkari right now .

[ashkor87]

Ok. Let's follow your idea.
How do you translate this layering into an actionable, objective method for players to enter a tournament?
To give you an example.
You know we are playing this contest called HRtNY. Of the top 15 players, Kontaveit, Muguruza and Bencic have been picked BY NO ONE. So, the opinion of about 10 players is that indeed, Kontaveit is not a #2. Nor 3, nor 4, 5, 6, etc.
But, we took Osaka and Rybakina (some did, like myself) but it was only because, I guess, they were in the B category, and were, therefore, "cheap". But there is no way I would have picked Osaka had she been a top 15 player. She has done nothing in a long time.
And I will spot you for this, which I consider a contradiction. You said Sakkari was not a top 20 player. Yet you put her in a fourth layer, with the sum of those 4 layers coming up to 19 players. Therefore, she is top 20.
And Halep as a player in the class below Iga? Sure, she won W in 2019. But she has dropped all the way to 15. That is extremely generous and it seems to me to be a fan speaking.

I am .not playing but overlooking Bencic, one of the best hard court players in the world, seems to be a mistake!

[ashkor87]

What to do about rankings,? Ignore them, I would say. Focus on how good the player is, how well she can play, how well is she playing, is there any reason to think she has lost it...

[ponchi101]

Ah, but then we are talking about two separate things.
The rankings are the measure for an entire year of performance, and we agree there. Prior to Roland Garros, Rafa had a lousy clay court season. Yet, when RG started, everybody said, from the start, that the real final was his QF vs Novak. And we were mostly right.
I find your idea that Osaka is a second tier player, at the moment, driven by past results. Nobody is denying Osaka, when she was #1, was an absolute force. But right now, it has been two years of turmoil, and no results to speak of. So, her ranking around the 40's is granted and those of us that took her in our teams are now paying for it, as she is not producing.
Bencic as one of the world's best hard court players is also generous of you. Belinda has never reached an MS1000 final, much less win one. Sure, it is her best surface, but that does not make her one of the best. Although I think this week she plays until she meets Iga.
Half joke here. If you ignore the rankings, why are you bringing them up so frequently? I say don't ignore them; they are telling us about the great parity. But when somebody reaches #2, you also have to give them credit. These men and women have worked all their lives for these positions. I say, they have earned them.
Until we find a better system.

[ashkor87]

Bencic is also Olympic champion, something I had predicted too, sort of, anyway

[ashkor87]

And bencic won the Premier level Canadian in 2015, beating Serena ..never won a Ms1000,?! That is only because they were called Premier events then..also Dubai, then called a Premier 5

[meganfernandez]

What to do about rankings,? Ignore them, I would say. Focus on how good the player is, how well she can play, how well is she playing, is there any reason to think she has lost it...

Accept them for what they are. Realize they're an objective, foolproof expression of a subjective value system. The results can serve as a point of reflection to evaluate that system, but one should articulate their values first without bias and defer to those when they don't like the results.

An example: The magazine where I used to work came up with a formula for evaluating schools. A formula is an expression of values. Once they applied the formula, they didn't like the results - a certain prestigious private school was ranked lower than a school that wasn't respected as much. They thought surely that can't be right. They had a bias. So they revisited the formula. Surely they hadn't expressed their values correctly. Should the average SAT scores count double? Should the graduation rate count less? That's fine as long as they remained unbiased to the result and weren't trying to find a formula that put the prestigious school over the underdog. There can be a control in these situations, but I think there's a science to that. And these editors were definitely not scientists. You can very easily abandon the truth for a preconception.

[ponchi101]

And bencic won the Premier level Canadian in 2015, beating Serena ..never won a Ms1000,?! That is only because they were called Premier events then..also Dubai, then called a Premier 5

Yes, that would be semantics from my side. I did not look that up, and you are correct there.