My Way Too Early Predictions For 2022 Grand Slam Season

The 2021 grand slam season just ended and I already can't wait until the next one begins. Unfortunately, the gap between the importance of the grand slams and the ATP Tour has continued to increase. I don't think that's good for the sport in the long run, but that's the reality of where we are at right now. With three players simultaneously competing for the all-time grand slam titles record, everything else has significantly diminished importance in comparison. So with that, here are my top-5 favorites for each of the majors in 2022.

Australian Open
1. Daniil Medvedev
2. Novak Djokovic
3. Alexander Zverev
4. Matteo Berrettini
5. Andrey Rublev

It has been a long time since a tennis player won the very next major after having won their first career major title, but Medvedev has a chance to end that slump by first-time major champions. He's been the best player on hard courts for the last three years and was overdue for a major title. He's ready to be a multi-grand slam champion, and deserves to be the favorite for now after the performance he had yesterday.

Djokovic is the co-favorite with Medvedev, because he absolutely owns Melbourne Park. He'll be highly motivated to put the disappointment of the US Open final behind him and be the first tennis player to reach 21 grand slam titles. If anyone else wins, it would be a surprise, but Zverev is definitely a contender. He won the Olympics and pushed Djokovic to five sets at the US Open. His ability to win over five sets has been a serious question earlier in his career, but he has progressed in this area. Maybe 2022 will finally be his year.

Roland Garros
1. Novak Djokovic
2. Rafael Nadal
3. Dominic Thiem
4. Alexander Zverev
5. Jannik Sinner

This one really feels wide open. Nobody knows what Nadal's level will be at when he returns. If he's near his best, he's the favorite. Djokovic is able to win on any surface, but the same isn't true of his younger challengers. Tsitsipas and Zverev have had some success on clay, but Tsitsipas is inconsistent in the majors, and Zverev has never even reached the final in Paris. Sinner is still probably too young to win the title.

Ever since Thiem became a major champion, he has struggled to regain the form that saw him being competitive with Djokovic and Nadal. Now he has been away from the tour with a wrist injury. Like Nadal, if Thiem is healthy, he could definitely win the title.

Wimbledon
1. Novak Djokovic
2. Matteo Berrettini
3. Denis Shapovalov
4. Daniil Medvedev
5. Hubert Hurkacz

No, Roger Federer does not have a realistic chance to win Wimbledon in 2022. Djokovic will be a massive favorite at Wimbledon, but if he hasn't won his 21st major by then, the pressure will start to mount on him to break the record. Berrettini proved this summer that he is the best player in his age group on grass. Players from Poland and Canada have done well recently on grass, so perhaps Hurkacz, Auger-Aliassime or Shapovalov could make an improbable run. Andy Murray, Juan Martin del Potro or Stan Wawrinka are more likely to roll back the clocks at Wimbledon than anywhere else, but I wouldn't bet on it. 

US Open
1. Daniil Medvedev
2. Alexander Zverev
3. Novak Djokovic
4. Dominic Thiem
5. Andrey Rublev

Medvedev is the defending champion and the best player in North America for three years. I considered him the player to beat even at this year's US Open. Djokovic will be 35 at this point, so I'd give Zverev a slight edge over Djokovic. Thiem won his first major at the US Open in 2020 and Rublev has a game that is suited well by the conditions in New York. Both of them are legitimate contenders at the next US Open. Perhaps Rublev seeing his fellow Russian lift the trophy will motivate him for the 2022 season.

I'd probably put Tsitsipas as the sixth-most likely to win the title at all four of these majors. I wouldn't be surprised if he wins one title in 2022, but I don't know where. He has been inconsistent in majors and did not look good in Wimbledon or the US Open. He was one set away from winning his first major title at Roland Garros, but he might not be that close again for a while.

Caspar Ruud, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Alex de Minaur and Jannik Sinner will all be contenders at the grand slams at some point, but I don't think any of them are ready for that in 2022. Sinner or Ruud on clay might be the one exception. Reaching multiple semifinals in 2022 would constitute a good year for any of these four up-and-comers.

Wimbledon Predictions For Week 2

Since there is no tennis on the Lord's Day, it's a great opportunity to look at where things stand going into the second week of the gentlemen's singles draw at Wimbledon 2021. In particular, I was curious about what each of the 16 players' odds in terms of percentage are of lifting the trophy at the end of the fortnight.

Logically, every player has a 1 in 16 chance, which comes out to about a six percent chance of winning the title. However, not all players are created equally, nor is the draw, leaving some players with a better chance than others.

What I want to do here is explain my methodology for determining the percentage odds that each of the 16 players win the title. Then I will update those odds throughout the second week on my Twitter account (@jaredpinetennis). But before we get any farther, here are the odds for each player.

Djokovic, unsurprisingly, is the favorite to win the title with a 33% chance followed by Medvedev and Zverev. Medvedev has the clearest path to the semifinals, but Bautista Agut also has a favorable draw. Federer is unlikely to advance much further based on these odds, and Fucsovics is the least likely player to win the title.

I developed this predictor just over the last two days, but some of the methodology is based on work I have done in other areas. I've never been taught the Elo rating system or Elo predicting methods, so this predictor is very amateur, but it is also entirely independent in its methodology as a result, which makes it unique.

The first part of developing this predictor was to come up with a rating for each player. Someone smarter than me could have figured out a way to rate all 128 players, but I could only fit 38 names on an excel sheet on my screen at once, so I only ranked the top 38 players in the current ATP rankings. That left three of the players in the round of 16 off the rating chart, so I simply listed them at replacement level.

Then I collected all results of those 38 players going back to Cincinnati 2021. Based on their results, each player received a rating between 16.2 (Djokovic) and -11 (Fognini) with a method that would take too long to explain here. The ratings that were produced correspond closely to the current ATP rankings.

The next step was the calculate what the odds of an upset are. Not all upsets are the same though. Zverev beating Tsitsipas is much more likely than Goffin beating Djokovic. The way I calculated the odds of an upset was to look at the frequency with which a player beat someone that they were four points better than over the last 12 months. The answer was 68% of the time. So if you are playing someone that you are four points better than, you have approximately a 68% chance of winning that match. Sample sizes were still a little small even with 12 months of data to work with, so I used a rolling average to smooth out some of the outliers. The result was that there is a 53% chance of beating someone that you are two points better than, and an 88% chance of beating someone you are 20 or more points better than.

I then used this method to calculate the odds that each player would win their next four matches. The difficulty starts with the second match. Nobody knows who they will face in the quarterfinals if they win in the fourth round. Therefore, it was necessary to determine the odds also that each player had of facing each opponent. So to determine the odds that each player has of reaching the quarterfinals, the formula is: odds of reaching the quarterfinals multiplied by the odds of beating the first possible opponent multiplied by the odds of that opponent reaching the quarterfinals plus the odds of beating the second possible opponent multiplied by the odds of that opponent reaching the quarterfinals. Remember your order of operations.

This gets even more complicated when there are four possible opponents in the semifinals and eight possible opponents in the final. Knowing how to right code would have made this much easier than doing all the calculations in an excel sheet. I really should have paid more attention in my computer science class, instead of developing an MVP calculator for the MLB while my professor was lecturing.

There are 32,768 different ways that the last week of Wimbledon can turn out. This methodology essentially considers all 32,768 possibilities, then it calculates the odds of each of these unique outcomes, and finally it adds up the odds of all the 2048 outcomes that have Djokovic as champion for a sum of a 33% chance that Djokovic will be the champion.

Before I finish writing, I do want to acknowledge a few weaknesses in the methodology in order to help anyone interesting to rightly interpret the data in the table. The first weakness is that in considering all the results since Cincinnati 2020, results on clay are over-represented, because Rome and Roland Garros have both been played twice in that span. That means players that excel on clay are overrated in this system. In particular, Sonego is slightly overrated and I think Shapovalov is underrated. 

The other main weakness is that the rating system does not take into consideration whether a match was played at Wimbledon or a 250 on clay. Certainly a result from last week at Wimbledon should carry more weight for predicting futures matches at Wimbledon than a best-of-3 match played on clay back in October 2020.

The way that both of these areas of weakness in the methodology impact the final data is that it inflates the possibility of an upset. That's good news for Djokovic and Medvedev fans, who probably think their players have a better chance of winning than just 33 or 27 percent.

What will be interesting to watch now is to see how the odds go up with each passing match. As the list of possible champions drops from 16 to 8 over the course of Manic Monday, how much will that help each players' odds of winning the title? I'm especially curious to see how a result on the opposite side of the draw might affect a players' odds. Obviously, if Djokovic loses, everybody's odds will go up. But if Hurkacz loses to Medvedev, what impact if any will that have on Djokovic's odds of winning the title?

These are the kind of things I want to keep an eye on as I update the odds on Twitter throughout the next week.

Ranking By Tournament

I want to update a stat that I shared in the past. It is the ranking of Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, and Rafael Nadal at all 14 of the biggest events on the ATP Calendar. What this stat does is it looks at where a player ranks in the history of Indian Wells for example based on career ranking points accumulated (using the current ranking formula). Here are the rankings of each of the three best players in tennis history at each tournament.

Novak Djokovic

First (2): Shanghai, Paris

Second (9): Australian Open, Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo, Rome, 

                   Roland Garros, Canada, Cincinnati, Year-End Finals

Third (2): Madrid, Wimbledon

Fourth (1): US Open

Roger Federer

First (5): Australian Open, Indian Wells, Wimbledon, Cincinnati, Year-End Finals

Second (2): Madrid, US Open

Third (5): Miami, Rome, Roland Garros, Shanghai

Fourth (3): Monte Carlo, Canada, Paris

Rafael Nadal

First (5): Monte Carlo, Madrid, Rome, Roland Garros, Canada

Second (0):

Third (1): Indian Wells

Fourth (2): Shanghai, Australian Open

Fifth or lower (6): Miami, Wimbledon, Cincinnati, US Open, Paris, Year-End Finals

Nadal and Federer are each the best player in over one third of all of the most important events on tour. Djokovic ranks among the top-2 at 11 of the 14 events. Both Federer and Djokovic rank in the top-4 at every event, and if Djokovic reaches the semifinals at the US Open, he will be in the top-3 for every tournament.

Over the next 12 months, Djokovic has a strong chance to move up one spot at Wimbledon (needs to reach the final), US Open (needs to reach the semifinals) and the Australian Open (needs to reach the quarterfinals or better if Federer does well). He also has a chance to retake the lead in Canada depending on how well Nadal performs at that tournament.

Nadal, over the next 12 months, has a chance to catch Djokovic at Indian Wells if he wins the tournament and Djokovic loses in the semifinals or earlier. He could also catch Federer for fourth place in Paris if he reaches the final there. If Nadal reaches the semifinals at the Australian Open, he would move into third place, but he is stuck in fifth place or lower at Wimbledon and the US Open at least for this year.

Federer doesn't have much room to improve. He could perhaps catch Djokovic in Miami or Agassi in Canada, but it is mathematically impossible to change his ranking at any of the majors. The best thing Federer can do is continue to perform well to make it harder for Nadal and Djokovic to catch up to him.

The GOAT Debate & Short Memory

Right now, there are a wave of people admitting for the first time that Novak Djokovic is the GOAT after having won his second Roland Garros title to become the first player in the Open Era to complete the Double Career Grand Slam just a few months after having broken Roger Federer's record for Weeks at No. 1.

Djokovic is also very close to breaking two other important records that belong to Federer and Rafael Nadal. He needs one more grand slam title and two more wins over top-10 ranked opponents to tie the career records for both of those stats. He also has winning head-to-head records against both Federer and Nadal as well as at least two titles at every single Elite 14 event, while nobody else has at least one.

The case for Djokovic being the GOAT is stronger than it has ever been. However, we still need to zoom out and consider all of the last 20 years of tennis from Federer, Djokovic and Nadal before we crown Djokovic the GOAT.

There are non-traditional records that all three of these greats hold. Federer has the most-consecutive weeks at No. 1. Djokovic has beaten both of his rivals at all four majors, and has been ranked No. 1 by the largest margin ever. Nadal, meanwhile, has the most titles at any single grand slam with 13 at Roland Garros. These are non-traditional in the sense that they aren't simple counting statistics like total grand slams won, total big titles, total weeks at No. 1, total top-10 wins, etc.

The tricky thing about these records is that recency bias can cause us to overvalue certain achievements. Not long ago, winning Roland Garros and Wimbledon was considered a very important achievement for becoming the GOAT. However, since it hasn't been achieved in a long time, it has become considered less valuable.

It is very possible that something similar happens to Djokovic's achievement of winning every important tournament multiple times. It is such a unique achievement that is so unlikely to be repeated, which makes it an achievement that could be easily forgotten. It's an unbelievable achievement that is on our minds right now because it was just completed, but will it be at the forefront of the GOAT debate in 10 years? Probably not.

The more traditional records, not impossible to repeat achievements, will be what holds the most weight in the GOAT debate once all three of these players have played their last match. Fair or not, those are the standard metrics for determining who is the GOAT. The one possible exception is if Djokovic finishes his career with all the big records. Then, the Federer and Nadal fans will want to talk about anything but statistics.

So the question is: has Djokovic done enough to retire today and be considered the GOAT? I don't think it is case closed yet. Federer still has a lot of cumulative stats where he is far ahead of Djokovic, making his case for being the GOAT still quite strong. Federer also has several records for longest streaks that Djokovic will never be able to break.

Let's take a look at what some of these records are.

These are the cumulative records, where Federer often leads merely because he is older, and Djokovic is likely to overtake him in a matter of time.

Grand Slam Titles: Federer 20, Djokovic 19

Grand Slam Finals: Federer 31, Djokovic 29

Grand Slam Semifinals: Federer 46, Djokovic 40

Grand Slam Quarterfinals: Federer 57, Djokovic 49

Grand Slam Wins: Federer 365, Djokovic 310

Top-10 Wins: Federer 224, Djokovic 222

ATP Finals Titles: Federer 6, Djokovic 5

There is also my personal favorite stat of rankings points earned.

At Majors: Federer 70,495, Djokovic 62,485

At All Elite 14: Federer 139k, Djokovic 131k

These are the records for longest streaks that Federer has over Djokovic.

Weeks at No. 1: Federer 237, Djokovic 122

Year-end No. 1: Federer 4, Djokovic 2

Grand Slam Finals: Federer 10, Djokovic 6

Grand Slam Semifinals: Federer 23, Djokovic 14

Grand Slam Quarterfinals: Federer 36, Djokovic 28

I don't think much weight should be given to Federer's records for longest streaks. They do display his dominance and consistency, which is why they can't be completely ignored. However, they aren't as important as cumulative records, since they don't take into consideration a player's entire career.

In response to Federer's lead in these cumulative stats, Djokovic has a couple counter arguments. The first is to note that Djokovic also leads several important cumulative stats: Weeks at No. 1, Year-End No. 1, ATP Masters 1000 titles, head-to-head record, etc. The other thing is to note that Djokovic's career so far is significantly shorter. Jimmy Connors' career dragged on and he accumulated lots of decent results because he refused to retire, which is why he is still the record holder for ATP matches and titles won. However, nobody would say he was better than Pete Sampras. While Federer's longevity rightfully strengthens his case for being the GOAT, winning over and over in Halle and Basel shouldn't be part of his resume.

Still, Federer still has some important arguments in his favor. Djokovic will need to chase down a few of those records and shrink the gap in others in order to really make this case closed, because some of the metrics that Federer still leads are very important in the GOAT debate.

311 Weeks: A look back

Novak Djokovic has been the best tennis player in the world over the last 10 years, so it might seem like no surprise that Djokovic has surpassed Roger Federer's record of 311 weeks as the No. 1 player in the world. However, if we go back in time nearly a decade, I think we will get a more accurate perspective of just how improbable this record was and how truly remarkable it still is.

On July 4, 2011, Djokovic was listed as the No. 1 tennis player in the ATP weekly rankings for the first time in his career. I still believe this is his most impressive week as the No. 1 player in the world to date out of the 311 there are to choose from. Federer and Rafael Nadal had just won 25 out of the last 30 major titles. Just to get to No. 1 in the world, Djokovic had to come back from match points down to defeat Federer in the US Open semifinals, lead Serbia to the Davis Cup title, win the Australian Open defeat Nadal in the finals of Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid and Rome, while riding a 42-match winning streak. As if that wasn't enough he had to win his maiden Wimbledon crown and defeat Nadal in the championship match.

All that work landed Djokovic one week at No. 1. At the time, Pete Sampras had 286, Federer 285, Ivan Lendl 270 and Jimmy Connors 268. Djokovic was 24 at the time and ranked No. 1, while Federer was 29 years old and ranked No. 3.

At that point in Federer's career, pundits were rightly impressed that Federer was still playing well enough at 29 to be ranked No. 3 in the world, having reached the final at just one of the last four majors. After all, Federer's contemporaries: Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Tommy Haas, David Nalbandian, James Blake, etc. They were all ranked well outside the top-20 and were wrapping up impressive careers in professional tennis.

Only an optimistic Djokovic fan would have been bold enough to predict the Serb could still battle for No. 1 in the world five years later when he reached Federer's ripe age of 29. And even if Djokovic managed to remain the No. 1 player in the world for five-consecutive years (a record of its own), he still wouldn't have even reached Jimmy Connors on the all-time leaders list.

And don't forget about Nadal. He had just been the runner-up at seven different tournaments in 2011, which is his career-high. There were other challengers that Djokovic had to fight off to guard his No. 1 ranking. Players like Andy Murray, Robin Soderling, Juan Martin del Potro, Tomas Berdych, David Ferrer, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Stan Wawrinka were growing in belief that they too could reach the pinnacle of the ATP rankings after seeing what Djokovic had done.

To suggest that Djokovic might get anywhere near 300 weeks as the No. 1 player in the world would have been unfathomable. Djokovic's best chance to leave his mark on tennis was to finish 2011 strong and let it stand as one of the best single-season performances in tennis history. Getting his name even halfway up the list of former ATP No. 1 Players was an unachievable goal.

Yet, here we are...

Djokovic has subsequently scaled the ladder to the top of the rankings four different times and has remained there at least 35 weeks each time, and counting.

The longest run as the No. 1 player in the world was his third, lasting 122 before before injuries ended the streak. His age at the time: 29. His total stalled out at 223, which was good enough for fifth all time.

Djokovic had two wait exactly two years before he returned to the top-spot in the rankings. I said earlier that his first week was the most impressive of all 311. Well, the 224th has to be the second-most impressive in my opinion.

After rushing his return from injury, the first half of Djokovic's 2018 season imploded and his ranking dropped out of the top-20 for the first time in nearly a dozen years. Things started to turn around when he reached the final at Queen's Club. Then he reached the semifinals of Wimbledon, where he played in an instant classic against Nadal. Djokovic won 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(9), 3-6, 10-8 and went on to win the title, his fourth Wimbledon title.

A month later, Djokovic won the illusive Cincinnati title to complete his trophy case with at least one from all 14 of the elite events around the tour. At the US Open, he only dropped two set and won all of the last 16. He eventually won Shanghai and reached the finals of Paris and the ATP Finals to climb 20 spots in the rankings and return to No. 1 in the world.

Djokovic's current run atop the ATP rankings at nearly 34-years old is impressive in its own way. The Serb won the 2020 Australian Open winning the final in five sets over an opponents six years his junior to take back the No. 1 ranking. It was his 17th major title and put him within striking distance of a once unreachable record at a point in his career when past tennis greats would be starting a broadcasting career.

This run doesn't have an end in sight. Djokovic has secured the No. 1 ranking for at least another month, despite constantly changing ranking rules that have massively benefitted his chief rivals. Djokovic didn't just break Federer's record today. He is beginning the process of smashing that record. 

The Case For Pete Sampras As GOAT

 I'm as surprised as anyone for what the title of this blog post ended up being. I did not expect the results of this study to be so lop-sided. I thought this would favor Roger Federer or maybe Rafael Nadal. Instead, it's Pete Sampras who comes out looking really good.

In the Open Era of the ATP, there have been 26 different players who have ascended into the top spot of the sport's rankings. What I wanted to do was analyze the head-to-head records of every one of those 26 players against each other.

In the GOAT debate, we often talk about the head-to-head records of Federer, Nadal and Novak Djokovic. This comparison leaves Djokovic head and shoulders above his two closest rivals. However, Federer has had many rivals in his career, and his wins against those players shouldn't be discounted. That was the motivation behind doing the research, but the result was not what I expected.

Before I get into the overall numbers, I want to point out one interesting stat. In all these head-to-head comparisons, the older players in each matchup had a total of 808 wins compared to the 690 wins for the younger players. In other words, the older player has a significant advantage and should lead the head-to-head record against his younger rival. This makes it all the more impressive that Djokovic leads the head-to-head record against his elder rivals Federer and Nadal.

Here are the leaders in win percentage against players who were ranked No. 1 at some point in their career:

1. Pete Sampras - 66.9%
2. Rafael Nadal - 61.1%
3. Bjorn Borg - 60.3%
4. Boris Becker - 60.0%
5. Roger Federer - 59.4%
6. Ivan Lendl - 58.3%
7. Novak Djokovic - 56.9%
8. Andre Agassi - 53.3%
9. Lleyton Hewitt - 50.0%
9. Gustavo Kuerten - 50.0%

These are the leaders in total wins:

1. Roger Federer - 133
2. Pete Sampras - 115
3. Ivan Lendl - 102
4. Rafael Nadal - 99
5. Andre Agassi - 97
6. Novak Djokovic - 95
7. Boris Becker - 87
8. Stefan Edberg - 74
9. John McEnroe - 68
10. Lleyton Hewitt - 67

Thomas Muster goes down as the worst No. 1 in ATP history based on these numbers, which is nothing to be ashamed of. He won just 31.6 percent of his matches against No. 1s and he has another loss coming his way if Dominic Thiem ever reaches No. 1 in the world.

For Sampras, the numbers are staggering. He doesn't have such a high winning percentage because of a small sample size. He also has the second most wins of any player. Sampras collected wins against 17 of the other 25 world No. 1s. The only one he never beat that he played against was Roger Federer in a five-set match at the very end of Sampras' career.

Sampras' wins span from Jimmy Connors, who was the third player to reach the top of the rankings all the way to Andy Roddick, who was the 23rd. Sampras got double-digit wins against five different players: Boris Becker, Jim Courier, Andre Agassi, Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Patrick Rafter. The only one to return the favor was Agassi.

Of the 17 world No. 1s that Sampras played against, only three have a winning record against him: Roger Federer, Lleyton Hewitt and Marat Safin. None of them ever played him more than nine times.

When it comes to the best playing against the best, Pete Sampras simply is the best. That's why he is still the greatest tennis player of all time.