Future of the ATP heads to Binghamton

Typically, it's the Grade A events on the Junior Tour that are the best preview of the future of tennis, but this week the Binghamton Challenger has an all-star line-up of the young stars on the ATP World Tour and it is getting under way with the main draw action today.

Here is a breakdown of the line-up at Binghamton:

Kyle Edmund - The tournament's top seed took a wild card to get the chance to be a part of the this incredible list of players. The 20-year old, ranked just outside the top 100 at 113, is the hope of British tennis fans, who want to see another Wimbledon champion from their country. Edmund reached the semifinals of the junior Wimbledon tournament in 2013, but has yet to get through the first round in the gentlemen's draw. Unlike most British players, Edmund actually plays just as well on clay as he does on hard courts, making his future particularly bright.

Bjorn Fratangelo - The No. 2 seed in Binghamton is the top hope of the home fans at Binghamton to take the title. The American is ranked No. 125 in the world at just 22-years old. He captured his first Challenger Tour title in February this year in Australia and has continued to build his ranking. He has a lot of ranking points to defend in September, so his best shot to crack the top 100 for the first time is in these next few weeks.

Liam Broady - The 21-year old left-hander is the tournament's No. 3 seed. The Brit is enjoying a career-high ranking of 159 after getting his first grand slam victory with a five-set win over Marinko Matosevic after trailing two sets to love. Now, it's time to see how he will back up that incredible win as he makes a push for the top 100.

Guilherme Clezar - The Brazilian completes the quartet of top four seeds that are 22-years old or younger. Clezar is out of his niche a little bit being in a hard-court event in North America. He has not successfully qualified for a grand slam in 10 tries in his career, so the decision to play Binghampton was probably motivated by getting himself prepared to qualify for the US Open. It will be interesting to see if the decision pays off.

Jared Donaldson - The No. 5 seed is the highest ranked teenager in the draw and he is only 18-years old. In fact, there are only two players in the world younger than Donaldson that are ranked higher than him. The American captured his first Challenger Tour title earlier this year at Maui. He has a good spot in the draw and could certainly make a run this week.

Ernesto Escobedo - The 19-year old qualified for the main draw this morning and then drew the top seed, making for an exciting first-round match. Escobedo's last year has been plagued by injuries and coaching changes, but his results of late have been much better as he has gone 15-6 going back to May. He is still one of the best teenagers in the world and a big source of hope for American tennis fans.

Omar Jasika - The former junior US Open champion has translated nicely to the ATP World Tour, reaching a career-high ranking this week of 283 at just 18-years old. He has won back-to-back futures events, and pulled off one of the biggest upsets on the Challenger Tour of the year back in March, when, as a qualifier, he took out Hyeon Chung in the first round in Le Gosier.

Noah Rubin - The former junior Wimbledon champion spent most of his 2015 tennis season playing for Wake Forest instead of playing professional tennis, but earlier this year he did reach a career-high ranking of 532. He got a wildcard into the main draw and will face Jasika in a first-round blockbuster.

Tommy Paul - Just weeks after winning the junior Roland Garros title, the American is back to playing a professional tournament for the first time. The last time he was playing a professional event, he was winning a futures title in Italy. In fact, he went 13-1 on the futures tour in the month of May. He hasn't reached that level of success on the Challenger Tour yet, but a wildcard into Binghampton could help change that.

Mitchell Krueger - The 21-year old American is enjoying the best year of his career, ranking No. 220 in the YTD rankings. As a junior, he defeated Kyle Edmund at Wimbledon and he could face the Brit again in the quarterfinals.

Dennis Novikov - The UCLA tennis star cracked the top 200 earlier this year. The 6-foot-4 American is best known for his win over Jerzy Janowicz at the US Open in 2012. He's now 21-years old and playing a full schedule of events. His first-round match is against former University of Michigan star Jason Jung, which will be a thrilling match for all college tennis fans.

Reilly Opelka - Fresh off his junior Wimbledon title, the American giant is received a wildcard into his first Challenger Tour main draw. The 17-year old that stands at 6-foot-10 will face a qualifier in the first round. Opelka is already drawing comparisons to John Isner and as he continues to develop, he could certainly become as successful as the top-ranked American.

Marcos Giron - The 21-year old is one of the best college tennis players since Steve Johnson and is just now getting his first full season as a professional. Just a couple weeks ago at the Winnetka Challenger, Giron got through qualifying and then earned his first main draw victory in a Challenger event of the season. He reached the main draw in Binghamton as a qualifier after collecting a pair of straight-set wins.

Nicolas Jarry - The 19-year old Chilean has had very little success in his career on hard courts, but that hasn't stopped him from crashing the top 200 earlier this season. This is only his fourth career main draw appearance at a hard court event as a professional and his only win so far came on the futures tour. He gets Nicolas Meister in the first round, who was another former college player to qualify.

Frances Tiafoe - This 17-year old American is probably the biggest single reason to watch the action in Binghamton. He just reached a career-high ranking of 284 after starting the year ranked outside of the top 1000. He has only played one hard court event on the Challenger Tour so far and lost in the first round. On the futures tour, however, he reached finals of back-to-back hard court tournaments and won the title at the first of the two.

Djokovic's 2015 Among Best Seasons Ever

Immediately after Novak Djokovic's victory in the Wimbledon final over Roger Federer on Sunday, comparisons were being made between what Djokovic did to start 2011 and what he has done so far this year.

I wanted to take an in depth look at that comparison, but I realized that would almost be insulting to Djokovic. He isn't only having arguably the best start to a season of his career - he's having arguably the best start to a season ever.

I should clarify after using a loaded work like "ever". When comparing specifics of just a portion of a season, it becomes drastically harder to compare players from different generations. Although I am a firm believer that comparing a player's career from the 1970s with a current player is very doable, it isn't so simple when you are only comparing a portion of a season. So for this research piece, I only focused on results since 1990, when the Masters Series format was introduced.

I looked at how every year-end champion did from the start of the season to the end of Wimbledon and compared their results.

All ranking points are adjusted as best as possible to equal the
current ranking system. It's not perfect, but it was my best attempt.

Djokovic's 2015 season ranks at the top for ranking points earned to start a season as well as wins against top 10 opponents in that span. For total wins in such a span, Federer's 2005 season leads the way with 59 wins, but for win percentage, Djokovic's 2011 sets the top mark after winning 48-of-49 matches. In titles, Pete Sampras' 1994, Djokovic's 2011, and Federer's 2005 all have eight.

What Federer did in 2006 and what Rafael Nadal did in 2008 each rank among the top in several categories as well. Those six half seasons represent the best tennis has ever seen, so I limited the rest of my research to a more detailed breakdown of those six seasons.

The main problem with the stats in the table above is the limitation of the "top 10 wins" stat. That category treats a win over the No. 11 as equal to a win over the No. 111 and a win over the No. 1 as equal to a win over the No. 10. What's so magical about the top 10?

So I did a more detailed break down of the difficulty of opponents.

I looked at the ranking of each of their opponents and calculated the mean and median of their ranking. I also looked at what percentage of their opponents faced were ranked in the top 10, top 20, and top 30.

The two seasons that stand out for toughest schedule both belong to Djokovic. In his 2011 season, he faced the lowest ranked opponents on average, and had the highest percentage of opponents being ranked in the top 30. Yet that season, he had the best record of anyone going 48-1.

The 2015 season for Djokovic has arguably been the tougher of the two in terms of difficulty of opponent with the Serb facing opponents with a median ranking of 25. He has also had to face by far the highest percentage of top 10 opponents this season as well as the most top 20 opponents.

The only season that comes close in difficulty of schedule is Nadal's 2008 season in which he suffered seven losses before the end of Wimbledon and failed to collect 9000 ranking points.
Federer's 2006 season features one of the easiest schedules on this list, which takes away from the incredible results the Swiss posted in the first half of that season.

If the way to measure the greatness of a season is degree of success compared to degree of difficulty, what Novak Djokovic did in the first half of 2011 and so far in 2015 is by far the best tennis has ever seen. Djokovic this year has faced double the percentage of top 10 players that Federer faced in 2006 and has still managed a higher winning percentage, the same number of titles, and more total ranking points earned despite playing one less tournament.

If the current world No. 1 can keep up the pace for the rest of this 2015 season (which certainly seems possible since the rest of the season will be played on his favorite surface), we could be watching the greatest single season of tennis in at least the last 25 years.

Novak Djokovic as World No. 1

While the proposition of having to face Roger Federer in a Wimbledon final is a difficult one for Novak Djokovic, there is some benefit for the Serb in Andy Murray's loss. The Brit presents Djokovic's biggest mathematical threat for the No. 1 ranking, but after outlasting Murray in his home touranment, Djokovic has extended his lead over the current world No. 3.

Following Roland Garros, the Serb had the No. 1 ranking clinched going into the US Open, and following the semifinal matches at Wimbledon, Djokovic's is guaranteed to remain ranked ahead of Murray until October 12.

Djokovic's lead is greater than that though. Even if Murray wins all of his matches for the rest of the year, he won't have as many ranking points as Djokovic has now. The maximum possible year-end ranking points Murray can get is 13,350. And even if Murray does win every match for the rest of the year, it's still possible that Djokovic will hold him off for the year-end No. 1.

From the start of the Australian Open to the end of Monte Carlo, Djokovic will have far more points to defend than Murray with his only chance to gain points coming in Dubai. That means that while Djokovic's No. 1 spot is safe for the next few months, Murray or even potentially Roger Federer could be making a run for that No. 1 ranking in the early parts of the 2016 season.

*There is one possibility for Federer to get to be the world No. 1, which would be one week after the US Open. However, the very next week he is guaranteed to lose the No. 1 ranking to Djokovic if that scenario does play out, because he will be losing his 1000 points from Shanghai before he has a chance to defend them. His next chance to get it back would come the week after Shanghai after he has the chance to gain those points back. In order for Federer to gain enough points for that to even be possible, Murray would be completely out of the hunt with no better than finalists appearances in every tournament.

Djokovic against one-handers

The 2015 Wimbledon final is set with Serbian Novak Djokovic taking on the No. 2 seed Roger Federer from Switzerland as they meet in the final of tennis' most prestigious tournament for the second time in a row.

The two top-ranked players are meeting for the 40th time in their careers, becoming just the second pair in the Open Era to meet each other 40 times, while the other pair is Djokovic and his primary rival, Rafael Nadal.

One of the important aspects of this
match will be the Federer-backhand. However, unlike when Federer plays Nadal, it's not a weakness to be attacked, but a weapon that's a cause for concern for the Serb.

The Swiss has held serve in 89-of-90 service games en route to his 10th career final at the All England Club this fortnight, meaning the pressure will be on the defending champion to keep pace on his own serve.
Federer's one-hander won't be such a problem for Djokovic in the long rallies, but it will be when Federer is returning. The key to holding serve over and over on grass is being able to count on getting free points off the serve. However, nobody is harder to get free points against with serve than Federer.

Since he has a one-handed backhand, he has more reach on the backhand side than most two-handed players, allowing him to cover the forehand side without having to worry about exposing himself to aces on the other side.

The other area, where Djokovic will have trouble with the seven-time champion's backhand is with his slice return. Federer uses the slice to return on both first and second serves and he isn't afraid to follow it into the net. Federer had success with that tactic against Djokovic at Indian Wells, and it will be even more effective on the grass.

Since the start of 2014, eight of Djokovic's 11 losses have come against players that possess one-handed backhands. Four of those losses came to Federer himself, and two others came in majors agaisnt Stan Wawrinka, who also frequently chips off the backhand side.

Though 73% of Djokovic's losses in the last year and a half have come against players with one-handed backhands, those players make up a very small portion of the top 100. However, Djokovic just ran into one of the players that make up that very small portion when he faced Richard Gasquet in the semifinals.

Djokovic has also had problems in his career
with players like Tommy Haas and Grigor Dimitrov.

Gasquet lacks the wingspan of Federer and doesn't chip on his returns as well or as often, but Djokovic's form on serve in the match was very convincing. The Serb won 70% of points on serve and despite facing four break points in the match, was only broken once.

In the first round, Djokovic met German Philipp Kohlschreiber, whose return game is much more comparable to Federer's, and Djokovic again won 70% of points on serve, but was also broken twice. Against players with two-handed backhands, the Serb has had much more success this fortnight, winning 78% against Marin Cilic and 77% against Bernard Tomic.

Throughout the final on Sunday, it will be interesting to see how much Djokovic dares to go into the Federer forehand return, particularly with his second serve, or if Djokovic is willing to battle out long rallies that Federer starts with his backhand slice return.

ATP Challenger Tour

An interesting twitter discussion was sparked today centered around the crowd size (or lack there of) at Jared Hiltzik's quarterfinal match against Adrien Bossel in the Winnetka Challenger. Hiltzik, who turned 21-years old yesterday received a wildcard into the main draw of the tournament and has made the most of it, reaching the quarterfinals in the tournament in his home state.

Hiltzik grew up in Illinois and now plays for the Fighting Illini's men's tennis team, and now is playing in the most important match of his professional career in that same state, but you wouldn't know it by the crowd. At least that's what twitter is saying.

It's easy to feel for Hiltzik, who is getting less than the deserved support in such an important moment, and rightfully so. However, that is not a bash on the people of Illinois that weren't in attendance, but more of a comment on the state of the ATP Challenger Tour.

The tour provides some of the best tennis on the planet without doubt, yet it is often thought of or treated like a minor league. However, that is simply not the case. At the tournament, all of the top five seeds are ranked between 100 and 129. I'm certain that five of the top 200 players in any sport have every played in the same minor league game.

In fact, according to the CBS fantasy baseball rankings, the top 8 seeds in Winnetka are the equivalent of having Chris Davis, Jay Bruce, Gio Gonzalez, Jered Weaver, Jimmy Rollins, Justin Verlander, Matt Cain, and Joe Mauer all play in a baseball game.

Here's the catch though: All eight of those players have been named to all-star teams with a grand total of 28 all-star selections between the teams. So which is it, are they minor leaguers or all-stars?

I would argue that it is a lot closer to the latter. However, I don't need to explain how big the difference is between attention given to the MLB all-star game compared to even the most important Challenger Tour match.

So what's the problem? It certainly isn't the fault of the fans, but more of a journalism problem. The Challenger Tour is presented on the ATP website like it were the minor leagues. It's in the names even. The website is called the ATP World Tour, and calling events worth less than 250 points "the Challenger Tour" certainly gives off the affect that these are players who have not yet arrived on the big stage.

This problem is made worse by a lot of former players (the current players do a great job giving lower ranked players deserved credit). The worst of all is John McEnroe, who frequently calls anyone not ranked in the top 50 a "no-name player,"

Tennis is a sport driven by names and not uniform colors, but that doesn't mean that two players ranked outside the top 100 can't put on a very high quality display of tennis. Even the players outside the top 100 are more than capable of drawing in new fans. I got excited about junior level Grade 4 qualifying action in Costa Rica that I got to watch. I know not everyone on earth shares my passion for tennis, but what the Challenger Tour in person has to offer is enough to "Wow" even someone who has never seen tennis before.

If the Challenger Tour weren't seen or treated like the minor leagues of tennis, it certainly has all the aspects to draw in tennis fans around the world and sell tickets almost as much as any 250 event can. I don't expect that we will see the ATP make that change and start promoting the Challenger Tour much more than they already do, simply because there is a limited amount of man power to generate content on the website and on other platforms, but that is certainly one method to help grow the sport.