Who's the Best Tennis Player of All Time? (not who you think!)

[n2doc]

ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2011) — Fans may think of Jimmy Connors as an "old school" tennis player, but according to a new ranking system developed by a Northwestern University researcher, Connors is best player in the history of the game.

The rankings are published in PLoS ONE, a journal published by the Public Library of Science.

Male tennis players who played in at least one Association of Tennis Professionals match between 1968 and 2010 were evaluated through network analysis, said Filippo Radicchi, author of the study.

Ranking tennis players is a novel way to show how complex network analysis can reveal interesting facts hidden in statistical data, said Radicchi, a physicist and postdoctoral fellow in the chemical and biological engineering department of Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Radicchi ran an algorithm, similar to the one used by Google to rank Web pages, on digital data from hundreds of thousands of matches. The data was pulled from the Association of Tennis Professionals website. He quantified the importance of players and ranked them by a "tennis prestige" score. This score is determined by a player's competitiveness, the quality of his performance and number of victories.

Here's how the top 30 rank:
1. Jimmy Connors 11. Boris Becker 21. Mats Wilander
2. Ivan Lendl 12. Arthur Ashe 22. Goran Ivanišević
3. John McEnroe 13. Brian Gottfried 23. Vitas Gerulaitis
4. Guillermo Vilas 14. Stan Smith 24. Rafael Nadal
5. Andre Agassi 15. Manuel Orantes 25. Raul Ramirez
6. Stefan Edberg 16. Michael Chang 26. John Newcombe
7. Roger Federer 17. Roscoe Tanner 27. Ken Rosewall
8. Pete Sampras 18. Eddie Dibbs 28. Yevgeny Kafelnikov
9. Ilie Năstase 19. Harold Solomon 29. Andy Roddick
10. Björn Borg 20. Tom Okker 30. Thomas Muster

more
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110301091225.htm

My Vote is for Borg.....

[joeybee12]

1. As a tennis fan, let me just say what bs this is...

Agassi should not be that high, Borg should be higher...Chang at 17 when he's not in the top 50, the great john Newcombe below that twit? Pull-ease!

[MadBadger]

2. No excuse for putting Agassi over Sampras, or over Federer

None.

[RockaFowler]

3. Why is Andy Roddick even on this list??

And yeah Agassi should be below Sampras, Federer & Borg. Ashe should be higher, too

[joeybee12]

4. Ok, Rod Laver isn't even ON the list....

fail.

[RockaFowler]

5. I think it's the time period

Didn't Laver play before 1968?? This is only for the "modern era" 1968-2010

[joeybee12]

7. Nope, he was still going...and Ken Rosewall is from Rod's era,

so that doesn't explain it...I think Rod's second Grand Slam came in 1969.

[fishwax]

19. but it only counts matches after 1968

Laver did win his second slam in 1969, and he won a bunch of tournaments in the open era, but he didn't play the volume of matches in the open era that other players have. I think that's why he's not in the top 30.

It doesn't appear that the formula in question considers grand slam wins as any more significant than any other match ...

[joeybee12]

24. Yeah, and he won Wimbledom the year before (1968)...and

he finished the year at #1. Ken Rosewelll's better days were prior to 1968 and he is on it...granted, he made the Wimbledom final in 1974, but he was 40 and it was kind of out of nowhere.

[JonLP24]

6. Haha

I called my mom about this list and she asked me if "Rod Laver" is on there. I thought she said "labor" but either way he isn't on here. Interesting you noticed it too. She didn't appear to disagree with Jimmy Connors but wondered about Laver.

[era veteran]

8. No Jack Kramer ?

[chelsea0011]

9. Borg quit at the height of his career.

[Kingofalldems]

10. Good to see Harold Solomon, famous moon baller, on the list.

Slickee boy Agassi shouldn't be on it though.

[HuckleB]

11. Funny thread.

Looks like the usual outcome: People don't like to have their anecdote-based opinions challenged.

[madinmaryland]

13. Heh! Nice screen name! Are you going to lecture us about where the POTUS is from??

JK!

:hi:

[HuckleB]

17. +1

I admit that my response had as much to do with non-DU matters as it did with the thread itself.

:hi:

[fishwax]

15. could also be that the measurement is flawed

:)

[HuckleB]

16. What if it's not flawed?

:shrug:

:evilgrin:

[fishwax]

18. it has Eddie Dibbs (who never made a grand slam final) ahead of Wilander and Nadal

so the odds that it isn't flawed are pretty small.

Seriously, Eddie Dibbs? Rafa has won more grand slam matches during the Obama administration than Dibbs won in his entire career. Wilander has won more grand slams than the 8 people ahead of him combined, and excepting Wilander, Nadal has won more slams than the ten people ahead of him.

That's not to say that slams are everything, of course, but it's pretty hard to take seriously a ranking that puts people like Brian Gottfried, Harold Solomon, and Eddie Dibbs ahead of a guy who has completed a career grand slam and won more major titles than those three have semifinals between them.

:)

[joeybee12]

23. Harold Solomon never won a final...Jim Courier won 4, he's not on it...

this is really a bullsh*t "scientific" model.

[PVnRT]

22. They changed the results by measuring them

[ProfessorGAC]

25. Quantum Tennis?

Who would have thought it?

[fishwax]

12. lol -- "in the history of the game" / "between 1968 and 2010"

:bounce:

[fishwax]

14. looks like the total number of victories plays a huge role

Connors played a whole lot of matches--half again more than Sampras, who retired at a relatively young age.

[RockaFowler]

20. What about the Female Tennis Players??

I guess they aren't considered Tennis Players

Steffi Graf should be on here with Martina, Chris, Serena & Venue

[PRETZEL]

21. Would love to see how these rankings would change

if instead of using the number of wins, he used winning percentage.

I still think Federer is the best player I've ever seen and I've seen pretty much everyone on this list in their primes.

[ProfessorGAC]

26. Some Curious Choices

Vilas higher than Borg? Same with Edberg. Both very, very good players, but better than Borg? Sorry, that fails the eye test.
GAC