Has Djokovic had an easy ride to the top ?

Sheddie · administrator

Has Djokovic had an easy ride to the top ?

Rochelle · Lower Club Player

i dont think he has... people dont get into the top 10 in tennis with an easy ride, there is no east way to get into the top 10. Although Novak may have never played afew of the top guys , there is no saying that he wouldnt beat them if he did have the chance to play them !

mkkreuk · Admin:Moderator + ATP qualifying

no way. Maybe he was lucky in the last tournament to avoid federer adn perhaps he was lucky to not ahve to face a 100% fit Andy but he still beat everyone except nadal and quite comfortably including ferrer who's not a bad player.

All round he doesnt lose to many players that he shouldnt lose to and you could say he's been unlucky to draw federer in the early rounds of tournaments with big ranking pts (Monte Carlo first round last year, Aussie open 4th round this year). If he didnt face federer he would have most likely reached the top 10 a bit earlier.

Fair do's to djokovic - he earned his place in the top 10.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Had the luck of the draw in Indian Wells but totally deserves his place in the top 10

Rochelle · Lower Club Player

from MTF#

Against the top 5
Murray 7-7 (wins over Federer, Roddick, Ljubicic, Davydenko)
Djokovic 0-8 (includes 4x Federer, 2x Nadal)

Against the 6-10 players
Murray 1-2 (win over Haas, loss to Blake, Davydenko)
Djokovic 4-4 (wins over Puerta, Gonzalez, Robredo x2)

Against the 11-20 players
Murray 6-9 (losses inc. Nalbandian, Gonzalez, Baghdatis - wins inc Gonzalez, Hewitt, Stepanek, Ferrer)
Djokovic 4-3 (wins Murray x2, Ferrer, Nieminen, losses, Hrbaty, Hewitt, Gonzalez)

Totals:
Murray 32 matches against top 20 opponents
Djokovic 23 matches against top 20 opponents

Murray 17 matches against top 10 opponents
Djokovic 16 matches against top 10 opponents

Murray 14 matches against top 5 opponents
Djokovic 8 matches against top 5 opponents.

So it's fair to say based on the facts, that Murray has played more matches against the top players, especially against top 5 opposition, and has a much better record against the top 10 (8-9 vs 4-12) and top 20 (14-18 vs 8-15). Djokovic has never beaten a top 5 player.

Murray has also played each of the current top 20 at least once with the exception of Youzhny and Ferrero.

Djokovic has yet to play Baghdatis, Berdych, Nalbandian, Blake, Davydenko or Roddick.

is intresting to read

DUSTY DICK · Club Coach

Djokovic has won the matches needed to get to the top 10 so I say good luck to him.

andyjmr · Intermediate Club Player

Personally i think Andy's been luckier. by having played most of the very top guys already, and having done well against them, i think his confidence will be higher when he faces them again. it doesn't really matter which of them got into the top 10 first.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

The question is not whether Nole deserves to be top ten, but if he has had an easier ride. he deserves to be top ten, but i think he has had an easy ride more recently. Looking further back though he did it the hard way.

As far as i am aware he never recieved a WC for an ATP or Slam, and only ever recieved a few anyway at challengers (and he hardly won any matches of them at the time). In one year he qualifed for AO,RG Wimby ,then by that time was MD for USO (but you wouldnt have bet against him not qualifing). compare with AM and i think he worked harder to start in a way, but i think he has had been a bit luckier in some respects and i think rochelle stats show that to some respect.

All credit to the guy, hopefully him and andy can have a 'good' rivalry with andy just pippng him, ala fed/arod and now fed/rafa

small Djokovic fact:
he shares his birthday with Boggo, albeit 3 years apart.

goldenboy · Club Coach

i completely agree with count - he def deserves to be top 10

players like murray, monfils etc have had so many wildcards to allow them to get established in the top 100, then top 50, and act as a platform for higher things. djokovic has had to do things on his own, the hard way, and deserves every bit of success!

instead of saying he's lucky to miss out on federer last week, one could say he was unlucky to have been drawn to potentially play him early on in the first place!

i think murray is quite unique in emerging players, having beaten so many of the top 10 - his record really is incredible, and shouldn't necessarily be compared to djokovic!

but yes, overall he deserves it for sure!

remember the likes of davydenko, schuettler, and prob quite a few others have reached top 5 without ever beating that many of the really top players!

lets hope andy can join him soon!

scoobsuk · Club Coach

I think the clear next step up for Djokovic is to improve that H2H against his fellow top 10 players. He won't stay there too long if he can't improve his current 4-12 record.

Murray has a proven record against the top 10 players that any seasoned pro would be fairly proud of, but he has different challenges. He hasn't managed to make as much of his tournaments as Djokovic - and that spell between Indian Wells and Wimbledon last year meant he lost a lot of ground and Djokovic overtook him. Still, it's not a race - what matters is who gets highest and stays there longest, not who gets there first. He does need to find ways of getting more out of his tournaments though - Djokovic is sat on 3 titles in his ranking compared to Murray's 1.

Salmon · Tennis legend

No, it has been equally tough.

Djokovic wasn't as lucky as Andy was with funding etc. Maybe it's time he has some things easy...

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

scoobsuk wrote:

Djokovic is sat on 3 titles in his ranking compared to Murray's 1.

Two, Scoobs, two - don't make it worse!

scoobsuk · Club Coach

In his ranking, Mads - the win in 07 replaced the win in 06 so Andy only has 1 tournament win current on his rankings. Djoko has 3 - Amersfoort, Adelaide and Metz

GC77 · County player

Just following on from what Count said above.

Djokovic has probably had the toughest ride out of any player in recent years to get to the top.

Going back to July 2004 (roughly when both Andy and Djokovic started regularly playing Challengers):

Djokovic has had ONE main draw Wild Card (for Bangkok way back in September 2004) compared to FOURTEEN for Andy.

Djokovic has attempted to qualify for Majors 3 times, succeeding on every occasion (Andy one from one, plus 1 wc).

Djokovic has attempted to qualify for 7 Masters Series events succeeding on 4 occasions (Andy has been given 1 wild card and has never attempted to qualify).

Djokovic has attempted to qualify for Main Tour Events (not GS's or MS's) 9 times, succeeding 4 times and has been given 1 wc (Andy has been given 8 wc's and has never attempted to qualify).

Djokovic has attempted to qualify for Challengers twice, succeeding both times (Andy has been given 3 wc's and never qualified despite 4 attempts to do so).

aria81 · Club Coach

He's there on merit. Sure he's had it a bit easier in terms of his draws recently and the fact that in one of his titles the highest ranked guy he had to beat was in the 70s or something but he's taken advantage of it. He doesn't really beat the top 10 guys but he beats all the guys he's supposed to which is something Andy hasn't done until very recently. I figure the luck of the draw will even itself out over time but Nole probably deserves a bit of luck considering his lack of it when he was coming through initially.