Neil Harman commented in this morning's Times that "Jamie must be the top-ranked mixed doubles player out there at the moment."
This triggered my curiosity. In the presence of such master statisticians as Steven and Akhenaten (and others), I feel slightly awkward saying anything remotely statistics-related, but if you do a very baby-ish compilation of results for 2008's four Grand Slams (6 for a win, 5 for a finalist, 4 for semis, etc, with Wimbledon first round at .5 and others at 1), I think that Jamie is indeed at present tied with Zimonjic for first place, with the possibility of being sole "#1" if he and Huber win. This way of doing things obviously skews things in favour of consistent play -- arguably Bob Bryan, who played only two Slams but won them both, might in fact be worth considering as a number one mixed doubles player -- but it's nice nonetheless!
I think Murray's success in Mixed Doubles may be more down to his partner than him - Huber's the number 1 in the world (and probably the best ladies doubles player), so it's natural that he'd be doing well given the quality of his partner.
And when he won Wimbledon, it was mainly down to Jankovic playing some of the best tennis she's played.
Case in point would be this years Wimbledon semi's, where it was Murray who looked the weak link in the team, and if he'd played better, they'd have made the final.
Maybe the fact Mixed Doubles isn't such a serious event helps him, or there isn't as much pressure on him, but he'd trade 2 Slam finals in Mixed for Men's anyday I'm sure.
Neil Harman commented in this morning's Times that "Jamie must be the top-ranked mixed doubles player out there at the moment."
This triggered my curiosity. In the presence of such master statisticians as Steven and Akhenaten (and others), I feel slightly awkward saying anything remotely statistics-related, but if you do a very baby-ish compilation of results for 2008's four Grand Slams (6 for a win, 5 for a finalist, 4 for semis, etc, with Wimbledon first round at .5 and others at 1), I think that Jamie is indeed at present tied with Zimonjic for first place, with the possibility of being sole "#1" if he and Huber win. This way of doing things obviously skews things in favour of consistent play -- arguably Bob Bryan, who played only two Slams but won them both, might in fact be worth considering as a number one mixed doubles player -- but it's nice nonetheless!
Statistical nerd hat here. I would generally go with ranking schemes with increasing rewards for winning the next round, to reflect that later matches are against tougher opponents. The 10K futures 0 (R1) 1 (R2) 2 (QF) 4 (SF) 8 (F) 12 (W) would be an example. This scheme would favour double winner Bob B as number 1.
For some reason, whilst almost universally accepted, the WTA fails to do this at GS's. Qualies goes 2 15 25 32 (so a Q1 win at 13 points is worth most, followed by R2 at 10 and R3 at 7), MD goes 2 60 90 (so R1 win=>58 points and R2 win 30). This is all the more dotty when you consider R1 wins can be against particularly weak WCs.
Many thanks for that! I recalculated using a rough variant of the 10K system: this changed the top four from Murray, Zimonjic (tied 1st) Bob Bryan, Bhupathi (tied 2nd) to (1) Bryan (2) Zimonjic (3) Murray (4) Bhupathi. Either way, Mr Murray's accomplishments are quite impressive.