Week 42 - Challengers - Calabasas CA, USA ($50,000) - Hard

Josh · Challenger level

RE: Week 42 - Challengers - Calabasas CA, USA ($50,000) - Hard

indiana · Tennis legend

Bah, the "moron" got it right cry

( if you're a big moron go and hit her, she said it first

) The Baker L16 brickwall holds firm.

He will drop behind Evo in Monday's rankings, at least temporarily ( Evo has future 15K final points to defend but hopefully he's going to do just that )

It was maybe possible to anticipate these two being close in the rankings this year, but I for one really hoped they'ed be fighting for a spot much further up the rankings

-- Edited by indiana on Friday 22nd of October 2010 02:30:50 AM

MiloTheCat · Lower Club Player

I guess the experts have long ago discovered the best way of doing this but here's a simple-minded way of looking at Jamie's results over the last 6 months using the back of an envelope - so apologies if this isnt 100% accurate

best 5 wins are 125,134,136,211,241
worst 5 losses are 305,304,266,235,208

If you pair up the best/worst, 2nd best/2nd worst etc etc you get midpoints that are very consistent.

You could argue that by playing challengers he's avoided too many opportunities to lose to guys ranked in the 300s - and given himself more chances of encountering higher ranked players having a bad day.

I tend to think he belongs somewhere between 220 and 240 even on recent form.

indiana · Tennis legend

That's very interesting Milo, particularly in that this year I see Jamie hasn't until this week actually lost to a player ranked lower than WR 305 since the beginning of February, yet he himself is now ranked WR 338 and will drop further on Monday. Of course this week he lost to Delic who is unranked, but there are extenuating circumstances to Delic's ranking and he was a top 200 player before his break of over a year.

Ignoring Delic, looking at his activity otherwise, I agree the best 5 wins in the last 6 months. For the worst losses in addition to your 5, there is Kuznetsov ( 239 ) from last week and actually another pair of 266 and 235s but I'd say your analysis still really holds.

His only losses this year, other than to Delic, to players ranked lower than WR 305 are to Chris Eaton ( WR 488 ) in the Glasgow futures final and at the beginning of February to Nicholas Monroe (USA) ( WR 438 ) in the Dallas Challenger.

It's really kind of frustrating that these best 5 wins have come in the first round of Challengers ( his last 5 first round Challenger wins before this week ) and in each case he has then lost to a lower ranked player in the 2nd round, noone worse than WR 266 in these 5 events, but you would have hoped once or twice at least he would have pushed through after the good 1st round wins.

All must be very frustrating, especially as clearly he doesn't tend to have bad losses rankingwise but just can't eek out the results that matter. It does on all this evidence suggest as you say that in a way his "true" ranking is much higher than it is. It would at least be a bit better if he could just sometimes get these 2nd round wins and more.

-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 23rd of October 2010 05:46:14 PM

MiloTheCat · Lower Club Player

Thanks Indiana - I should have said I wasnt counting Delic (was reading it from the atp site which hasnt yet listed this past week's results)

worst 5 losses should read 305,304,266,266,235

Special pleading can be taken too far - but its also worth noting that the losses to 305 and 304 are Crugnola and James Ward who were only temporarily in the 300s - and are now both back in the top 250.

I suppose Jamie would be fairly confident of qualifying for challengers in which case his usual 1st round win would be worth 10 points?