ATP & WTA rankings of the 25th best Brits over time

steven · Tennis legend

ATP & WTA rankings of the 25th best Brits over time

steven · Tennis legend

For comparison, the current (12 Nov 2012) rankings of the 25th best men's singles players from all 26 countries that have at least 25 players in the ATP singles rankings are:

Posn	Country	No. 25's ATP rank

1	FRA	226
2	USA	284
3	ESP	309
4	ARG	326
5	GER	356
6	ITA	478
7	RUS	616
8	BRA	624
9	AUS	641
10	GBR	736
11	CZE	1,017
12	JPN	1,027
13	AUT	1,086
14	IND	1,127
15	SRB	1,307
16	CHI	1,451
17	SWE	1,485
18=	BEL	1,566
18=	CRO	1,566
18=	KOR	1,566
18=	ROU	1,566
18=	SVK	1,566
23	CHN	1,671
24	CAN	1,830
25=	NED	1,879
25=	SUI	1,879

-- Edited by steven on Saturday 17th of November 2012 06:20:35 PM

steven · Tennis legend

... and the current (12 Nov 2012) rankings of the 25th best women's singles players from all 15 countries that have at least 25 players in the WTA singles rankings:

P	Country	No. 25's WTA rank

1	USA	235
2	RUS	311
3	JPN	462
4	FRA	511
5	GER	587
6	CHN	593
7	ITA	602
8	CZE	745
9	ESP	777
10	AUS	787
11	ROU	818
12	UKR	832
13	ARG	1005
14	BRA	1104
15	GBR	1156

indiana · Tennis legend

steven wrote:
For comparison, the current (12 Nov 2012) rankings of the 25th best men's singles players from all 26 countries that have at least 25 players in the ATP singles rankings are:

Posn Country No. 25's ATP rank

1 FRA 226
2 USA 284
3 ESP 309
4 ARG 326
5 GER 356
6 ITA 478
7 RUS 616
8 BRA 624
9 AUS 641
10 GBR 736
11 CZE 1,017
12 JPN 1,027
13 AUT 1,086
14 IND 1,127
15 SRB 1,307
16 CHI 1,451
17 SWE 1,485
18= BEL 1,566
18= CRO 1,566
18= KOR 1,566
18= ROU 1,566
18= SVK 1,566
23 CHN 1,671
24 CAN 1,830
25= NED 1,879
25= SUI 1,879

-- Edited by steven on Saturday 17th of November 2012 06:20:35 PM

Thanks. That looks actually not really too bad at all, within decent reach of all but the top 6.

indiana · Tennis legend

steven wrote:
... and the current (12 Nov 2012) rankings of the 25th best women's singles players from all 15 countries that have at least 25 players in the WTA singles rankings:

P Country No. 25's WTA rank

1 USA 235
2 RUS 311
3 JPN 462
4 FRA 511
5 GER 587
6 CHN 593
7 ITA 602
8 CZE 745
9 ESP 777
10 AUS 787
11 ROU 818
12 UKR 832
13 ARG 1005
14 BRA 1104
15 GBR 1156

...and that's not so good cry

steven · Tennis legend

Well, it depends on how you look at it. Firstly, we may be 15th out of 15 on this measure, but at least we're one of just 15 countries that has 25 or more WTA-ranked players in the first place.

It also depends on the number of players you pick, obviously. Or at least, that's what I started writing, but it turns out it doesn't really!

It does at the highest levels, obviously - if you look at highest-ranked no. 1s, we are 24th out of 76 countries with at least one ranked player, but change that to no. 2s and we jump to 13th, then to no. 3s and we drop to 19th.

After that, despite the fact that the Brits don't seem that evenly spread through the rankings (though looking at the spread now, it looks a lot more even than earlier in the year ... and of course it is a LOT more even than the spread of the GB men, given the gap between WR 3 and about WR 250!), the numbers are remarkably similar for anything between no. 4s and no. 25s.

In WTA terms, GB is:

- 12th for no. 9s
- 13th for no. 10s (36 countries have 10+ ranked) and no.11s
- 14th for no. 5s, no. 6s, no. 7s, no. 8s, no. 12s, no. 13s, no. 14s & no. 29s & 14th= for no. 26s, no. 27s, no. 28s
- 15th for no. 4s, no. 15s (27 countries have 15+ ranked), no. 16s, no. 18s, no. 19s, no. 22s, no. 23s, no. 24s & no. 25s
- 16th for no. 17s, no. 20s (21 countries have 20+ ranked) & no. 21s

So it seems that there is a very good argument for saying GB is the 14th or 15th strongest nation in the world for WTA singles depth at the moment.

Btw, the country with the most WTA-ranked players is the USA with 113 (over 9% of the total) followed by Russia with 97, Japan with 61 (this surprised me a bit) and then France & Italy, both with 54. GB, as you may have worked out from the above, is 14th on this measure with 29.

DavidC · Tennis legend

The LTA published British rankings in ACE magazine, varying from top 20 initially (1996), occasionally dropping to top 10, but consistently top 30 from 2002 onwards. As a Magpie I still have most of these issues. Although pre 2002 there are only 20 listed , usually the 20th ranked woman was considerably higher ranked that the 20th ranked man from the late 1990s to 2002 judging from the sample I looked at (there were a couple of instances I spotted when the last listed, ie 20th, man was ranked outside the top 1000) . Hence there was a period of several years up to 2004 where the 25th ranked GB woman was probably consistently higher than the 25th ranked man. In the time period where the 25th ranked can be established (before Steven's figures kick in):

In late 2002 the figures were ATP 1094 and WTA 838

In late 2003 the figures were ATP 923 and WTA 857

In late 2004 the figures were ATP 832 and WTA 985

In late 2005 the figures were ATP 696 and WTA 846

In late 2006 the figures were ATP 800 and WTA 824

steven · Tennis legend

Thanks, I've extended the graph backwards with those figures.

steven · Tennis legend

Just for completeness, if you vary the number of players looked at for the men too, GB is:

4th for no. 1s (obviously!) out of 96 countries with players in the ATP singles rankings
33rd for no. 2s
27th for no. 3s
21st for no. 4s & no. 5s
22nd for no. 6s
16th for no. 7s
14th for no. 8s & no. 12s
12th for no. 9s & no. 10s (46 countries have at least 10 ranked singles players) & no. 11s
11th for no. 13s, no. 14s, no. 15s & no. 16s
10th for no. 17s , no. 18s, no. 19s, no. 20s (31 countries have at least 20 ranked singles players) and all the rest of the way down to no. 58s

As you can see, while the choice of the number of players looked at makes a much bigger difference for the GB men than for the GB women if you look at numbers below 10, it makes very little difference beyond that, with GB 10th or 11th if you look at any number of players between 13 and 58!

The 5 countries with the most players in the ATP rankings are France with 128, USA just behind with 126, Germany with 115, Italy with 108 and Argentina with 105. Then there is quite a gap back to Spain with 86, Brazil and Russia with 82 each, Australia with 68 and GB's 58. Obviously the fact that you need 3 scoring events or 10 ranking points to get a WTA ranking is a major reason why these numbers are much bigger than the corresponding WTA numbers.

indiana · Tennis legend

Regarding no 2s, there looks a danger of us having the lowest ranked end of year GB no 2 in the available records, since the two previous times that there has just been one player in the top 200 we have ended the year with :

1990 : No 1, Jeremy Bates WR 126 No 2, Nick Brown WR 214

2010 : No 1, Andy Murray WR 4, No 2, James Ward WR 201

At the moment, with points to come off and known tournaments left, Jamie may have to go pretty deep, probably semis, in this week's Japan Challenger to be able to beat WR 214 and if he doesn't win a match (and he has a tough R1 draw ) he may end as GB No 2, not far off the WR 250 mark.

Re relevant statistics for Davis Cup, although it could be clearly rather helpful to have good backup ranked nos 2 and 3, I guess in theory if you just had extremely highly ranked ( WR no 1 would help smile ) no 1 singles and no 1 doubles team players then you could be winning the whole thing ( almost hardly a team event then ).

Clearly say Fleming and Hutchins are pretty high quality,but there still quite a number of top class country pairs that would be favourites to beat them, probably including some predominately singles players getting involved in doubles. So certainly at World Group level we are not really strong enough there to get the third point that would be needed if Andy got two from singles.

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 19th of November 2012 04:23:59 PM

Spectator · All-time great

Interesting that the Czechs don't seem to be astoundingly strong in terms of lower-level depth and yet have won every national-team cup this year. What would be the most relevant statistic to look at for Davis Cup? Presumably ranking of no 1s, 2s, and 3s? (Singles and doubles ... as one suspects it wasn't really Stepanek's singles ranking that was the game changer for the Czechs ... pace his win over Almagro ... but his doubles expertise)

philwrig · Hall of fame

I'm going to confidently to predict that our GB number 2 will have a much higher ranking in say 4 years time if not sooner.

korriban · Challenger level

philwrig wrote:
I'm going to confidently to predict that our GB number 2 will have a much higher ranking in say 4 years time if not sooner.

Me too! I believe we will have 4 or 5 players in the top 200 within 4 years (men). This isn't that great still, but its an improvement.

Andy, Kyle, Luke.

Plus a few outside bets in the mix: Liam B, James W, Neil P, Dan S, Dan E, Oli (either top 50 or in the 900s/about to giveup tennis), James M (just have a feeling) and hopefully a few other candidates who come from nowhere, although this is increasingly unlikely these days

Miriambee · Futures level

Ashley Hewitt in there too, maybe?

indiana · Tennis legend

James W just needs to get fit and I'm confident that he's a top 200 player, so that can be next year ( I'm not aware that it's a very long term problem at the moment )

I think both Oli and Kyle could be top 200 within 2, maybe 3 years. And move higher to who knws where...

These are the three that I would put money on making the top 200 ar some time within the next 3 years ( if i could get at least even money odds smile )

Re others, Boggo clearly has the ability, but is he ever going to get back there ? Needs to be able to play ( and I presume practice ) much more than he has of late. Jamie B could maybe, though I don't think would get much higher. Evo I unfortunately have my doubts ( not so much about his ability ). Neil is worth watching, but I would be surprised if he got that high. Of the younger crwod, Liam probably then Luke and maybe James M ( I have that feeling too ) are possibles.

I'm going to save this post with the intention of digging it up in 3 years time hmm

.