Strongest Nation?

JonH · All-time great

RE: Strongest Nation?

JonH · All-time great

AliBlahBlah wrote:
Updated: https://public.tableau.com/views/20170306ATPWTACountryStrengths/ATPCountryRankings?:embed=y&:display_count=yes

ATP
No change in the top 18 nations.
GB Avg. Ranking returns to its year high of 204 from 206.
That helped by the GB 7 position improving from WR275 to WR254 as a result of Brydan's exploits; which offset other minor falls elsewhere.

WTA
For the second week running GB are the story. This week for all the wrong reasons.
Big falls from Heather and Naomi see us suffer the largest single week fall by any nation in the top 40 so far this year.
We drop 3 places to 16th.
Recent efforts by Barty for Australia & Svitolina/Tsurenko for Ukraine push both those actively past us, and Belgiums lack of anything dreadful squeezes them ahead, too.
GB Avg. Ranking falls to a new low for the year from 211 to 218. It's not just others excelling that drove our crash, we provided nothing in mitigation.
Effectively, no one in our top 10 is playing well (with Johanna inactive), successes by Ms. Lumsden & Ms. Swan, come too low down to help out.

Looks like it will be GB men facing the long drop this week, down to 213 avg rank if my maths is correct, although same place in listings.

On the other hand, I think I am right in saying the ladies bounced back to 211 average and will overtake Belgium who are at 212 I think...

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

Updated: https://public.tableau.com/views/20170320ATPWTACountryStrengths/ATPCountryRankings?:embed=y&:display_count=yes

Deathly quiet on the ATP.
Crazy as a fox on the WTA.

JonH · All-time great

Crazy drop for Slovakia and after a massive drop 3 weeks back, GB now is actually close on the teams above us, Slovakia and the Australians.

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

Updated: https://public.tableau.com/views/20170403ATPWTACountryStrengths/ATPCountryRankings?:embed=y&:display_count=yes

ATP
No change, as ever, in the top 18.
India jump 2 spots to make their top 20 debut at 19, having started the year in 23rd.

GB Still in 13th Place. Avg.
Rank improves back after the pre-Miami slump. Back up to 209 from 214 (Broady & especially Glasspool making moves), but still some way off the year high of 204.
Also miles behind Belgium ahead of us, on a 175 average.

WTA
GB fall a place to 15th, switching with Belgium, as Mestach improves 10+ places, and the Belgian #10 spot also improves 20 places
Avg. Rank nudges down from 211 to 212 - Hev's lost points sees the GB #2 spot slump 15 points, as Naomi takes over.

Australia started the year with an avg. rank of 248, and it's now 204! If we matched that improvement, we'd be in 9th place.

JonH · All-time great

AliBlahBlah wrote:
Updated: https://public.tableau.com/views/20170403ATPWTACountryStrengths/ATPCountryRankings?:embed=y&:display_count=yes

ATP
No change, as ever, in the top 18.
India jump 2 spots to make their top 20 debut at 19, having started the year in 23rd.

GB Still in 13th Place. Avg.
Rank improves back after the pre-Miami slump. Back up to 209 from 214 (Broady & especially Glasspool making moves), but still some way off the year high of 204.
Also miles behind Belgium ahead of us, on a 175 average.

WTA
GB fall a place to 15th, switching with Belgium, as Mestach improves 10+ places, and the Belgian #10 spot also improves 20 places
Avg. Rank nudges down from 211 to 212 - Hev's lost points sees the GB #2 spot slump 15 points, as Naomi takes over.

Australia started the year with an avg. rank of 248, and it's now 204! If we matched that improvement, we'd be in 9th place.

Thanks ABB. With the men, I get a sense that we might just see that average push up as our players ranked in the 10th , 11th and 12th spots etc get more matchplay (Marcus?) and experience (Jay, Jonny O'Mara) as well as Cam Norrie and Lloyd who might be gaining some form. I could of course be wrong but the gap is so far to the next position that I doubt we will actually move positions all season.

In top place however, France have closed a little on Spain to a 2pt gap now, so maybe we will see some interest at the very top?

The ladies actually does seem more interesting and Ukraine took a big fall, so GB could see further changes - it feels like we need some other players to back Jo Konta up now and Heather and Naomi to really step up - whether we can see that happen on the clay is a big ask.

indiana · Tennis legend

Thanks very much for all the regularly updated information.

The basic add up and compare the average rankings of the nations' top 10 ranked players still to me stands out as a really powerful indicator of a nation's relative position and how it is progressing or otherwise in pro tour tennis, so I am pleased that the thread focus is on this. But so much more available too.

It might be interesting to compare and contrast year end positions over a period ( if that hasn't already been done ).

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

indiana wrote:
[...]
It might be interesting to compare and contrast year end positions over a period ( if that hasn't already been done ).

I can do this for the ATP as you can get all the rankings (1 - ~2100 each week) all in one go, on one page from their site.

For the WTA, you have to download the rankings in pages of 100 at a time. I'm too lazy to do that. I get the weekly WTA rankings all in one shot from http://www.tennis24.com/rankings/wta/ but it only holds the current weeks lists, there is no access to the historical dimension. Unless someone knows where you can see all of historical WTA rankings weeks (1 - ~1300 each week) in one go.

JonH · All-time great

indiana wrote:
Thanks very much for all the regularly updated information.

The basic add up and compare the average rankings of the nations' top 10 ranked players still to me stands out as a really powerful indicator of a nation's relative position and how it is progressing or otherwise in pro tour tennis, so I am pleased that the thread focus is on this. But so much more available too.
It might be interesting to compare and contrast year end positions over a period ( if that hasn't already been done ).

I am still in favour of the top 10 averages as well Indi. But if you look at the France and Spain "battle" for top spot, the interesting fact is that if you take any number of players from 1-6 and from 11-upwards, then France are actually strongest. Strangely, France for averages of top 7 to top 10, a narrow band, lose out to Spain at the top. Whether Spain or France is strongest as a nation overall becomes a really interesting debating point and is possibly an anomaly in the top 10 as the number (even though I suggested it!). I still favour it and therefore hope that France can overhaul Spain based on top 10 averages asap and put paid to my OCD nature fretting about it!

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

indiana wrote:
It might be interesting to compare and contrast year end positions over a period ( if that hasn't already been done ).

Taking the final rankings of each calendar year ( i.e. the last rankings of December in each year) for the last 20 years, the initial results are very interesting.

There is a very very clear 'winner'.

I'll tidy it up, and post it.

Edit: Resize image

-- Edited by AliBlahBlah on Tuesday 4th of April 2017 07:04:45 PM

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

Updated: https://public.tableau.com/views/20170410ATPWTACountryStrengths/ATPCountryRankings?:embed=y&:display_count=yes

ATP
Somewhat ironically, a Davis Cup week sees the most top 10 movement of the year:
Germany overtake Argentina to move into 4th
Italy overtake Russia to take 6th spot
The Czech men nudge past Serbia, to make their top 10 debut.

The position at the top narrows to 1.2 ranking places, but Spain hold off France for another week.

GB stay in 13th (again), avg. ranking improves back to 206, thanks to the efforts of Bedene & Klein, the latter of whom overtakes Cam for the GB #6 spot.

WTA
GB are again the story!
We leap past both Belgium and the free-falling Slovakians, back to our year-high rank of 13th, matching the GB men.
Australia ahead of us, are miles off though, on Avg rank 197.

Avg. rank improves to a year-high of 209, up from 215 at the start of the year, and 218 as recently as week 9.

JonH · All-time great

Hi ABB - been on holiday in Barcelona for a week and just seen this. Looks like GB will improve again this week, maybe up to 208 average, but a big gap to 12th place so looks like we will consolidate 13th in ladies this week?

For men, looks like a fall for Liam will peg us back to 207 or thereabouts. In the mens, Spain look like they will have a few potential players falling this week but also France so could be tight for that top spot. I am going to stick my neck out and predict France to take top spot at Roland Garros if not before!

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

Updated: https://public.tableau.com/views/20170417ATPWTACountryStrengths/ATPCountryRankings?:embed=y&:display_count=yes

ATP
The battle for the top is down to less than one ranking place. Though both ESP & FRA drop their average ranking, there is only 0.8 ranking places between them (39.3 versus 40.1); ESP hold on again, however.
GER move in to 4th as ARG weaken to their worst showing, at #5.
Italy take a new high at #6, improving their avg rank 11 places since the start of the year.
Special mention to IND, now at #18 afte beginning the year at 23 - the biggest mover in the top 40.

GB... stay in 13th, for the 15th consecutive week.
Avg rank stays at 206

WTA
CZE overtake GER for their first appearance at #3.
FRA take #6 back from JPN after 6 weeks
ITA move back to where they started the year, replacing ESP, who vacate the #9 spot for the first time.

GB maintain average ranking at 209, but drop a spot to 14th.
This is due to SVK improvement, not GB falling away. That SVK progress is all made exclusively in their #5-10 spots, as the model reflects their strength in depth.

JonH · All-time great

AliBlahBlah wrote:
Updated: https://public.tableau.com/views/20170417ATPWTACountryStrengths/ATPCountryRankings?:embed=y&:display_count=yes

ATP
The battle for the top is down to less than one ranking place. Though both ESP & FRA drop their average ranking, there is only 0.8 ranking places between them (39.3 versus 40.1); ESP hold on again, however.
GER move in to 4th as ARG weaken to their worst showing, at #5.
Italy take a new high at #6, improving their avg rank 11 places since the start of the year.
Special mention to IND, now at #18 afte beginning the year at 23 - the biggest mover in the top 40.

GB... stay in 13th, for the 15th consecutive week.
Avg rank stays at 206

WTA
CZE overtake GER for their first appearance at #3.
FRA take #6 back from JPN after 6 weeks
ITA move back to where they started the year, replacing ESP, who vacate the #9 spot for the first time.

GB maintain average ranking at 209, but drop a spot to 14th.
This is due to SVK improvement, not GB falling away. That SVK progress is all made exclusively in their #5-10 spots, as the model reflects their strength in depth.

Thanks ABB - looks like France are almost there!

One thing that struck me was that I sort of expected most movement in these ranks to happen around Slam or Masters 1000/Premier Mandatory events but in fact the last two weeks have shown a lot of movement in non "big event" weeks.

In WTA, Belgium and Slovakia (our closest rivals) have us in the 2-6/7 range, showing where we are really weak comparitively ie little back up to JK at the top level. We actually arent as weak relatively in the 8-10 range as I perhaps expected we would be and need Heather, Naomi, Tara etc to push on back into the top 100 a little if we are to move up I feel

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

I think that becasue you're looking at the Top 10 per country, at the lower end of that scale, players are never going to be in big events.
Where they make their movement would be at normal ITF events off the WTA/ATP.
Winning a small event can have a big impact on, say, the #8 spot for a country, improving it by around 20 places. That then cascades across the rankings as, crudely, a 2 place improvement per player.

If Rafa wins Roland Garros, he improves his ranking maybe 3 places. It's a great victory, but doesn't speak to strength in depth.
The Davis Cup effectively (by original intent at least) serves as the mark for the Nation that can field the strongest team at the very top, and in that case, Masters/Premier Mandatories-Grand Slams would affect that sort of a ranking more.

But, here, the little tournaments and lesser player can have a role (arguably too much of one).
This is reflected exactly in DC weeks, becasue only the lesser ranks are playing for ranking points and thus have a chance of moving up or down - slightly complicated by the extra week delay in adding points from the lowest tier of events, which means that the week the points go on is not necessarily a reflection of the previous weeks performance.