Mailbag: ATP Finals Wrap-Up and What to Do With the Best-of-Five Format

Dear Mr. Wertheim,

Anticipating this week’s mailbag will ace the postmortem of the ATP Finals and super coronation of pro tennis “GOAT” Novak Djokovic, as well as any lingering concern over Jannik Sinner’s decision to beat Holger Rune in the round robin—tanking incentives and gambler sentiment be darned—was in the best interest of his lifetime head-to-head, let alone the ticket-paying public. Any chance to comment on the fast court speed? Even if the outcome was almost never in doubt, is this kind of changeup on court speed something we should demand more of? Apologies again for referencing one Pete Bodo with his new piece on court speed, but in this era of ufc fighter, marathon tennis, balls that drive players crazy, racquets and strings that do more for players than ever and seemingly every player complaining about injuries (and no player union being brave around this), something's gotta give. Why not change it up, fire up the DeLorean, and go back to the future for more tournaments? Happy Thanksgiving!

Andrew Miller, Silver Spring, Maryland

• Quick notes on the ATP Finals

1. Putting the “joke” in Djokovic, it is simply silly what the world No.1 has accomplished. Closer to 40 than 30, with 24 majors in the bag, deep in November, and he just keeps winning. Another week, another title, more weeks at No. 1. The guy loses in the Wimbledon final, heartbreakingly, and hasn’t lost a tournament since. He loses a match in Turin, 7–6 in the third, and beats the same opponent four days later. We have moved beyond the GOAT discussion and let’s pivot to this: is there a greater athlete in sports right now?

2. I’ll have a lot more to say about Djokovic in coming weeks, but here’s a thought a former top player offered on a groupchat: how many separate Hall of Fame careers has Djokovic had now? He argued for four: 2008 to ‘11; ‘12 to ‘16; ‘18 to ‘20; and ‘20 to present. Interesting way to frame it. (My favorite silly stat remains: Djokovic has played in 72 majors and reached the finals of 36.)

3. I noted on Twitter that Jannik Sinner really showed his (cliché alert) “champion’s mentality” when he played his hardest despite having already qualified for the final weekend. Man did the trolls come out. (My favorite was a suggestion that I be “removed from air,” which sounds like an off-the-menu SpaceX option.) Anyway, just to be clear: no one is criticizing Sinner. No one is encouraging tanking. But, for decades, this has been a snag in the ATP Finals’ format. (This account is hilarious.) In round robin, players have been tempted to throttle back in matches once they were guaranteed to advance. This can—and has—been game-theoried out by players. The round robin format just doesn’t work in tennis, sadly.

4. I am always in the bag for Pete Bodo. And do agree that the surface helped elevate the level of tennis. It’s a bit strange to play a showcase event on a surface that is used for zero majors. But it does tend to make for high quality tennis. May the women make the same choice for their finals in 2024 and beyond.

5. So much of tennis comes down to “something’s gotta give.” You want best-of-five and no matches before 11 a.m and both men and women featured equally? Something’s gotta give and we will have matches go past midnight. You want the certainty of round robin and the guarantee that each player will play at least twice? Something’s gotta give and you will incentivize half-hearted behavior. You want to make money from gambling partnerships and lay odds on pre-qualifying rounds in Dubuque? Something’s gotta give and matches will be corrupted. You want a calendar that begins the last week of December and ends in mid-November? Something’s gotta give and you’ll have a bevy of injuries.

Hi Jon! I was wondering why you think the Czech Republic has produced so many quality current female players and yet nowhere near as many (or as good) male ones. The WTA rankings feature eight in the top 50 (with four in the top 15), while the ATP only has two in the top 50 (and four in the Top 100). Indeed, while one side has the current Wimbledon champion Markéta Vondroušová, the highest ranked on the other is the 28-year-old Nicolas Jarry (No. 19).

Alex (London)

• Double Czech that Nicolas Jarry. (Similar flag, but he is Chilean.) Jiri Lehecka, at 31, is the top Czech male. I guess I have a few answers/speculations.

1. The clustering effect. Success breeds success. You have a steady flow of Czech champs—Martina, Hana Mandlikova, Jana Novotna, Helena Sukova, Martina Hingis (born in Slovakia), Petra Kvitova and more keep coming. Facilities get built. Coaches get established. Rivalries elevate everyone. (Though pause to note that for a country of 10 million, the men—Ivan Lendl, Sebastian Korda, Tomáš Berdych, etc.—have fared well, too.)

2. We are all creatures of incentives. As with tennis in the U.S., tennis is the best alternative for female jocks abroad. Male jocks might be more tempted to pursue a career in soccer/football or hockey. Note the raw athleticism of players Kvitova, Barbora Krejcikova and Karolína Muchova. If there were a team sport that potentially paid them seven figures, they might have gone that route.

3. “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” That is to say, we often look for explanations to help us make sense of statistical anomalies. Sometimes, they exist. Other times, we should just accept improbability on its face. You flip a coin and get four consecutive heads. Sometimes things aren’t uniform or evenly distributed and there’s no real reason other than randomness or luck.

Jon,

In your comments about Zverev and the domestic abuse issues that swirl about him, two things stand out: 1. You reference other sports and how they would handle such a situation as Zverev’s. We know the team sports with athletes under contract have policies, but those athletes are employees with contractually outlined behavioral obligations. Can you enlighten us on how golf and other “independent contractor” sports (e.g., skiing, gymnastics, etc.) would respond to the charges leveled against Zverev? 2. I’m surprised you equate the use of performance enhancing drugs with domestic abuse vis a vis suspending athletes charged with either. Absent being a competitive athlete, those PEDs are, if not 100%, then almost entirely legal. Domestic abuse clearly is not. I’ll suggest that it’s a mistake to say a sport’s response to both should be the same based on both transgressions being wrong. None of this is a defense of Zverev, only a discussion of what the decision matrix should be when/if tennis crafts a more proper, codified response (which tennis should do).

Yours,

Skip Schwarzman, Philly

• 1. It varies from sport to sport. This is yet another instance where tennis would benefit from some variation of a league/union relationship. Both sides craft a policy that’s included as part of a collective bargaining agreement. (Sidebar: one element that we have not discussed is how detrimental this is to the other players. Though none have publicly said so, I can’t imagine everyone is cool having a peer facing these allegations without consequence.) To your question, some individual sports have a clear policy, Others, like the UFC and mixed martial arts, are murkier and more subjective.

2. No one is likening a failed doping test to domestic violence. And that is precisely the point. In keeping with WADA code, tennis suspends athletes provisionally for failed tests or missing tests while an appeal is pending. Jenson Brooksby, Simona Halep, Mikael Ymer*, Maria Sharapova, etc. Sometimes these suspensions are valid; other times the athlete is exonerated or there are extenuating circumstances. In either case, there is a policy justification. Why wouldn’t you have a similar protocol for the far more serious allegation of partner violence?

*Aside: was this the strangest/least covered story of 2023? At age 24, Ymer is a top 60 player, winning here, losing there. At Wimbledon, he took out Taylor Fritz in five sets, a significant top-10 win. And…it’s the last event he ever played. In 2022, he missed three drug tests. He fought the decision. It was overturned. The ITF appealed. An 18-month penalty was restored. And Ymer—now in the top 50 and the prime of his career— basically said, “Yo, I’m out.”

Hi Jon,

You dropped the ball with your response to the reader’s question about who was the best player from Bulgaria, man or woman. The question posed to you asked about Manuela, not Maggie, who you claim was the best of the bunch. Not so by a long shot. Manuela was in the top 10 for nine straight years, reached No. 3 in the world, had a winning percentage of just under 72%, and won 19 titles.

She also won a bronze medal at the 1988 Olympics, a mixed doubles title at the U.S. Open and got to the fourth round or better at 22 slams. She retired in ‘94 while still in the top 10. Sorry, but she leaves Grigor in the dust.

George Gallucci, Los Angeles

• Yes, “dropped the ball” is putting it kindly. That was not just an unforced error; it was a shankasaurus. While fixated on Maggie Maleeva—no doubt blinded by how cool she was to me when I started covering this sport—we neglected Manny Maleeva. George is right. Ten majors quarterfinals appearances, 19 titles, a high ranking of No. 3. I’m not sure she “leaves Grigor in the dust.” But, by a slight margin, I’d submit she beats him out as the best Bulgarian. (Which, of course, made us think of this.)

Jon,

Why do we still have five-set matches? They’re bad for TV scheduling, attention spans and injuries. I see only one reason why tournaments may favor them and it’s an understandable reason: The star players are less likely to be upset in earlier rounds. Without five sets, Alejandro Falla upsets Roger Federer in the first round of Wimbledon in 2011, John Isner upsets Rafael Nadal in the first round of Roland Garros in ’12 and Kevin Anderson upsets Djokovic in the fourth round of Wimbledon in ’15. I wonder if the stars themselves prefer five sets for the same reason? I’ve heard players lament about the length of the schedule but not about the length of the match itself.

Kevin Kane, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

• I was on this train for a while. More because of concern for player injuries than concern over bored fans. Play the first week of majors best-of-three, minimizing bodily wear and tear. Play the second week best-of-five, so the majors get differentiated and we have heft. The more players I spoke to, the more I realized that most—from stars and qualifiers—liked best-of-five. Faulty logic perhaps, but I defaulted “if they’re okay with the status quo, I guess I can be, too.” You are right that the bigger the sample size, the more regression to the mean. In other words, yes, longer formats help the best players. But I would go easy on the extrapolations with regards to Falla/Federer or Isner/Nadal. Based simply on the scoreline, you could say, “If those matches were best-of-three, the result would have been different.” But you could also say, “If those matches had been best-of-three, the champion would have played with more urgency or the challenger would have gotten tight serving for the match.”

Shots

• Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek have earned Year-End ATP Doubles No. 1 presented by Pepperstone honors for the first time.

• Tennis makes Saturday Night Live.

• Everyone should know about this film, Silver Servers.

• The final standings for the 2023 Australian Open Wild Card Challenge are below. Players’ current rankings are in parenthesis.

Men’s Standings

1. Alex Michelsen (94) – 125
2. Patrick Kypson (192) – 105
3. Brandon Nakashima (133) – 89
4. Ethan Quinn (347) – 64

Women’s Standings

1. Emina Bektas (82) – 299
2. Kayla Day (88) – 112
3. Claire Liu (96) – 110
4. McCartney Kessler (232) – 100
5. Katie Volynets (107) – 72

Have a good week and happy Thanksgiving, everyone!