Will 2007's tennis winner be 2008's winners?

Truths, Lies and Tennis Statistics / Matthew Walton / 20 December 2007 / Leave a Comment

"Magical" Matthew Walton looks at the players who won tournaments last year and wonders whether their names wil be on the trophies again next year?

The logical starting point for finding tournament winners during 2008 is a look through the roll of honour for 2007. After all, it would be useful to know which players are currently 'in possession' of these titles before we go on to determine who will supercede them once the new campaign gets underway.

In some respects the list is as revealing for who isn't on it, as who is - but as we'll see, this area of study is a valuable guide in searching out who will become the title winners of the year ahead.

Starting with the most obvious candidates we have Mssrs. Federer, Nadal and Djokovic.

Between them they won 19 titles during 2007 and remain prime candidates to win many more times again. In previous columns doubt has already been aired with regards to Roger Federer's longevity as both the world No.1 and Grand Slam winner. Surely the Swiss player will win again but 2008 may well prove to be his last 'big' year on tour.

As for Nadal and Djokovic, with youth on their side, it will be interesting to see if their play develops into the realms of a McEnroe-Connors or Sampras-Agassi style rivalry. Both look set to dominate the tennis scene for the next 3 or 4 years and each player should remain firmly in the mix for Masters Series titles and Grand Slams in 2008.

The multiple winners - Ferrer, Karlovic, Monaco - are a less convincing bunch. All have ability, all will win again but all seemed flawed. Ferrer is a good all-round player without being truly exceptional on one surface, Karlovic needs to develop a return to go with that uber serve and Monaco is a good clay-courter but is he the next Kuerten, Coria or Nadal? No.

The dual winners, of which there are many, provide the bones of the regular ATP tour. Some will clearly win again (Roddick, Ljubicic, Blake, Nalbandian), others rightly harbour aspirations of moving to the next level of Masters Series success and beyond (Murray, Mathieu, Robredo) and there are a few where the jury is still out (Tursunov, Simon, Malisse).

Finally, we see the single tournament winners. They constitute three broad areas :-

One Hit Wonders - such as Steve Darcis, Luis Horna and Philipp Kohlschreiber. These players won during 2007 but their wins seem more down to an inspired week's play or an easy draw. Chances of another win in 2008 look slim.

Young Guns - here we find Marcos Baghdatis, Mikhail Youzhny, Tomas Berdych, Nikolay Davydenko, Richard Gasquet and Fernando Gonzalez. Young, in this instance, meaning players who are still improving. Those who are already established on tour but should all expect to progress to greater achievements and win many more titles during their careers.

Old Stagers - the likes of Carlos Moya, Juan Ignacio Chela, Tommy Haas, Fabrice Santoro, Radek Stepanek, Sebastien Grosjean and maybe Lleyton Hewitt. Players whose careers are no longer on the way up but still have enough about them to win. Ones who could best be described with the phrase 'there's life in the old dog yet'.

Naturally we should expect a healthy percentage of the players listed above to win again in 2008 - they are good established players, so why not? That said, there were plenty of similar types this year who failed to win. Take these ten, for example - Safin, Ancic, Calleri, Soderling, Kiefer, Ferrero, Johansson (Thomas and Joachim), Acasuso and Hrbaty. Illness, injury, form, bad luck, anything can stop a player winning.

So if we are to say that 80% of the titles in 2008 will be won by the title winning players of 2007 (that's around 53 of the 66 events) who would make up the 13 or so remaining places in the winner's enclosure for the new campaign?

A few old favourites are to be expected to get back to winning ways. Given a clean bill of health the likes of Mario Ancic, Joachim Johansson and Robin Soderling are far too talented not to win. All are realistic top 20 players, all have won before and all can do so again.

Those who are a little longer in the tooth, but are overdue success, would include Nicolas Kiefer and Juan-Carlos Ferrero (finally!). Also, former winners who could well win again would include Feliciano Lopez, Igor Andreev and Jose Acasuso.

That leaves around half a dozen new kids on the block who could break their maiden tag during 2008. Of these, the best options look to be Juan Martin Del Potro, Evgeny Korolev, Sam Querrey, Jo-Wilfred Tsonga and Marin Cilic.

These are the names you should be looking for on the exchanges when the new season gets underway. They are the ones to be backing.

Any names you think we might have missed? Players who deserve a mention? By all means let us know who would be on your hit-list for 2008.