re: The Unofficial 2018 Non-GS Tennis Thread

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This reminds me of a ranking system I ran across the other day for the first time. I haven’t read all of the details, but the word Elo makes me think it’s similar to Jeff Sagarin’s power ratings for different sports.

I guess what they are trying to achieve is the idea that, if #1 played #2 on some mythical “neutral” surface tomorrow, #1 would be favored to win. If this is the case, then these rankings would seem to have more value than the standard ATP rankings.

Elo Ratings

Jack Sock at #54 makes a lot more sense than his current ATP ranking.

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ELO rankings are unquestionably better than ATP rankings, but I don't think they're the best way to rank tennis players, and I'm a bit disappointed that Sackmann appears to have settled on ELO for his site. ELO just isn't sensitive enough imho. Even the the creator of ELO himself didn't think that ELO was particularly useful at the margins.

If I were independently wealthy and could just not work for an extended period of time, I would take as much time as I needed to formulate an improved, predictive ranking system. Alas, I am not and therefore cannot

Maybe I'll do a gofundme.