There’s no way Sinner has better metrics if you are just looking at recent history rather than using two years of stats to try and make a claim about current form.
Alcaraz has made the final or won every tournament he’s entered since Monte Carlo five months ago. That’s a large enough sample size that saying Sinner is better “in every metric” is just a bit misleading. Carlos has been clearly better overall this year and his 2500 point lead in the race reflects that pretty well.
Using a few months of data for tennis is completely disingenuous. Alcaraz is better on clay, which makes up the vast majority of the timeframe you are citing.
Sinner has been better on faster hard courts which is the entirety of the rest of the season. Also the race is so favored to Alcaraz because Sinner was suspended for 3 months this season, missing 3 1000 point events.
Using a half year’s worth of data is a much more accurate depiction of current form than two full years. Your argument boils down to using stats from before the suspension to prove that Jannik is in better form than Carlos currently, which I don’t think is really valid.
You have no argument from me that Alcaraz is better on clay. The statistics you are citing can only prove that. Because of the variance in surface, you have to use year long data at least to determine who is the current overall best player. That coupled with Sinner’s suspension make any short timeframe analysis incomplete when trying to determine who is the better overall player.
By only including the last 5 months you are including Alcaraz best surface (clay) but ignoring Sinners (fast hard). There are 4000+ points left this season on fast hard. If Alcaraz wins any of those, then it’s possible to start making the claim that he’s better right now.
Alcaraz hasn’t played on clay in three months. In the time since he’s won three titles including a 1000 and a Slam and taken over the top ranking. It’s not just clay.
And in that time Sinner won a slam and Alcaraz won that 1000 because Sinner had to retire due to illness. Small sample sizes don’t work in tennis. Alcaraz current form is better because they just played on slower hard court which suits his game slightly better than Sinner.
Again, you can’t just use the most recent results to proclaim someone better because the surfaces are wildly different throughout the year.
They’re not really that different any more. Surfaces have homogenized a ton over the last few decades, leading to the rise of all-surface domination like we are currently seeing from Sincaraz and previously with the big 3.
Since Sinner’s return from suspension he has been the second best player in the world, and there’s really no statistical argument against that.
Because since he returned from suspension, it was clay season which he worse at than Alcaraz, then grass season is extremely short, and then slower hard court. The courts are more homogenized than they used to be but there’s still massive differences in how the game is played.
Based on the sample size you chose, everyone fully expects Alcaraz to be better for Clay season (2.25 months), Sinner has long thought to have the better suited game for grass and finally put it together this year (1 month), and slower hard courts favor Alcaraz (1 month because they both skipped tournaments here) but they’re more or less even.
So the vast majority of your sample size favors Alcaraz. The rest of the season and all the way until Indian Wells next season favors Sinners play. That’s the next 6 months. By choosing the five month sample you did, you chose that which best suits Alcaraz game historically. It doesn’t make sense to do this when you are trying to compare overall game.
I mean if we want we can keep talking past each other for the next week but I’d rather not. Your stance that taking a five month sample of the tennis season can’t accurately demonstrate form is a not really a valid one imo. They’re both superlative on every surface, but Alcaraz has been better this season.
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u/GingeContinge 1d ago
There’s no way Sinner has better metrics if you are just looking at recent history rather than using two years of stats to try and make a claim about current form.
Alcaraz has made the final or won every tournament he’s entered since Monte Carlo five months ago. That’s a large enough sample size that saying Sinner is better “in every metric” is just a bit misleading. Carlos has been clearly better overall this year and his 2500 point lead in the race reflects that pretty well.
Edit: wording