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Friday 7 December 2012

Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka - Who is World no.1 (2012) ? - Part 2


First and foremost, apologies on my part for being out and not putting up articles. I had my exams in December, and got free on Thursday and now I am back to full swing. (Keeping fingers crossed for my result ) . 
Last month we had a look on the first half of the year, that Azarenka, Sharapova and Serena had. While Azarneka and Sharapova swept through the first half of the year, not that Serena had a bad first half of the year, it was excellent, one for which many players can dream, but it was average when compared to that of Azarneka and Sharapova.

Let us now have a look at the second half of the year of the 3 players and see how they performed during the second half of the year starting from Wimbledon and ending at the Year end Championships in Istanbul.

SUMMARY FOR THE SECOND HALF OF THE YEAR

Description  Azarenka    Sharapova    Williams  
Tournaments played          8          6        6
Win - Loss        31-6       23-6      29-1
Record against Top 10 players         7-5        6-5     13-1
Average Rank of player who defeated her          10.33        5.5        7
Titles Won          2         0        5
Runner - Up Showings          1         3        0
The above summary clearly shows that, Williams literally swept everyone aside in the second half of the year, with the only defeat in the second half coming at the hands of Kerber, who was ranked no.7 then in Cincinnati.

- Serena played 6 events in the second half and won all but Cincinati, where she lost her only match of the second half of they year at the hands of Angelique Kerber. 
- Sharapova, like Serena played 6 events, and was always the brides maid, never the bride, as she made it to the finals of 3 events, loosing all, 2 to Williams and one to Azarenka. She failed to make it to the quarter-finals of just one event of the 5 played, which was at Wimbledon, where she lost to then 15th ranked German Sabine Liscki. 
- Azarneka on the other hand played 8 events, winning two of them. She like Sharapova failed to make it to the quarter-finals of just one event (of the 8 events played by her), Montreal, where she retired against the then 43rd ranked Paszek.

Let us have a look at the breakup of the second half of each player, the tournaments each played, and the players each lost to and how far did each player make it in the tournaments she entered.


TOURNAMENT                 Azarenka             Sharapova                       Serena
ResultRank of Player who defeated herName of Player who defeated herResultRank of Player who defeated herName of Player who defeated herResultRank of Player who defeated herName of Player who defeated her
WIMBLEDON  SF       6   Serena   4r      15    Liscki   W   N/A   N/A
STANFORD  DNP     DNP     DNP  DNP    DNP     DNP   W   N/A   N/A
OLYMPICS   SF       4   Serena  R-up       4   Williams   W   N/A   N/A
MONTREAL2r (retired)      43   PaszekDNP     DNP     DNP  DNP   DNP   DNP
CINCINNATIDNP     DNP    DNP DNP     DNP     DNP  QF     7  Kerber
US OPEN R-up       4   Serena  SF      1 Azarenka  W   N/A   N/A
TOKYOQF (W/O)       6   Kerber  QF      9  Stosur  DNP   DNP  DNP
Beijing  W    N/A    N/A R-up      1  Azarenka  DNP   DNP  DNP
Linz  W    N/A    N/A DNP   DNP    DNP  DNP   DNP  DNP
YEC  SF     2Sharapova   F     3  Williams   W   N/A  N/A
Remarkably, of the 4 events where all three players played, all the  events were won by Serena, in two of those events she defeated both Azarenka and Sharapova (Olympics, and YEC), while in the other two she beat Azarenka (semi-final of Wimbledon and Final of U.S Open).

This shows that Serena had one of the best, probably the best second half of the tennis calender any player ever had.

Let us now come to our question as to why Serena was not rankned no. 1? Please refer to the ranking rule in the Part 1 of this article , since the below summary will be elaborative of that rule.

Category of TournamentsNo. of Tournaments required by WTA RankingsNo. of Tournaments Played.         Points won
AzarenkaSharapovaSerenaAzarenkaSharapovaSerena
Grand Slams                  4     4      4    4   4,580   4,580  4,285
Premiere Mandatory                  4     4      4    2   2,950   2,350  1,250
WTA Championship                  1     1      1    1     530   1,050  1,500
Olympics                  1     1      1    1     340      470     685
Premiere 5                  2*     4*      2    2  1,125   1,125     620
Others                  4     3      1    3  1,070      470   1,060
Total 10,595  10,045   9,400
*Points from the best two Premiere 5 tournaments will count.

Missing Miami and Beijing costed Serena the year end no. 1 ranking, or perhaps the first round loss at the French Open or the fourth round loss at Australian Open costed her the top spot at the end of the year.

But it all ended with Azarenka and Sharapova being ranked ahead of Williams, who in her 30's is still the player to beat. Williams, however, has a chance to grab the top spot by the end of the Austrlain Open 2013, there will be a three way fight for the top spot between Azarenka, Sharapova and Serena Williams.

For now, we can say that Azarenka and Sharapova are rightly ranked ahead of Serena, and that there is no flaw in the ranking system. What do you people think????

2 comments:

  1. Great article again! :) I think Serena was the player of the year, as she left the biggest impression in 2012, but the fact that she missed too much of the season, prevented her from being No.1.

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  2. Thanks Marija :)
    I disagree with you on Serena being the player of the year (year means the whole year, not just the half of the year). Everyone is taking her the player of the year because of two things (in my opinion) :
    She lost just one match from the start of Wimbledon till the end of the year.
    She was never beaten by the world no.1 and world no. 2 during the year.
    These two are remarkable feats but eveyone forgets that this is about whole year, not just one half. Just think it this way, if Azarneka had closed the year with a hot 26 match winning streak, and Serena had won Aussie Open and French Open and lost in the 4th round of Wimbledon and first round of U.S Open, would she have been picked player of the year????

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