The Elite 3 x 100 Club

Lleyton Hewitt is on something of a farewell tour this year, having announced his intention to retire after the Australian Open next January. Many stops on this tour are tournaments where he is a past champion and wild cards have been generously given. One such tournament was the US Men's Clay Court Championships in Houston last week, where unfortunately, Hewitt lost in the first round to Go Soeda. This wasn't entirely unexpected since Soeda is higher ranked, but it was unfortunate, because Hewitt needs only 2 more wins on clay to join a very elite club - men who have won 100 matches on each of hard court, clay and grass in the Open Era.

Roger Federer is the only active player in this club, with Becker, McEnroe and Connors among the other members. For most players, the trickiest target to reach is the 100 wins on grass. Due to its limited window in the calendar, you've got to want to play as much as possible on grass or be exceptionally good on it to get near. Federer, of course, is in the latter category and even with his 7 Wimbledon titles plus 2 finals, 7 Halle titles plus 2 finals plus Olympic silver medal still has "only" 131 wins on grass. Hewitt falls into the former: playing all tournaments that wrap around Wimbledon has netted titles at Wimbledon, Queens (x4), Halle, s-Hertogenbosch and Newport and 128 match wins in total.

So just how likely is it for Hewitt or any other current player to join Federer in the club? Let's look at the requirements for each:

Lleyton Hewitt
Age 34 and < 1 season to play
Hard 367
Clay 98 - 2 wins required
Grass 128
2 wins on clay must be easy to get, right? Well, wrong actually - because in total in the past 4 seasons, Hewitt has won only 2 matches on clay. The fields in the pre-RG tournaments are likely too strong to get a soft draw, and he isn't on the entry list of any although a wild card may be a possibility for one of the 250's such as Estoril or Geneva. There are 3 weeks of clay after Wimbledon, but these to tend to attract strong clay courters, and anyway, Hewitt will likely head to Australia post-Wimbledon for the Davis Cup quarter final.
So it seems likely that Hewitt will end his career one or 2 short on clay.

Rafael Nadal
Age 28 - possibly 4 or 5 seasons to play
Hard 341
Clay 325
Grass 53 - 47 wins required        
Despite a resume on grass of 2 Wimbledon titles plus 3 finals and a Queens title, Nadal still needs pretty much the same again in grass wins to reach the target. With the clay swing seemingly taking more and more out of him each year, I just don't see how this is possible - even with the extra week before Queens. If we assume 5 more seasons, that's 10 wins a season. I think Nadal will end up more than 20 wins short on grass.

Novak Djokovic
Age 27 - possibly 5 to 7 seasons to play
Hard 415
Clay 144
Grass 60 - 40 wins required  
Djokovic's best seasons on grass have been the recent ones with 2 titles and a final at Wimbledon in the last 4 years. However, he has skipped the warm-up tournaments most years leaving him well short of the required grass wins. Adding these back in his schedule now that we have the extra week after the French will be crucial to achieving the target. If he can play 6 injury-free seasons, that's 6-7 wins across 2 tournaments each season - tough not certainly not out of the question.

Andy Murray
Age 27 - possibly 5 or 6 seasons to play
Hard 353
Clay 63 - 37 wins required
Grass 78 - 22 wins required          
A different challenge with 2 targets still to reach - conflicting at that, since grass success in later years often comes with holding back in the clay swing. Here we have a player who is both very good on grass, and more committed to the whole season, particularly Queens, but also Newport/Nottingham earlier in his career, with a good few Davis Cup ties on grass thrown in for good measure. The required wins equate to 5 seasons with 4-5 wins each season, which seems quite possible.
Clay however - well, again, averaging out the 37 wins required across 5 seasons, that's 7-8 wins per season across say 4 tournaments. It doesn't sound too bad, until you see that in his first 10 years on tour, Murray has averaged less than 4 clay tournaments per year and about 6 clay match wins per season.
I think Murray will end up with 100 wins on grass and in the 80's on clay.

The Top 10 Stalwarts and Lost Boys
What of the other players who've been entrenched in the top 10 for so long? Or the 23 to 26 year olds so long shut out by the big 3/4? Well, they're falling short by most on grass, with their wins being:
Ferrer (age 33) - 39
Berdych (age 29) - 48
Del Potro (age 26) - 29
Cilic (age 26) - 34
Nishikori (age 25) - 20
Raonic (age 24) - 14
Dimitrov (age 23) - 23
Dimitrov looks nearest to being on track here, but to put that into context, by the age Dimitrov is now, Murray had 40 wins on grass. This group seems to have no chance.  

Ranking them in order of likelihood, I have: Djokovic > Hewitt > Murray > Nadal. But quite possibly, none of this generation will make it and someone like Kyrgios or Kokkinakis will do so, with the benefit from the longer grass season.

What do you think? Who has the best chance to join this elite club?

Hewitt winning two more matches on clay is surely more achievable than Novak winning 40 matches on grass, I would think.

If Novak plays for another five or six seasons, he has to reach the SF or better at Wimbledon each season for him to win 40 matches on grass, unless he plays a warm up tournament on grass before Wimbledon, something he doesn't so since 2011.

For Rafa, given his poor records on grass lately, and most likely he'll retire before Novak, I think he'll not reach winning 100 matches on grass.

I think Murray is the most likely one reaching at least 100 match wins on all surfaces, as he has more chances to win on clay to make up for the 37 wins. Winning another 22 matches on grass is doable too for him.

Great thread and great stats.

If any active player other than Hewitt joins the club, it would be a surprise. Novak has a shot but it's more unlikely than likely.

It also stood out to me that Rafa only has 16 more HC wins than clay wins. This means by the end of RG15, he'll probably have more clays win than HC wins. Given their respective weightings in the calendar, that's an unusual stat, even allowing for Rafa's brilliance on clay.

YvonneT - very impressive work on the stats, if I may say so. At least everyone is getting an extra week on grass which is as it should be given the sport is Lawn Tennis.
Shall be sorry to see Hewitt go. Wonderful competitor who made the most of his ability.

Grass really is the toughest one to crack the 100 mark as the season is so short and a fair few players tend to only play Wimbledon.

sfp - yes, Hewitt is (or rather, was) a great competitor and undoubtedly made the very most of his ability.

But in truth, I would say that his 'farewell tour' has lasted a few years now, given that it must be easily a decade or so since he lifted an ATP trophy of real significance (ie a 1000 or above...)

Much is made of Hewitt's unfortunate plague of injuries - and he has certainly come back from many of them, often with impressive motivation & determination. He deserves great credit for that. However ..... that does not really tell the full story, because after his reign as World No 1 ended, he would continue to make the business end of Slams, only to then consistently fall short - even in those spells when he had declared himself fully fit & injury-free, and proved good enough to beat many/most guys on the tour - but of course not the very best, on the biggest stages.

In short, I feel that Hewitt's star shone very brightly (still the youngest-ever to make Number One, I believe) ; but - in overall career terms - it only shone for a fairly short period of around two or three years. In particular, for the Australian Open where he 'enjoyed' home advantage & support, a total tally of ten exits in either R1 or R2, balanced by a solitary Final appearance, is not really the stuff of legend.

YvonneT : great article in terms of both stats and accompanying commentary/assessment

Lags72.On Hewitt, I never really thought he was number one material but he managed to get in during the period after Sampras's best and before Rog's ascendancy.
Lleyton never really had huge weapons, but he was such a fighter and a tremendous counter puncher. But for Fed he might have managed more than his two GS. Agree that his AO record is poor.

Nadals issue is that while he has a good win record at Wimbledon, he doesnt really take the one other grass court tournament, that is Quenns/Halle very seriously, just one title and a lot of early losses to get the 100 wins he would need. Murrays in with a great shout, with the number of clay tournaments each year he should sneak both of those milestones.
Novak would need to play a grass court warm up tournament to probably make up the grass wins.

interesting and different thread. maybe hewitt will do it. you never know. he just needs a bit of luck with the draws maybe. I think Murray can do it more easily than Djokovic or Nadal.

This is great stuff.

I agree with HB, and can see Murray having an easier time of this than anyone else. Despite his relatively poor clay prowess, he has way more opportunities there and will surely notch the required wins. 22 on grass should be easy for him, especially if he makes hay at Wimbledon for the next 2-3 years.

40 grass wins is a lot, but I could see Novak doing it. Rafa's got no chance. I'm decently impressed that Berdych is nearing 50 grass wins.

If Hewitt's aware of this 'club' and cares enough, he might consider cherry-picking a weaker clay tournament? I can't see him being all that fussed, though.

Rafa's number of match wins on clay are about the same as his HC wins? Thats because of his prowess on clay and also he misses chunks of HC seasons - missed second half of 2012 and 2014; missed AO twice in 2006 and 2013; skipped Paris Masters in 2005/2006/2010/2011; missed YEC in 2005/2008 due to injuries; skipped IW in 2005 and Miami in 2013, etc and etc.

Novak would have to play a warm up tourny before wimbledon to make 40. Other wise hess need to win Wimbledon about another 4 times in 6 years

The achievement of winning on different surfaces has been completely debased because of the homogenisation of the surfaces. Djokovic barely adjusts his game for different surfaces. So for me this is nothing.

greengoblin wrote:The achievement of winning on different surfaces has been completely debased because of the homogenisation of the surfaces. Djokovic barely adjusts his game for different surfaces. So for me this is nothing.

No I don't buy that otherwise there would be a plethora of players lining up to join the club but there isn't.

I think it's less about the surfaces and more about the racket technology.
You simply couldn't hit shots like they do today and I think that would cause more of a equal spread of the trophies.

Theres a lot more to a tennis court than the speed of the ball off of it. The bounce, the consistency and height of, the footing, the amount of court outside the line, the level of degredation and how it reacts to heat.
Too often people confuse homogeny with speed, they arent the same, the fact the top players dont have an even slam spread is an example of that.

Silver wrote:This is great stuff.

I agree with HB, and can see Murray having an easier time of this than anyone else. Despite his relatively poor clay prowess, he has way more opportunities there and will surely notch the required wins. 22 on grass should be easy for him, especially if he makes hay at Wimbledon for the next 2-3 years.

40 grass wins is a lot, but I could see Novak doing it. Rafa's got no chance. I'm decently impressed that Berdych is nearing 50 grass wins.

If Hewitt's aware of this 'club' and cares enough, he might consider cherry-picking a weaker clay tournament? I can't see him being all that fussed, though.

He played Houston which can only have been to try and get the 2 wins! Lost first round though.

Sadly he has not managed to make it past R1 in five out of his last seven tournies.

Hopefully he can put up a better showing in his final grass season, this coming (European) summer.

On Hewitt, I don't know if he knows exactly how exclusive a club it is, but he certainly seems aware that he's 2 clay wins short of it - as BS says, that's why he went to Houston (one of the weaker fields) or else you could believe that he just has lots of nostalgia for the area!

Nadal seems to have embraced the challenge too - he's now entered Stuttgart (week after RG) as well as Queens this year.

On Murray, the problem is once a player hits 30 (assuming he's still fit & playing), it starts to make much more sense to focus on your strong surfaces than your weaker ones - so can see him doing as Roddick and Hewitt have done in the latter part of their careers and effectively skip most (or all) of the clay season.

greengoblin wrote:The achievement of winning on different surfaces has been completely debased because of the homogenisation of the surfaces. Djokovic barely adjusts his game for different surfaces. So for me this is nothing.

Maybe it's not quite the same challenge as when McEnroe, Connors and Becker did it, but I think my figures show that it's still pretty tough to do, don't they? And that the top players of this supposedly homogeneous era have very different profiles of wins across hard court, clay & grass. But if Hewitt does achieve this, I'll be sure to let him know that you're not impressed

YvonneT wrote:

greengoblin wrote:The achievement of winning on different surfaces has been completely debased because of the homogenisation of the surfaces. Djokovic barely adjusts his game for different surfaces. So for me this is nothing.

Maybe it's not quite the same challenge as when McEnroe, Connors and Becker did it, but I think my figures show that it's still pretty tough to do, don't they? And that the top players of this supposedly homogeneous era have very different profiles of wins across hard court, clay & grass. But if Hewitt does achieve this, I'll be sure to let him know that you're not impressed

I am not denying it's tough. I'm just not very impressed by Serbian cyborgs. Hewitt has actually been hurt by homogenisation so I would be impressed by that; I feel a bit sorry for him that he has been betrayed like many of his generation by slow surfaces.

If only the surfaces were biased in My favourite players favour instead of other peoples favourite players everything would be right in the tennis world...

I would be legitimately impressed if Novak made 40 grass wins in the next 5 years.. that would be 8 wins a year!

YvonneT wrote:On Hewitt, I don't know if he knows exactly how exclusive a club it is, but he certainly seems aware that he's 2 clay wins short of it - as BS says, that's why he went to Houston (one of the weaker fields) or else you could believe that he just has lots of nostalgia for the area!

Nadal seems to have embraced the challenge too - he's now entered Stuttgart (week after RG) as well as Queens this year.

On Murray, the problem is once a player hits 30 (assuming he's still fit & playing), it starts to make much more sense to focus on your strong surfaces than your weaker ones - so can see him doing as Roddick and Hewitt have done in the latter part of their careers and effectively skip most (or all) of the clay season.

Murray's a two time SF at the French and there are probably only 5 or so players who would start favourite against him at RG. A-Rod never made a QF and Lleyton only made a couple very early in his career. Its his weakest surface but there is a vast disparity between him and those two guys. Its possible that due to the back he might not play on it much but, subject to that, I'd expect him to play a full clay season from now until retirement.

Laver Win/Loss (H/C/G) in Open Era is 162/36, 98/31, 148/30.
Rosewall Win/Loss (H/C/G) in Open Era is 159/60, 107/27, 194/47.

The advantage these two had was 3-slams-on-grass setup, and 1 on clay.

Federer's numbers (H/C/G are 633/129, 198/62, 131/19) become much more significant and impressive, because he never saw 3-slams-on-grass. He has a lifetime commitment to Halle. He is playing Istanbul this year.

By the same token, and in contrast, the Hard numbers for Laver and Rosewall are impressive.

temporary21 wrote:If only the surfaces were biased in My favourite players favour instead of other peoples favourite players everything would be right in the tennis world...

I would be legitimately impressed if Novak made 40 grass wins in the next 5 years.. that would be 8 wins a year!

what? Oh I think I get it, judging by the maturity of your posts, you're too young to remember when there was a proper variety of surfaces. A time when Wimbledon and the us open were very quick, and serve and volleyers stood a chance. Unlike now, when every surface is for baseline play only. Don't worry, the summer holidays will arrive faster than you think.

You should take care with your posting green goblin. I'm old enough to remember the 94 final with ivanisevic and Sampras.  It wasn't the case of serve and volley but serve and serve. I appreciate matches like the 08 final in comparison to that

greengoblin wrote:what? Oh I think I get it, judging by the maturity of your posts, you're too young to remember when there was a proper variety of surfaces.

Remember, old age also brings Alzheimers, Arthritis, Amnesia (starting at A...), so age and maturity are not necessarily correlated.

Born Slippy wrote:He played Houston which can only have been to try and get the 2 wins! Lost first round though.

lags72 wrote:Sadly he has not managed to make it past R1 in five out of his last seven tournies.

Hopefully he can put up a better showing in his final grass season, this coming (European) summer.

Yikes, that's a shame. Here's hoping that he strings it together for one last hurrah.

His grass numbers really are quite impressive given his short period of dominance. I know he plays more grass tournaments on average, but only being three wins behind a Wimbledon record-holder is unexpected and good to see.

temporary21 wrote:You should take care with your posting green goblin. I'm old enough to remember the 94 final with ivanisevic and Sampras.  It wasn't the case of serve and volley but serve and serve. I appreciate matches like the 08 final in comparison to that

So maybe you're old enough to remember Agassi ivanesivic 1992, and the graf -navaratolava finals, and you're definitely old enough to remember rafter Agassi 2000 semi. Those matches could never happen today. Are you happy about that?

YvonneT wrote:

Andy Murray
Age 27 - possibly 5 or 6 seasons to play
Hard 353
Clay 63 - 37 wins required
Grass 78 - 22 wins required          
A different challenge with 2 targets still to reach - conflicting at that, since grass success in later years often comes with holding back in the clay swing. Here we have a player who is both very good on grass, and more committed to the whole season, particularly Queens, but also Newport/Nottingham earlier in his career, with a good few Davis Cup ties on grass thrown in for good measure. The required wins equate to 5 seasons with 4-5 wins each season, which seems quite possible.
Clay however - well, again, averaging out the 37 wins required across 5 seasons, that's 7-8 wins per season across say 4 tournaments. It doesn't sound too bad, until you see that in his first 10 years on tour, Murray has averaged less than 4 clay tournaments per year and about 6 clay match wins per season.
I think Murray will end up with 100 wins on grass and in the 80's on clay.

Well it has been a good start for Andy in eating into that clay total needed. He has already had six clay court wins this season with still another couple of clay court tournaments to come this season after this one so he could quite easily get 10 wins in this season. A big chunk out of that total required.

Lleyton Hewitt did not play in the European clay court season. I do not see his name in the French Open draw. He played one match on clay this season, which he lost. I assume he won't play on clay again.

He is down to play Washington and Queens, and so presumably Wimbledon and the US Open. I believe Australian Open 2016 is his last tournament.

Murray is the only one in that list who will do it. It's a bit easier for him because his weakest record is on a surface with an extensive programme.

Still would be quite impressive given that he only plays around 4 tournaments and maybe the odd DC match a year out of that extensive program.

Calder106 wrote:Still would be quite impressive given that he only plays around 4 tournaments and maybe the odd DC match a year out of that extensive program.

Plus given that he has twice been troubled with back issues during clay court seasons limiting those season and that he is generally seen as not that great a clay court player by many in his career so far.

Calder106 wrote:Still would be quite impressive given that he only plays around 4 tournaments and maybe the odd DC match a year out of that extensive program.

I agree, it's an impressive achievement full stop.

So as the clay season ends for Murray, his 15 match wins means he's got 22 wins to go. So 5 wins a season for 4 years would do it - and his average in his career so far has been 6 wins a season.

Hewitt sadly I think will have to be considered retired as far as clay goes.

If he plays on Clay as he has done this year, it should be done in two or three seasons.

LF, well yes, but that's a big if. The season after next Murray will be 30. Let's see.

I'll do another update at the end of the grass season.

YvonneT wrote:LF, well yes, but that's a big if. The season after next Murray will be 30. Let's see.

I'll do another update at the end of the grass season.

I'd say Murray is pretty sure of getting ten wins per clay season (at the moment) as a minimum. In the last two years he has reached the semis at RG. A semi at RG is five wins plus he tends to normally play Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Rome so unless he performed disasterously at those with early exits at all then he should be able to get at least five wins from those tournaments and more likely more. By the time Andy is 30 he will be through the 100 mark I'd predict and if not he'd still have a year or two (maybe more) to scratch together another odd clay court win or two. And that is presuming Britain play no Davis Cup matches on clay.

Is there a chance that Andy might look to play a few more clay court 250 and 500s given his improved form on the surface? Previously he has only played the tournaments he has had to, because of a preference and better performances on hard and grass.

For players with lower Grass numbers, Stuttgart should provide some additional opportunities.

Novak would be joining the club it would seem. He needs 40 more grass court wins yet this year (at present) he is only going to play Wimbledon.

dummy_half wrote:Is there a chance that Andy might look to play a few more clay court 250 and 500s given his improved form on the surface? Previously he has only played the tournaments he has had to, because of a preference and better performances on hard and grass.

Very doubtful. He plays the same amount as the likes of Djoker and Fed and I would see no reason for him to vary significantly from this year's schedule. The interesting point for next year will be whether he re-adds Monte Carlo or decides that starting with a 250 (Munich) is better for him. If he adds MC I would expect him to drop Munich.

I dunno about all this but in Grand Slam matches alone Federer is;

AO - 75
RG - 65
W  - 73
US - 72

That's 285 wins in just 4 tournaments, spread fairly evenly. 15 more for the 300!! Hopefully that'll be done in the 1st round of the 2016 AO

I checked a few other notables, like Lendl or Sampras, and they're nowhere close.

bogbrush wrote:I dunno about all this but in Grand Slam matches alone Federer is;

AO - 75
RG - 65
W  - 73
US - 72

That's 285 wins in just 4 tournaments, spread fairly evenly. 15 more for the 300!! Hopefully that'll be done in the 1st round of the 2016 AO

I checked a few other notables, like Lendl or Sampras, and they're nowhere close.

Looking at even numbers, Djoko should have 50 wins in each next year after RG or W: 50 - 49 - 45 - 50

Nadal is not too far either but that might take 2 or even 3 years: 45 - 70 - 39 - 41
After Wimby, Rafa might join the exclusive club of 40+ winners at each GS: Lendl, Agassi, Federer and Djokovic

Murray sould certainly join too at some point.
Do you think Murray could get 50 wins on each though? Currently: 39 - 28 - 41 - 37 (Looks a bit unreachable with FO, but he might win next 3 editions )

I thought I'd post an update since the grass season is over for another year.

The wins on grass were: Nadal 5, Djokovic 7, Murray 12 - with Murray also getting 15 wins towards his clay total.

That leaves the number of wins required as:

Nadal
42 wins required on grass

Djokovic
33 wins required on grass

Murray
10 wins required on grass
22 wins required on clay

With such a big turnaround for Murray on clay this year, I would reassess my original order of likelihood to get to the 3 x 100 to Murray > Djokovic and it feels that Murray should get there, Djokovic could but it's a tall order and Nadal his extremely unlikely to.

The LTA could always host the Davis Cup SF on clay and give either Murray or Hewitt the chance of another win or two

YvonneT wrote:

The LTA could always host the Davis Cup SF on clay and give either Murray or Hewitt the chance of another win or two

Thanks for the update Yvonne.

I honestly do not think there is a clay court venue in the whole of the UK capable of holding such an event.

It's a long short but I suppose you would take an existing non clay venue and put down a clay court in it. But as I say, not likely.

How about Wimbledon for the semi and Scotland for the final, would that work?

Admittedly I haven't checked whether the potential finalists would be home or away.

Just an update on Murray's clay total as the main clay swing is over for 2016.

His total wins on clay in 2016 was 18, and also had 2 wins from the Davis Cup final in 2015 after my last update.

So Murray now has 98 wins on clay - strangely equalling Hewitt's figure which is where I started with this thread. It's not clear at the moment whether Murray will play the DC QF in Serbia which is on clay, but regardless it seems likely he'll get to 100 by this time next year.

Next update at the end of the grass season...

I did say at the start of this thread 2 clay seasons ago I thought Murray could do it. I always felt he underperformed on clay after a good 2011 season his 2012-2014 results (or at least some of those years) were disappointing. I always thought he could do better. I think was last year his first clay final, and now he must have three or four at least.

In 2012-2013 I could never understand why for such a physical player, good at rallies and varieties, without a strong second serve, seemed to struggle on the clay. He seemed made for it. Movement was often given as the reason but I was never fully convinced.

That being said, I'm not convinced that he can actually win RG. Probably 50/50 or less, but we'll see.

33 wins on grass is a tall order for Djokovic. Simply put, he needs to play more than one grass tournament a year which he often doesn't do.