2008 in Review

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The top players are currently fighting out the end-year tennis championship, but this year's Grand Slam tennis--and therefore the tournaments relevant for the Yokozuna Tennis--ended with the U.S. Open in September. Here is the resumee for 2008.

11 male and 13 female players held Sanyaku rank over the course of 2008. 4 male and 5 female players were High Sanyakuy (active Yokozuna or Ozeki).

7 male and 8 female players got promoted. 3 male and 3 female players climbed to to a new career-high rank: Rafael Nadal (Yokozuna), Andy Murray (Sekiwake), Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (Sekiwake), Dinara Safina (Sekiwake), Agnieszka Radwanska (Komosubi), and Jie Zheng (Komosubi). There was no new Ozeki promotion.

The title player of 2008 is shared between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal on the mens' side. On the womens' side it goes to Serena Williams. Federer and Nadal reached all four grand slam semi-finals; Nadal's two titles contrast with Federer's one title and two lost finals. Serena Williams had a relatively weak first half of the season, but restablished herself as the women to beat with a victory at the U.S. Open and a narrowly lost final (against her sister Venus) at Wimbledon.

The retirement of 2008 was Justine Henin's surprising withdrawal from professional tennis before the French Open, leaving the Williams sisters as the only active female Yokozuna. The Williamses promptly re-took control of the scene in the second half of the year.

The promotion of 2008 was undoubtedly Rafael Nadal's elevation to Yokozuna, as a result of winning back-to-back titles at the French Open and Wimbledon. Nadal is the 15th male Yokozuna of the open era. He had been Ozeki since 2006.

The rising stars of 2008 .... click here for the full article (with complete 2008 performance statistics)

Tournament-Specific Yokozuna and Ozeki

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The Yokozuna tennis ranking criteria can be applied not only to a player's overall Grand Slam tennis career, but also to individual Grand Slam tournaments--a player winning two consecutive Wimbledon tournaments is a "Wimbledon Yokozuna", a player reaching and losing back-to-back French Open finals is a "French Open Ozeki", and so on.

Such ratings yield two insights 1/:

• the identify the open era greats of specific tournaments, and
• they allow to distinguish "generalists" from "specialists". A "generalist" obtained high Sanyaku ranks at all or most Grand Slam events, a "specialist" did well only at selected tournaments.

As the table below shows (much more extensive tables are linked up at the bottom), in the history of open era tennis only two players managed to become tournament specific (TS) Yokozuna at all four Grand Slams: Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf. Six others obtained three TS Yokozuna ranks. Roger Federer, Ivan Lendl, Margaret Court and Chris Evert added a TS Ozeki rank to this tally, Stefan Edberg and Monical Seles a TS Sekiwake rank. By contrast, the Dai-Yokozuna Pete Sampras and Billie Jean King are missing from the very top of the list, as most of their triumphs came at just two tourmaments: Wimbledon and the US Open (Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg are also missing, but this owes to special factors--Laver because of his short career during the open era, Borg because he skipped the Australian Open in most years).

Top Generalists of the Open Era

	Overall Career Rank	# of specific Y-O-S-K	Australian  Open	French Open	Wimbledon	US Open
Men
Roger Federer	Dai-Yokozuna	3-1-0-0	Yokozuna	Ozeki	Yokozuna	Yokozuna
Ivan Lendl	Yokozuna	3-1-0-0	Yokozuna	Yokozuna	Ozeki	Yokozuna
Stefan Edberg	Yokozuna	3-0-1-0	Yokozuna	Sekiwake	Yokozuna	Yokozuna
Women
Martina Navratilova	Dai-Yokozuna	4-0-0-0	Yokozuna	Yokozuna	Yokozuna	Yokozuna
Steffi Graf	Dai-Yokozuna	4-0-0-0	Yokozuna	Yokozuna	Yokozuna	Yokozuna
Margaret Court	Dai-Yokozuna	3-1-0-0	Yokozuna	Yokozuna	Ozeki	Yokozuna
Chris Evert	Dai-Yokozuna	3-1-0-0	Ozeki	Yokozuna	Yokozuna	Yokozuna
Monica Seles	Dai-Yokozuna	3-0-1-0	Yokozuna	Yokozuna	Sekiwake	Yokozuna

For complete statistics--and a discussion of them--see:

1) TS ranks by slam: a list of all TS Yokozuna and Ozeki by Grand Slam tournament

2) TS ranks by player: tournament-specific ranks of all players who attained TS Yokozuna or Ozeki status at one or more Grand Slams

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1/ I owe the idea to "fast clay", a poster on http://www.menstennisforums.com/.