2008 in Review

.
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

.
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

____________

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

US Open 2008--The Summary

.
Yokozuna (=Grand Champion) Roger Federer won the 13th Grand Slam title of his career, celebrating a spectacular comeback after a (for his standards) shaky year 2008. His surprise opponent in the final was the 21 year old Scotsman Andy Murray, Maegashira 1 before the tournament, who jumps all the way up to Sekiwake (=Junior Champion I), the first Sanyaku (= Championship) rank of his career. A semifinal at the Australian Open 2009 would get Murray even up to Ozeki (= Champion) level. Recently crowned Yokozuna Rafael Nadal reached the semifinals, as did Ozeki Novak Djokovic, who therefore overcame the kadoban demotion risk and will retain the Ozeki rank for at least another two tournaments. Former Ozeki Andy Roddick made it to the quarterfinals for the first time in a year and defended his Komosubi (=Junior Champion II) rank. However, all other pre-U.S. open Komosubi -- David Ferrer, Marat Safin, and Rainer Schuettler -- exited early and lose Championship rank. As a consequence, only 5 players will enter the 2009 Australian Open as Sanyaku, the lowest number since 1981.

In the ladies' tournament, Serena Williams topped her Wimbledon final with the 9th Grand Slam title of her career. Serena is therefore only one Slam away from Dai-Yokozuna status (= Distinguished Grand Champion). In the quarterfinal she overcame her sister Venus -- the other active Yokozuna -- in a close encounter, and went on to beat Jelena Jankovic, who regained Sekiwake status. Semifinalists Dinara Safina and Elena Dementieva (a former Ozeki and current Olympic champion) will also enter the Australian Open as Sekiwake, as will Ana Ivanovic, who lost Ozeki rank with another early exit -- for the first time since 2001, there is no female Ozeki. Maria Sharapova, who used to hold this rank until recently, withdrew from the tournament and slips to Komosubi. She shares the rank with veteran Patty Schnyder, who returns to the Sanyaku for the first time since 2004.

The Men's Tournament

Result	Name	Old Rank	New Rank	Highest Rank	Career points
Winner	Roger Federer	Y(a)	Y(a)	Y	72
Finalist	Andy Murray	-	S	S	4
Semifinalist	Rafael Nadal	Y(a)	Y(a)	Y	32
Semifinalist	Novak Djokovic	O(k)	O	O	16
Quarterfinalist	Andy Roddick	K	K	O	28
Quarterfinalist	Mardy Fish	-	-	-	2
Quarterfinalist	Juan Martin del Potro	-	-	-	1
Quarterfinalist	Gilles Muller	-	-	-	1
-	Marat Safin	K	-	O	22
-	David Ferrer	K	-	S	5
-	Rainer Schuttler	K	-	S	5

The Women's Tournament

Result	Name	Old Rank	New Rank	Highest Rank	Career points
Winner	Serena Williams	Y(a)	Y(a)	Y	59
Finalist	Jelena Jankovic	K	S	S	12
Semifinalist	Elena Dementieva	S	S	O	17
Semifinalist	Dinara Safina	K	S	S	7
Quarterfinalist	Venus Williams	Y(a)	Y(a)	Y	66
Quarterfinalist	Patty Schnyder	-	K	K	8
Quarterfinalist	Flavia Pennetta	-	-	-	1
Quarterfinalist	Sybille Bammer	-	-	-	1
-	Ana Ivanovic	O(k)	S	O	13
-	Maria Sharapova	S	K	O	29
-	Svetlana Kuznetsova	K	-	O	17
-	Agnieszka Radwanska	K	-	K	2
-	Jie Zheng	K	-	K	2
-	Lindsay Davenport	Y(ia)	Y(ia)	Y	59

Y(a)=Active Yokozuna
Y(ia)=Inactive Yokozuna
O=Ozeki
O(k)=Kadoban Ozeki
S=Sekiwake
K=Komosubi

Final and Seminfinal Results

Men's Final
Federer (Y, seeded 2)	vs.	Murray (-, 2)	6-2, 7-5, 6-2
Women's Final
S. Williams (Y, 4)	vs.	Jankovic (K, former S, 2)	6-4, 7-5
Men's Semifinal
Nadal (Y, 1)	vs.	Murray (-, 6)	2-6, 6-7, 6-4, 4-6
Federer (Y, 2)	vs.	Djokovic (O, 3)	6-3, 5-7, 7-5, 6-2
Women's Semifinal
S. Williams (Y, 4)	vs.	Safina (K, former S, 6)	6-3, 6-2
Jankovic (K, former S, 2)	vs.	Dementieva (K, former O, 5)	6-4, 6-4

.

Serena Closing in on the Dai-Yokozuna

.
With her 9th Grand Slam title, Serena Williams is only one title away from joining the illustre group of Dai-Yokozuna, i.e. Yokozuna (Grand Champions) who have distinguised themselves even within this elite group by typically winning 10 or more titles.

In the open era only six female players have attained Dai-Yokozuna status. These are:

Female Dai-Yokozuna

			Promotion to…				GS	Grand slam achievements 1/
			Y	O	S	K	debut	Titles	Finals	Sfinals	Qfinals
1	Margaret Court	Dai-Y	F69	A69	A69	U68	(A59)	11	1	4	4
2	Billie Jean King	Dai-Y	W72	W68	W68	F68	(W 61)	8	4	5	11
3	Chris Evert	Dai-Y	W74	W73	U72	U71	U71	18	16	18	2
4	Martina Navratilova	Dai-Y	F82	F75	A75	A75	F73	18	14	12	9
5	Steffi Graf	Dai-Y	A88	W87	F87	U85	F83	22	9	6	5
6	Monica Seles	Dai-Y	F91	W90	F90	F89	F89	9	4	5	13
7 (?)	Serena Williams	Y	W02	F02	U99	U99	A98	9	3	2	10

1/ Since the beginning of the Open era.

Billie Jean King is considered a Dai-Yokozuna because of her combined pre-open era and open era career. Monica Seles is on the list as only a career-interrupting attack by a deranged man prevented her from reaching the double-digit title threshold.

As flipside of Serena's hard fought tournament victory (6-4, 7-5), runner-up Jelena Jankovic fell once again short of Ozeki promotion -- she was one win short of Ozeki level already at the 2008 French Open. Jankovic now needs to reach the semifinal at the 2009 Australian Open to attain Yokozuna tennis' second highest rank. She obtained back the Sekiwake rank, however, that she had lost after exiting early at Wimbledon. With Ana Ivanovic being demoted from Ozeki to Sekiwake, there is no female Ozeki at the current juncture.
.

Will the 2008 U.S. Open Produce a New Ozeki?

.
Ana Ivanovic lost her Ozeki rank during the U.S. Open while Novak Djokovic defended his--but there are no less than 5 players left with a chance to get promoted to Ozeki themselves.

• The best chances has arguably Elena Dementieva (S, former O), who was Ozeki already in 2004 but was unable to keep the title for more than two tournaments. A win over Jelena Jankovic in the semifinal would get the Russian back up to the second-highest rank, given that Dementieva carries over a semifinal participation from Wimbledon.
• Participation in the U.S. Open final would also trigger an Ozeki promotion for French Open finalist Dinara Safina (K, former S). With this, the Russian would attain the same career-high rank as her brother, Marat Safin. But in her semifinal Serena Williams and therefore an active Yokozuna will be waiting--a big hurdle.
• French Open semifinalist Jelena Jankovic (K, former S) can also become an Ozeki, but she would have to win the tournament.
• In the mens' field, Andy Murray secured a first-time Sekiwake promotion today with his quarterfinal victory over Juan Martin del Potro. The tournament title would propel him all the way up to Ozeki, given that he carries over a quarterfinal participation from Wimbledon. He will have to beat Rafael Nadal (Y) and possibly Roger Federer (Y) or Novak Djokovic (O) to this end, however.
• Finally, if Andy Roddick (K, former O) wins the tournament he would re-gain Ozeki rank for a third-time, owing to the two-GS-title rule.
  

Andy Murray Secures First-Time Sanyaku Promotion

.
By reaching back-to-back quarterfinals at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, Scotsman Andy Murray has secured his career's first promotion to Sanyaku rank. The 3-set sweep of Stanislaw Wawrinka of Switzerland in the round of 16 secures that Murray will enter the Australian Open at least as Komosubi. Should he beat Argentine Del Potro in the quarterfinals, he would even be promoted to Sekiwake.

Other ranking decisions already taken include:

• After two disappointing Grand Slam tournaments, Ana Ivanovic will lose Ozeki rank and be demoted to Sekiwake,
• Maria Sharapova -- a former Ozeki who withdrew injured -- will be demoted from Sekiwake to Komosubi,
• Marat Safin (former O), Rainer Schuettler (former S), David Ferrer (former S), Svetlana Kuznetsova (former K), Jie Zheng, and Agniezka Radwanska will all lose Komosubi rank and enter the Australian Open unranked.

On the positive side,

• veteran Patty Schnyder will regain her Komosubi rank (first obtained in 1998, last held in 2004), as a result of her second grand slam quarterfinal participation this year after Roland Garros,
• Elena Dementieva (S, former O), Jelena Jankovic (K, former S), and Dinara Safina (K, former S) have already defended their ranks and may well get promoted up further if they continue to win,
• Novak Djokvic (O, kadoban) and Andy Roddick (K, former O) can defend their ranks tomorrow by winning their round of 16 matches, against Tommy Robredo (former K) and Fernando Gonzalez (former S), repectively.

Finally, the Yokozuna -- Nadal, Federer, and the Williams sisters -- need not defend their rank (as it is for life), but all four continue to go strong.