Toughest Road To The Final
It’s still going on.
What this blog is all about: Love All
The dataset being used: Note on the Datasets
A few years ago, when Djokovic reached the US Open semis having played just 2 complete matches, I wrote a post trying to find the easiest route to a Grand Slam final any tennis player has ever had. As I write this, Kevin Anderson and John Isner are battling out a Wimbledon semifinal, playing at 17–17 in the fifth set. Anderson’s quarterfinal against Federer went to 13–11 in the fifth set as well. Time to figure out the toughest route-to-the-final of all time.
Fortunately, the query from last time is still around. Flip the sorting order and run in on updated results, and you’ve got this:
No very recent matches, you can see, apart from Safin in 2004.
The current leader is Chris Lewis, who played 265 matches en route to the finals of the 1983 Wimbledon, where he lost to John McEnroe.
His road to the final:
R128: 6–4 4–6 7–6 4–6 6–3
R64: 6–7 6–4 7–6 6–7 8–6
R32: 6–7 6–0 6–4 7–6
R16: 6–1 6–3 6–3
QF: 6–4 3–6 7–5 6–7 6–4
SF: 7–6 6–1 6–3
25 sets, 265 games. Not one tie-breaker, oddly enough.
For comparison, here’s Kevin Anderson’s road to the final this year:
R128: 6–3 6–4 6–4
R64: 6–3 6–7(5) 6–3 6–4
R32: 6–3 7–5 7–6
R16: 7–6(4) 7–6(2) 5–7 7–6(4)
QF: 2–6 6–7(5) 7–5 6–4 13–11
SF: 6–7(6) 7–6(5) 7–6(9) 6–4 17–17…
24 sets, 304 games, and counting.
If you didn’t have someone to root for already, here you go. If Kevin Anderson wins this match, he will reach a Grand Slam final having worked far harder for it than anyone else ever has.
