Is the future of the game in jeopardy...

A few facts looking at the top 100 juniors, i.e. 21 and under - these top100 go down to 560 in the full ATP rankings:
- Firstly there are only 7 players under 21 in Top 100 overall ATP rankings

Looking at the top 100 juniors by traditionally strong countries:
- Spain has only 5 players in the top 100 "juniors" under 21
- France has only 5 players under 21 in the top 100 "juniors"
- USA has only 9 players under 21 in the top 100 juniors
- Britain has only 3 players under 21 in top 100 juniors
- Argentina interestingly has 10 players under 21 in top 100 juniors

However, if we look to what recent "greats" of the game achieved at an early age...
By 18y 7m Djokovic was at #78
By 18y 6m Nadal was at #51
By 18y 4m Federer was at #65
By 18y 7m Murray was at #65

This shows the great plays get up to around 50-75ish ranking by mid 18th year.
So contrast that with the ranked current 18 year old - Dominic Thiem from Austria at #442!!!

When we look at the spread of the other 18-21yo players, that even under 23 there arent many big names, that more and more players over 30 are winning big titles and the average age of the Top10 has been going up the past 4 years it would appear the future of the game may be in trouble.

Any thoughts on where it may be going 'wrong' at the young player end?

reckoner has made a good point about physicality...that its taking longer for players to mature physically and achieve the level of conditioning required to cut it at the top.

Perhaps this is the clearest signal yet to ATP they need to:
1. speed up the courts
2. add more variety of surface speeds
3. advocate a change of coaching routines to reflect more risk, varied play
4. limit racquet specs (90sqin, no less than 55lbs, no poly strings)

???

lydian wrote:
Any thoughts on where it may be going 'wrong' at the young player end?

Or where players at the old player end may be getting it 'right'.

I can think of a number of reasons which favour older players all of which enable them to take advantage of the one thing they do have - match experience:

a. Strength and stamina are playing a greater part in the modern game - and usually those qualities increase during your 20's
b. Greatly increased sophistication in sport science - focused training, nutrition, specifics about particular types of movement, the ability to analyse and work to gain tiny differences - these are helping older guys who have the experience and the money to commit properly to the advantages that they can bring
c. If other differences are narrowed (see in particular b. above) match experience is going to help older guys a lot more
d. Federer made the point after the Rosol match that you don't see new guys coming in and blasting the more established guys away much - a game with a greater focus on returning means that the older guy has a greater chance to hang on in during the course of a match and use his experience to outlast a stretch when a younger guy is blasting through him and then introduce doubts into the younger guy and gain the upper hand.
e. There's good money to be earned by hanging on so the older guys continue to have strong motivation

In short advances in equipment and training are helping older guys to stay in shape to take far more advantage of their experience than in past eras when a young guy with massive enthusiasm and huge fitness could blast an older guy off the court before he had a chance to get to grips with him. It's not unprecedented in the sense that Jimmy Connors, and to a less extreme extent Lendl, showed what sort of longevity was possible as individuals. Now we see more and more people doing it.

If there were a way to speed the game up a little (not excessively) I think you'd see more young guys doing the sort of thing that Rosol did to Nadal.

Interesting article lydian. Funnily I did think your post on the other thread merited a stand alone article!

In my opinion (and I hope I'm wrong) it'd be uncharacteristic of the ATP to plan ahead while there's money being made right now, as with any large organisation there is an element of institutional drag and they are more likely to attempt fixes after the fact.

The solutions you propose are bang on the money though!

Great points/posts barrystar and reckoner.

The issue I have with the old guys doing well, physical conditioning, match experience, etc, argument is that we're not just talking about the top 10, top 20, top 50 or even top 100 players here. Its seems that no current 18 year old can break into the top 400! Surely not all the top 400 are older physical trojans with great match experience?

My point is that there is no real talent coming through!. Sure physical conditioning will help a player live with the best, etc...but also surely a modicum of genuine talent would see them breaking the top 100? After all I have the feeling if the current Top 4 were emerging onto the tour today at 18yrs with the talent we know they have, I would expect them to still break the top 100 and beyond.

To be honest, the only talent I'm seeing coming through pretty much at all in the Top 100 are two 21 yr olds...Dimitrov and Goffin. I'm still not convinced about Tomic, I think he's abit of a pusher.

So young talented stars of the future, where art thou? Apparently down at #442...

I guess I had not been concentrating - the weight of the numbers quoted by Lydian may well be suggesting that something more serious is happening.

Many of the guys currently playing tennis could make it in other sports - if you think someone like John Terry has a basic annual salary of £5m which only 3-4 guys a year can win on tour far more precariously (the really big guys have endorsements on top, but they can't be big for those out of the top 5-10), and then quite how many footie players are getting paid big money in Europe's top leagues, I guess a young player who could go either way might look at football first....

I have always thought that the biggest cost of tennis is real estate - think how much of it you need for 2 players and how it needs to be properly prepared and marked out compared to what you need for 22 in football.

Maybe there is a crisis when you look at Lydian's numbers.

The answer to the question is no.

On the other hand is the standard and quality going to be better once the Federer's, Djokovic's, Nadal's of this world stop playing? Again the painful answer is no.

What we have now is the elderly guard now hanging around much longer in the top 100 in this current era. Almost like the whole we as the human race are living much longer. You have to ask how demoralised are players such as Dimitrov, Raonic, Tomic, Goffin, Harrison, Nishikori, Dolgopolov who have struggled to make in roads at Masters event/ ATP 500 events. It's nice having a run at the Slams, but once the BO5 format dries up and you are playing BO3 over 4-5 day periods, you question the consistency within their play. It does bare asking what the average age is of the current top 100 measured against other era's gone by. Even in the early 90's you had McEnroe and Connors making the back end of Slams.

Are the youngsters playing as well as they can? Are they intimidated by the players at the top and how far are they willing to push themselves to close the gap?

See it would take for 3 out of the top 4 seeds at a Slam/Masters event to crash out for the youngsters to have a glimmer of hope of inspiring change. I think most would prefer a Dolgopolov Slam over say a Tomic Slam. Within the next 5 years we could slowly see that change.

You get the feeling someone out there right now is ready and waiting to turn the corner and shake things up a bit, like Becker did in 1985.

Fair argument LK...BUT I repeat - there are no current 18 year old (and thats including anyone up to 18 years and 364 daysm i.e. almost 19 really) under 442!

Its a shocker. You can argue the increased use of Bo3, rather than Bo5, format would actually help the younger players as shorter matches mean stamina is less of an issue. If they are lacking consistency as you say in these shorter formats then this also points to a lack of relative talent in playing the game to the right level to break through. Talent is talent, and usually finds its way through. Players beyond 150 ranking arent playing 5 sets anyway.

We dont have to look at slams/Masters for breakthroughs to the levels we're discussing, i.e. into the top 75 by age 18.
Fed/Nad/Murray werent breaking through at 18 at those levels either (Nadal on clay aside)...its the challengers and 250s where the young players need to make headway. To crack the top 100 you need around 500 ATP points...if you're ranked from best of 18 results then you need about 25 points per event. For an ATP250 thats getting through qualifying and getting to Round 1, for a challenger than might be getting to Round 3. We're not talking winning Masters or slams...or even getting to quarters.

So my point is we dont seem to have young talent that can break into the top 400 by age of 19. With the highest ranked 18 yr old having just 47 ATP points you wonder what collective factors are at play to cause this - it cant just be aging but fitter players (playing shorter formats than the 90s) across the top 400 doing better than yesteryear and keeping talented young ones out? Surely?

The question I ask though lydian is do the current youngsters looking up have enough self-belief to push themselves to improve their ranking and position in the game?

When you look at the top and see Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and then behind them Murray, Tsonga, Ferrer, Del Potro do they believe enough to get up there? It is quite intimidating to say the least.

But surely young talent has always had multi-slammers and strong players at the top of their current time to worry about? Whether it be Federer, Agassi, Sampras, Courier, Edberg, Becker, et al. I would think the top 10 is always pretty intimidating for player at 18 breaking through...but they still managed it consistently until recently it would appear.

That aside, I dont think focusing on the top10 is the issue though, I'm not sure thats a red herring. We're talking about breaking into the top 100 for 18-19 year olds...surely they dont even have to come up against those top10-20 guys often to get the ranking needed to achieve the early breakthroughs past greats have done. Genuine talent could get to top 100 by doing well at challengers before pushing further. At #442...even that is nowhere near happening currently.

That's where your argument scores for me Lydian - the failure of any 18-yr-old to break into the top 442!

However, your opening post suggests that there are at least 33 U21's in the top 100 so it may just be that the slide rule has shifted about 3-4 years because of the effects we describe above so that U21's now are in the same boat as U18's were in the past.

It is consistency though lydian.

Take Golding. Spanked at Queens by Jamie Baker ranked in the 200's and yet runs Andreev ranked 92 to 4 close run sets at Wimbledon.

barrystar, that was a breakdown of <21s per country. In the overall top 100 there are only 7 players 21 and under. There's only 1(!) who's 19 and under (Tomic). Then for the 18 yr olds as mentioned it down at 442 for the first one to appear!

I think the Brits have always flattered to deceive at Wimby down the years LK...Brits learn tennis on faster courts generally in the UK due to academies being by and large indoor based. But away from Wimby they suffer.

Oh - well back to crisis point then, eh?

Some interesting and thoughtful comments.

One question, as someone who doesn't know much about Junior tennis, is are the players staying in Juniors longer, and striving to win the Junior GS titles at 17 or 18, where in the past the best (Nadal, Becker) were already performing solidly in the pro ranks?

The other key point is the increased physicality of the predominantly baseline game - it took a player as talented as Andy Murray a couple of years to get physically fit and strong enough to compete in the seniors, and the style of play exemplified by Djokovic and Nadal (run down everything) or the likes of Berdych and Tsonga (power and strength) both benefit slightly older players.

Murray had made two ATP finals and won one of them vs. Roddick by the time he was 19, and he had sufficient consistency to have made the top 50 before his 19th birthday.

This is an interesting article, shows the lack of 18 and under in the ATP tour.

I'm currently writing an article choosing some players from 19-21 and seeing which of them have more potential to rise to 'stardom' in the near future as a contrast.

The OP is spot on, and it's nothing to do with a strong top half dozen.

Some posters seem to be missing that down at #250 they basically play another circuit and the only relevance of the top guys is as inspiration. Monaco himself, as someone pointed out elsewhere, has got to #10 by winning events in which the big boys didn't enter, so how much more straightforward is it for a talented 18 year old to break into the to 100 by scoring nicely in minor events.

My sense is that it must be one or more of the following;

* is the sport less attractive to young people? What are participation numbers like (or, rather, what were they like 12 years ago)?
* is the game now cost-prohibitive to young players? Can they simply not get around to play the events?
* have the various programmes produced 'hothouse flowers', cosseted and incapable of cutting it in the real world?
* are the equipment developments placing too high a premium on consistency at the expense of flair or talent (but see Michael Chang..).

I dunno, but I think there's a big problem looming.

What we need is a 2-year ranking system and less tournaments - that will do it.

What we need is data...

I found a list of rankings from 1999, the tricky bit is to add the ages of the players on the list.

http://www.stevegtennis.com/rankings/1999/s1999.htm

Oh here's a list for 2000:

http://www.stevegtennis.com/rankings/2000/s2000.htm

Nice stuff reckoner - LF where art thou!? In-depth might shows differences across the years for average age in each ATP ranking strata from 0-25, 25-100, 100-250, 250-500, 500-1000...

Some interesting further comments:
dummy_half - I dont know whether "juniors" are staying in the junior circuit per se for longer. 18 is the cross-over age for them - they cant compete on the junior circuit after this age. However, the talented ones tend to break through to the adult circuit before they have to leave that tour.
I dont, in theory, see why this could be changing...i.e. whether players are more rigidly sticking in the junior circuit until they hit 19. But its a good question nonetheless.

The excellent points BB raises add grist to the mill and coincide with some reasons I have for whats happening - especially the last one.
Let's look at BB's points further:

* is the sport less attractive to young people? What are participation numbers like (or, rather, what were they like 12 years ago)?
They say there are record numbers of kids taking up the sport with the advent of Federer and Nadal the past 10 years...and Murray in the UK too.
However, this is not uniform. In the US audience participation figures for tennis have declined...I dont know whether this translates to fewer entrants but we see there are no truly great US players at the moment. Also, in the US there is the collegiate tennis circuit which many players compete on. For example, Sam Querrey did this for years. But overall numbers are up - and I know in UK record #'s of kids are coming in.

* is the game now cost-prohibitive to young players? Can they simply not get around to play the events?
Perhaps. The game is much more structured than ever before. If you go to the LTA website there are tournaments every weekend, and during week often, around each county for LTA ranked players. For example my son is playing in 7 tournaments in just the next 3 weeks. The better players have to travel further and wider to get the level of competition they need to develop - this is time consuming and costly. I dont know if this applies elsewhere but it stands to reason it will if more kids are coming into the game. Also, academies of national excellence are common-place now and its a big commitment and cost to send a child away to those.

* have the various programmes produced 'hothouse flowers', cosseted and incapable of cutting it in the real world?
This is an interesting thought. Yes perhaps! And for me this ties in with the current age we live in where at school kids are drummed into believing its prizes for everyone, its all about the team not the individual and no-ones a loser. The problem is by inference no-one is a winner either. Its like a line out of The Incredibles film...."and then when everyone is made to be special, no-one is". By cossetting our kids, by telling them its ok to lose and its not all about winning its about "taking part" this is not engendering a hunger to win! It breeds complacency and settling for second best in sports. It makes failure ok. So, I wonder how many juniors - and maybe this speaks to LK's point in a different way - dont have the self-belief or even desire to actually win anymore. Where is the fire in their belly? The hunger? The need to win? Is it any wonder the UK does so poorly at tennis with the current culture we have in our schools for sports?

* are the equipment developments placing too high a premium on consistency at the expense of flair or talent (but see Michael Chang..).
Yes. Racquet technology is breeding laziness. In players. In coaches.
I'll give a practical example. I play with Volkl C-10 Pro's. A beautifully balanced racquet that alot of pros still use. Thin beam, not too big, not too light either. You need "proper" strokes to use it, it will not do the work for you but you're rewarded with amazing control and feel. So before a match last weekend I tried some demo racquets out. I used the new Wilson BLX 100 Steam. Very light and "whippy", thicker beam frame and larger sweetspot. Straight from the "off" I was hitting serves probably 20mph faster (or the same speed with less effort), the groundstrokes felt rock solid, returns were easier and fewer shanks from the SHBH. BUT...it was terrible around the net, for slice, and general touch-play. The new poly strings amplify these differences too - e.g. Luxilon Alu-Power, etc. So todays emerging players pick up and use racquets like that Wilson BLX Steam (BTW, give it a go if you want more oomph) and have hard, consistent groundstrokes but dont play the risk stuff because the racquets are much blunter tools. These newer racquets steer you down the road of % play and ralleys. And why are all the manufacturers producing these racquets...because of slower conditions, conditions that mean you need even more power to hit a clean winner, or more consistency to draw the error from your opponent.

Now here's the clincher. We are seeing older players doing better yet the tour is more gruelling due to these slower surfaces. How's that? As some have pointed peak level conditioning to takes years...we see that in all sports...Tour de France winners are often in their 30s (Wiggins is 32), 100m sprinters the same, etc, etc. However, fitness is just about the only thing you can keep improving (to a point). On the other hand is innate speed, reflexes and explosive movement. This tends to diminish in late 20s onwards. But what better to offset this than a racquet or strings that do alot of the work for you! That take away - or rather negate - the need for precise timing you had to have in the 80s/90s. Coupled with a style of play that doesnt need accuracy and you can see how the older guys can keep running all day (and more time to get there with slower surfaces), and ralley with consistency. So what youth used to bring to the mix - explosive off the mark speed and reaction time needed for faster surfaces dont count the same anymore. They're having to grind it out against conditioned, muscled guys with their "ralley-racquets" that keep them in ralleys, help make more returns and let them serve faster too!

Until the ATP facilitates risk-reward play to come back, to increase speed indexes where needed, to place limits on racquet tech and take the "bludgery" out of current play we're heading for where the women's game is right now - i.e. no talent coming through because it cant shine in an ocean of screechers, bashers and identikit CC DHBH ball machines. The racquets/strings and slower courts have already made their huge mark on the women's tour - the same thing appears to be coming to the men in a few years. BTW, the other factors mentioned around BB's other points above are also important but its racquet tech and surface speed that is primarily slowly killing the game IMO.

So, in bringing this to a head we have talked alot on this forum about the need to change the way things are currently on tour - the slower speeds, reduced variety of play, less risk taken, etc. And we did that at first almost out of nostalgically lamenting the "old" days of attack tennis. We know Federer is the last of a dying breed but we thought maybe someone else with "talent" will break through and herald a new era. Well I'm afraid the hard reality is that they arent coming any time soon when we have confirmation via these age/ranking ratios. The past 9-10 years of tech changes and slowing surfaces have ushered in a new breed of player to suit a "new" style of game. I'm afraid I see no alternative to "identikit tennis" coming to the men's game if the ship doesnt change course before the current crop of 24-32 year olds have finally moved on.

The young ones arent breaking through and the older guys are doing so well because the young guys simply dont have the skills or stength to displace them. They're toothless, rendered almost ineffective by the very game that encouraged them to pick up a lightweight, large head, poly-strung racquet. The changes in tennis havent allowed them to develop, hone and then use the type and range of skills that would have normally helped differentiated them in yesteryear when they were able to make the usual features of youth count, and on faster courts particularly.

Obviously racquet tech helps older players...not only do they help returns and give more overall power, but they preserve joints and extend careers because you dont need the same amount of power to hit winners. They're also made better in terms of head-tail balance ratios to further protect arms, shoulders and careers. Because in combination with better sports science that's what we're now seeing - longer careers, or rather longer peak plateaus.

So who would have thought that slowing surfaces, better tech and a more gruelling style of play would usher in changes that resulted in the double whammy of a) helping older players stay higher up in the game for longer and b) blunting the younger generation in being able to be effective? But they have - and these changes absolutely jeopardise the future of the game we all love when the highest currently ranked 18 yr old is a desperately and shockingly low #442. I repeat...442!

Brilliant.

606v2 owners, administrators or moderators; Can we get this summary to the mainstream media? It would be great profile for v2 but most importantly I think there are some commentators who sense this but don't - bluntly - have the analytical skill. This summary could provide that and let them do the talking.

Over to you guys.

Cheers BB...I do agree that this type of argument needs to be broadcast...for key decision makers to see the effect of their past changes. The ATP seems to be sleepwalking towards disaster if they dont change something soon. Once the men's game goes the way of the women's then the damage will take years and years to undo...indeed unlike the women's game it could be very damaging indeed for tennis as a whole given there is more interest in the men's game.

The short-termism of the ATP in giving the public more ralleys in the false belief that equates to better viewing is a great example of how to slowly kill a golden goose. To think there may be a Federer out there who's wings have been clipped by modern coaching techniques dictated by surface change and racquet tech. Flair today, gone tomorrow...

personally I think you can just see it starting to shape up, Dimitrov is getting a bit of stick but he's approaching the top 50 again soon he's getting there. in 5 years I think you will see Goffin, Dimitrov, Tomic, Raonic and Harrison all in the top 10. Whether they will be as strong as previous eras, is another matter. Plus someone else who just appears out of nowhere as always happens

I hope someone can jump out of nowhere CAS but no-one under 19 has done so so far as the past greats did. The players you list are effectively the highest ranked players 21 and under but I'm not sure any of them are 'special'...but maybe we have been spoilt by the current top 3. I thought Goffin maybe the one to break through from nowhere and it may still happen but he's too slight in build to succeed presently. Dimitrov is not quite there mentally for me...has a nice game but doesnt really believe in himself, I dont think he truly believes he's a winner. Attutide-wise I like Harrison and Goffin the most...Goffin definitely has that assured "Federer air" about him...Harrison plays a straight up and down game thats very effective but a little boring to watch in a Djokovic way (my personal opinion there of course!).

I suspect the next truly "great" player isnt even out of primary school yet...I just hope the tour doesnt suffer greatly whilst we wait.

I think we forget Del Potro, he's only 23 and has a slam to his name. He played great before his injury at the French, I'm a big fan of his and think mentally he's very strong just confidence wise he's still unsure of himself at the moment. A win against one of the big boys, and we could see him fly

I can see a 'Federer' being put off perhaps but I'm absolutely certain a 'McEnroe' won't be going anywhere near this sport. Indeed he might be out there now making his career in another sport and we've missed out.

Now that's not a good thought.

lydian wrote:Fair argument LK...BUT I repeat - there are no current 18 year old (and thats including anyone up to 18 years and 364 daysm i.e. almost 19 really) under 442!

Its a shocker. You can argue the increased use of Bo3, rather than Bo5, format would actually help the younger players as shorter matches mean stamina is less of an issue. If they are lacking consistency as you say in these shorter formats then this also points to a lack of relative talent in playing the game to the right level to break through. Talent is talent, and usually finds its way through. Players beyond 150 ranking arent playing 5 sets anyway.

We dont have to look at slams/Masters for breakthroughs to the levels we're discussing, i.e. into the top 75 by age 18.
Fed/Nad/Murray werent breaking through at 18 at those levels either (Nadal on clay aside)...its the challengers and 250s where the young players need to make headway. To crack the top 100 you need around 500 ATP points...if you're ranked from best of 18 results then you need about 25 points per event. For an ATP250 thats getting through qualifying and getting to Round 1, for a challenger than might be getting to Round 3. We're not talking winning Masters or slams...or even getting to quarters.

So my point is we dont seem to have young talent that can break into the top 400 by age of 19. With the highest ranked 18 yr old having just 47 ATP points you wonder what collective factors are at play to cause this - it cant just be aging but fitter players (playing shorter formats than the 90s) across the top 400 doing better than yesteryear and keeping talented young ones out? Surely?

I am your own personal and exclusive fan club tonight/this morning Lydian Don't worry, I'm not the stalkerish kind!!

I absolutely agree with you again - it is not so much that the young guys are finding it difficult to get past the top guys, it is the fact that we are not seeing a bigger break through in the smaller tournaments or consistent results over the 'old guys' in the 30s or 40s rankings. I don't follow the challenger results so not au fait with what is happening there - so guess I am really talking about the guys like Tomic, Dimitrov, Raonic and Harrison - all of whom have notched up a few impressive results, with Raonic winning a couple of tournaments at the beginning of year, but no real consistency.

I have to agree with you that 'talent is talent and will usually finds its way through' and the fact that none of the young guys are really setting the world alight does make you wonder about the quality of the players coming through. The fact that I guess most of us aren't even aware of the 18 year olds speaks volumes.

Your point about the ATP mistakenly thinking that the public love to see longer and longer rallies resonated with me too. Make no mistake, I think the public does love to see long rallies - interspersed with some quicker points. They might love to watch a set where each game is hard fought with long drawn out points but a whole tournament where each point is attritional tennis is exhausting for the viewer, never mind the hapless player!
Similarly, a charismatic player fighting for his life for rally after rally may be appealing but the style is less so when the player has the on court personality of a turbot (I really wasn't thinking of Stepanek when I wrote that, but too tired to think of another word atm), and the public grow restless.

Variety of conditions is the best way to allow a variety of styles to flourish, and that kind of individuality has always been, after all, a large part of the draw (pardon the pun!) of singles tennis.

On the subject of raquet technology, I do think there should be a standard size, standard head - you can't, after all, have lots of cricket bats of different dimensions in a test match, or a fatter baseball whacker. Weight is a different, and is going to be individual but it is clearly ludicrous to have two players opposing each other with completely different raquet head sizes. Of course it is easier to hit the ball with a bigger head (albeit you lose some touch around the net).

lol TP, dont worry I wont start looking over my shoulder and around lamposts. Thanks for the nice comments

Haha about Stepanek/Turbot...I've called him that for years. Always amazed me how he was one for the "laydeez".

Agree variety of conditions but uniformity of racquet tech is the way forward. I think it will come in at some point, it makes sense after all...and it happening with golf too.

Thanks for the great discussions on this thread everyone. Lets hope we're proved wrong by the stats and some 18 years do break through