Young players - then and now

Whatever happened to the next generation of tennis players? For how long are we supposed to be hearing that Milos Raonic is the real deal just because he wins some dinky dying tournament. We will be all excited if one of the 22-year-olds makes it as far as a SF (or maybe even a QF would be nice?) of a slam this year. Ok, maybe Milos has credentials of a decent future top 10 player, maybe even a bit better than that, but certainly not of a future superstar. There must be youngsters out there who will be winning multiple slams down the road. However, neither Raonic, nor anyone else from his cohort of 22 or so year olds, feel like they have what it takes.

Out of curiosity, I decided to have a look at where the prior greats were at when they turned 22. I looked at all players who won at least four slams in the open era (I ignored Laver, Newcombe and Rosewall, as they were at the tail end of their careers when the open era started). I looked at two things:

1. How many slams the players have won before turning 22, and
2. What was the highest ranking they attained before their 22nd birthday

Here is what the numbers look like:

Player	Career slams	Slams before age 22	High ranking before age 22
Federer	17+	1	3
Sampras	14	2	1
Borg	11	4	1
Nadal	11+	3	2
Agassi	8	0 (3F 4SF)	3
Connors	8	2	1
Lendl	8	0 (1F)	2
McEnroe	7	2	1
Wilander	7	4	2
Becker	6	4	2
Djokovic	6+	1	3
Edberg	6	2	2
Courier	4	3	1
Vilas	4	0 (R16 once)	10

The results only confirm that pretty much all the really great players got close to the very top quite early. With the exception of Vilas, everyone in the table reached top 3 (and many of them #1) before turning 22. In fact, Agassi even had time to be going through one of his slumps by 22 - he was at #16 on his 22nd birthday, having spent significant amount of time in top 5 prior to that.

Pretty much all of them also had early slam success. Again, Vilas is the only real outlier. Lendl and Agassi are the only other players who had not won a slam by 22, but both of them had at least been to the final - Agassi on multiple occasions.

For comparison, here is a similar table with the numbers for the current "promising" players aged around 22:

Player	Career slams	Slams before age 22	High ranking before age 22
Raonic	?	R16 3 times	13
Janowicz	?	3rd Rd	26
Dimitrov	?	2nd Rd	34
Goffin	?	R16 once	42

This just looks dire. The most successful of the youngsters - Raonic - is just about comparable with Vilas, who had by miles the worst numbers in the first table. Dimitrov is not yet 22, but he will turn 22 before the French, so he does not have time to improve his slam record. Nor do I expect him to break into the top 3 before the French.

There are no two ways about it, none of these youngsters look like top drawer material. They look good enough to form a basis for a decent supporting cast, but none of them appears to have what it would normally take to be the leading man. It will be sad if they will in fact end up being the leading men of the future just because everyone older will have retired.

Pretty depressing, though I guess not really surprising.

Good article SB.
Always makes me wonder what Agassi could have done in the game had he simply liked tennis and pushed himself more plus attended more slams early on. Still, for this argument he was on another planet compared to guys like Nishikori, Janowicz and Goffin.
People will point to todays players needing to be more physically conditioned than before due to surface slowing which takes time.
However, Nadal, Djokivic and Murray are products of the 'slow era' shall we say and they were breaking through as young as 17-19 where before their 19th birthday they were top50-75 and going deep in events...by 21 even more so. Compared to this there is a paucity right now no doubt.
I wrote an article a few months back looking at emergent players and the highest ranked 18 yr old was up in the 400s. We seem destined for a leaner period coming up for a few years so we had better get used to seeing Djokovic-Murray finals (unless Rafa's knee holds out). Even Fed will hold the young charge back whilst he's still wielding the ProStaff.

SoCal can use this argument to bolster his strong/weak era theories easily.

This may also help make your point much more clearer, SB. - http://www.tennis28.com/slams/wins_age.html

(Whoever manages Tennis28 deserves a kudos and the Federer projections are interesting. ).

PS: SB.

lydian wrote:Always makes me wonder what Agassi could have done in the game had he simply liked tennis and pushed himself more

I also often wonder about that. I always rooted for Sampras against him and was happy that Sampras ended up with better numbers, but sometimes I think that had Agassi been as serious about tennis throughout his career as Pete was, maybe he would have been the better of the two.

lydian wrote:People will point to todays players needing to be more physically conditioned than before due to surface slowing which takes time.
However, Nadal, Djokivic and Murray are products of the 'slow era' shall we say and they were breaking through as young as 17-19 where before their 19th birthday...

I am also not convinced by the theory that lack of youngsters at the top is mostly due to the physicality of today's game. I think it is one of those things that people see that players are older these days, and the argument sounds plausible, so they jump on it. But I do not think it really holds up to scrutiny.

I remember that maybe four years ago when young Rafa, Nole and Andy were all in top four and Federer at 27 looked like he was going downhill, the exact opposite argument was frequently made - that the physicallity of today's game makes it hard for older players to stay on top because their bodies cannot take the beating so well anymore. The game has not changed that much since then.

I am not saying that there cannot be any truth in saying that increased emphasis on endurance makes older guys more competitive, but the game has certainly not changed so much in four years that we should go from having three youngsters in top four to having no youngsters in top 10.

laverfan wrote:SoCal can use this argument to bolster his strong/weak era theories easily.

I have understanding for SoCal's general view that the quality of competition matters, and that it changes over time. In fact, I am even inclined to agree with him that the early 2000s were a bit weaker on average - though I do not think it is nearly as obvious as he makes it sound, not do I think the difference is nearly as big as he portrays it.

SoCal is certainly not the only one who thinks one should attempt to take the quality of the opponents into account - in some sense questions about the quality of competition are inescapable in the attempts to compare incomparables. A big portion of the debates on the G.O.A.T. competition threads centers on trying to assess how difficult opponents players faced. Was Bradman really that good, or was he just facing a much weaker field? Same goes for many others. And you sort of need to do it. How will you compare say Bradman to Jack Nicklaus without trying to look who they had to play against. No matter how you dominate a sport, if the sport is perceived as less competitive, you will get fewer credits in the comparisons.

Of course, you can also take the view that it is just pointless to even attempt to make these comparisons because there are way too many variables going into it all. That is likely correct, but not so much fun

Well a good post by the OP , we may be in store for a transitional period within the next 1-3 years. I believe that 2007-2012 has been a strong period of play with the play getting gradually better from 2005-07 from the weaker period of 00-05. I have never found the younger players today to be particularly overwhelming. Having a generation of stars that are better both than their immediate successor's and those that come right after them again proves my point and does not dispel it. The fact that the current young stars (Milos, Tomic, Harrisson, Sock, Goffin, etc. ) are not as good as the murray, djoko, nadal generation doesn't disprove my point that we have for years been in a golden period. Will that period of time continue, the jury is out but it isn't looking good.

I think if Nadal fails to return to some semblance of his glory then we can put a close to the golden period. 2 stars at the top in their prime doesn't cut it. But the nature of the tour is top heavy, so the loss of either of the 3 giants of this period along with fed's ageing will eventually close this 5 or 6 year sweet spot that we have been enjoying.

As to the youngsters it interesting but there is some evidence that player's in the last few years are having their successes in the second half of the 20s and even in the early 30s as opposed to in their teens and early 20s as before. There are number of factors, for one thing the money being better allows for more veterans to have the desire and the will to fight and stay on maybe longer than they would have in the past. Also the nature of the game doesn't allow for a power player to just blast his way to the top like Becker and Edberg did to a lesser extent with big serves and big shots. Also the nature of the modern game favors fitness, durability, consistency, point construction, returning skills. These are things that typically take more time to develop as players. But like the OP I am not sold on the idea that this alone can explain away the strength or weakness of the Raonic/Tomic group of players. If they don't improve and fast and if Nadal doesn't come back in high quality then yes the golden period is done. But I think on the nadal end he will be back for one more big run, which should keep this period running for some time longer.

By the way of the 3 posters on this thread, 2 of them not named socal agree and have conceded that the early 2000 players underperformed in comparison to the players of today and those that came before them. Lydian has stated that due to injury and slow conditions those players "underutilized their talents" aka underperformed. Summerblues also states that he believes Socal is right about early 2000s being weaker, although he states it is not as unequivocal as I make it. In short, despite beating around the bush that takes place on these forums, most people who watched that period and the last few years have come to the same conclusion I have been touting for quite some time. They seem not to disagree with my conclusions but with my specific rhetoric used to put forth my arguments. Lydian agrees with my conclusion but believes the cause was solely slowing conditions and injuries, I frankly care less about the cause then the end result, and the end result was they just weren't that good and didn't win enough.

socal1976 wrote:Well a good post by the OP , we may be in store for a transitional period within the next 1-3 years. I believe that 2007-2012 has been a strong period of play with the play getting gradually better from 2005-07 from the weaker period of 00-05. I have never found the younger players today to be particularly overwhelming. Having a generation of stars that are better both than their immediate successor's and those that come right after them again proves my point and does not dispel it. The fact that the current young stars (Milos, Tomic, Harrisson, Sock, Goffin, etc. ) are not as good as the murray, djoko, nadal generation doesn't disprove my point that we have for years been in a golden period. Will that period of time continue, the jury is out but it isn't looking good.

I think if Nadal fails to return to some semblance of his glory then we can put a close to the golden period. 2 stars at the top in their prime doesn't cut it. But the nature of the tour is top heavy, so the loss of either of the 3 giants of this period along with fed's ageing will eventually close this 5 or 6 year sweet spot that we have been enjoying.

Absolutely spot on. I remember saying similar things to Bobgrush the other day- if Nadal falls the 'golden' period of having so many world class players at the top is over.
Same works both ways, if Nadal does come back but Djokovic gets injured and Federer retires, then that would be a weaker period at the top of the game.

Anyway Socal, that fact you just wrote that, with Djokovic according to you having the possibility to take charge of a weaker period, disproves the myth you've been fabricating your beliefs to suit Djokovic.

IMBL as I have stated my views are ground in the facts of what I see. I love Andre but I think he to an extent benefitted from a weaker period as well towards the end of his career winning a slam at age 33 and reaching the USO final at 35. Djokovic may benefit from the collapse of fedal if others don't rise up to take the mantel. If as Federer ages, Nadal collapses due to injury then the golden period is over. But we knew fed wouldn't be around anyway and Nadal returning to near peak or peak Nadal should give this strong period a bit more legs. If he falls away while we lose fed, and simultaneously no younger players rise up I will be happy to call it a transitional period at the top. But I get a feeling that a lot of these negatives are over stated and that we will yet see the emergence of more compelling talent and Rafa being Rafa will be back.

Nice article. I think that the young players have made extrremely little progress since the 2011 Australian Open when there was some breakthrough.

You have to expect Nadal/Djokovic/Murray to stay at the top until replaced by players who are not even yet in the top 50, or even professional. Say a 15 year old today that will knock them off the top in 20 years.

A lot of people said it's because the increasing physicality of the game means players peak later, and I think there is a little truth in that, but not enough to cover the big disparity in your stats.

Henman Bill wrote:Say a 15 year old today that will knock them off the top in 20 years.

Oh dear; 20 more years of Nole vs Andy? I do not think I am ready for that...

Henman Bill wrote:A lot of people said it's because the increasing physicality of the game means players peak later, and I think there is a little truth in that, but not enough to cover the big disparity in your stats.

This is exactly the way I see it; I think there may be numerous factors at play, but no way it is just due to change in how tennis is played nowadays.

[quote="summerblues"]

Henman Bill wrote:Say a 15 year old today that will knock them off the top in 20 years.

Oh dear; 20 more years of Nole vs Andy? I do not think I am ready for that...

[quote]

Oops, slightly slip there, but maybe you guessed I meant the 15 year old today will reach 20 years old in 2018 and hypothetically reach number one at that time. Yes, can't see Murray and Djokovic still doing the AO finals in 2033! It would keep the BBC happy I suppose!

socal1976 wrote:we may be in store for a transitional period within the next 1-3 years. I believe that 2007-2012 has been a strong period of play with the play getting gradually better from 2005-07 from the weaker period of 00-05.

I said that I agreed with you that the early 2000s were likely a bit weaker but I also said that I thought it less clear cut than what you say, so now I will throw in some data that show why one may think it is not all that obvious. I have redone my table once again - this time for the Fed's generation (picked the top players who were roughly within +/- one year of Fed's age):

Player	Career slams	Slams before age 22	High ranking before age 22
Federer	17+	1	3
Hewitt	2	2	1
Safin	2	1	1
Roddick	1	1	1
Nalbandian	0	0 (1F)	8

This cohort did not look weak at all when they were young. If anything, they looked rather good - likely better than the Nadal/Nole/Andy generation at the same age. Of course, they did not all live up to their promise - it is debatable why - but one can see why you may want to be careful before dismissing them all too quickly.

Yes, Summer and where did their numbers finish out when they were supplanted by the golden generation? Roddick even when he won a slam was maybe the most one dimensional and rough USO champion I can ever remember. Hewitt was great but could not keep up with the higher power levels or injuries, and Nalby and Safin underachieved. What did they accomplish in the period that should have been their peak? Not very much I am afraid and it wasn't all down to Roger beating them or injuries. These players struggled to maintain top 10 rankings or to keep pace with the new generation of talent. Roddick stayed near the top but was nowhere near fed's closest rival in terms of competiveness and could never again win another major. Eventhough I believe he was a better player later in his career than he was in 2003. Usually it is what you win after your 22 second birthday for most players that measures their success, not what happened before and the same is the case for all these players you mention.

socal1976 wrote:Yes, Summer and where did their numbers finish out when they were supplanted by the golden generation?

Yes, and that is one of the reasons that on balance I do think the period was a tad weaker. But there are a number of ways to look at it, not just at the number of slams they have won by the end of their careers, you just happen to be choosing the angle that makes your favorite generation look as golden as possible

I am not, as I pointed out if Nadal fails to return adequately and the younger players fail to launch in the next couple of years I will call the golden period or age closed. Then if Novak dominates said weaker period for 5 years we can compare his dominance of transitional era to Roger's and see who finished out with more trophies. Either way I am objective about the whole thing. Hell I wish it was Novak playing the sisters of the weak and blind and lifting every trophy, then I could sit back and say that every slam counts just the same and rest back on his total slam number.

socal1976 wrote:then I could sit back and say that every slam counts just the same and rest back on his total slam number.

But you are doing it when it aligns with your argument - you are quite happy to judge Hewitt etc on the total number of slams they won as if each slam counted just the same.

In the end this will go back to the same argument that cannot be easily resolved - if we have 3-4 guys sharing the trophies instead of one winning most of them, is it because that one had an easier competition or is it because it is easier for the current 3-4 to always make it near the finals and semis. The answer there is not as simple as you are making it out to be.

Summer I was joking with my last line, being sarcastic so you don't expect me to argue in support of that proposition. Your last paragraph is just wrong and not what we witnessed with the weaker generation. Again look at the year end ranking in 2007, Federer's closest rivals in terms of points were not Roddick, Hewitt, or Safin. If those rivls (lol!) of federer were so good they would have finished ahead of baby Nadal and baby djokovic in the rankings, but they didn't. If Safin, Hewitt, Nalby, Ferrero, and roddick were losing only to Roger and dominated the new boys (murray, nadal, and djoko) maybe your analogy would apply, but that wasn't what we witnessed was it?

I take the view that today's youngsters are just not talented enough.

Take the fitness and homogenisation aside, these are what we are to believe is easier to replicate than natural pure talent. So if that is the case, why is the berth so wide between the established guard and the current emerging youngsters? I don't buy the whole argument that fitness and homogenisation caused the current monopoly at the top of the game despite belief that players such as Djokovic, Nadal and Murray are more successful on court based on fitness than talent too. Sadly I watched a documentary on David Beckham last night and a pundit said it best about footballers. They come in 3 categories:

1) Those who are super talented and work less on their game as compared with others
2) Those who are talented but also put the hard work in to make up for areas of their talent which may be the weak element of their game.
3) Those who are not so talented, but through hard work and hours of practicing are able to make the grade later in their careers.

That for me is the formula I would apply across most sports.

Look at Raonic. Give him the lungs of marathon runner and he still wouldn't gatecrash the top 4. Why? Because he is just a flat hitter. No variation and no expansive weapons. The guy can't volley. So why is their this belief that on 90's Grass he could win Wimbledon? You could argue that he is stuck between a rock and hard place because of conds. He hasn't evolved any part of his game since he broke onto the scene. Same with Tomic and Dimitrov. Tour survival to some is more than a victory because they can earn a crust as a tennis player. Players like Djokovic and Murray more so identified early on that their game needed to evolve. Djokovic tinkered with the serve and got himself fitter. Murray worked on his fitness. The guys had the tools, but to elevate themselves required a higher fitness level so that the games which players met them match for match on the racquet could come down to fitness. It is not that deplorable. Just another way in which a match can be won.

I think because the seeds at Slams for example have increased, makes it less likely for an unseeded player to get through more than 2 rounds without facing a seeded player unless of course the seeds fall early. In the days of Borg I think there was only 8 seeds at a Slam. That doubled in the 90's and doubled more since the 00's. Equip that yes with consistent and similar conditions makes it difficult for those not equipped for the same conds each week and technology making it a much more neutral playing field that locks out a lot of players who's game doesn't match the conditions. This isn't uncommon. Christ could Sampras and Courier for example win on conditions today? There was a period in which who ever hit the ball the hardest would win. Was that a real fair respresentation of what tennis is? Is that no more of a crime to where tennis is today? The clay in the 90's is what offered any variety for players more accustomed to longer rallies. Yes shamefully that the Slams more or less play the same nowadays, but the conditions can even themselves out. Speed up Wimbledon and US Open and keep the Australian Open at the same speed. Ensure the balls for the tournaments keep in line with the conditions requirements for the tournament. Maybe cut the number of seeds at a Slam and this might well open up the tournaments to the younger generation.

Nice post LK, one thing that I will agree with in your post and bears highlighting is that Novak, Nadal, and murray have evolved a great deal and added to their games. We don't get the same sense that Raonic, Tomic, and the other young players are doing the hard yards to add to their repetoires. I think the fact that federer was there and for Djokovic and murray the fact that Nadal was there as well made them work at a breakneck pace to improve physically, technically, and mentally. It is unclear that the younger guys have the capability to grow and adapt that made these three special.