The Next Generation

First topic message reminder :

It's exciting times for tennis, with the established generation still playing amazing tennis but with no fewer than 11 teenagers in the top 200. With Zverev beating Cilic and making an ATP level semi final this week, I thought it would be a good time for a thread to follow them. The eleven to watch are as follows:

1. Coric (WR38 age 19.2) - touted for some time and boasts wins over Nadal and Murray. However, seems to have stagnated recently and lack of real weapons may stop him reaching the very top. 23.10 WR45 - still not 20 and has now spent around 18 months ranked around 40-50. Signs of improving his weight of shot and clearly has a good attitude but currently stagnant. 2016 Grade - C

2. Chung (WR68 age 19.7)  - steady progression largely at Challenger level. Very tough all-round game but, like Coric, possible questions whether he has sufficient weaponry. Needs to kick on and start getting wins at ATP level. 23.10 WR135 - struggled at ATP level and then had a break after RG, possibly injured. Now back playing Challengers and getting strong results again at that level. 2016 Grade - D

3. Zverev (WR69 age 18.8) - The youngest player in the top 100, with wins already over Cilic, Dolgopolov and Anderson. Made it to the SF in Montpellier this week. Former junior number one and Oz junior champ in 2014. 23.10 WR 20 - the standout star, becoming the first teenage title winner in 8 years. Signs he could be the next dominant player in the game. 2016 Grade - A+

4. Kokkinakis (WR96 age 19.8) - Another big guy with a modern all-court game. Has all the shots to make it to the top, if not quite the explosiveness of his compatriot, Kyrgios. Career so far being held back by injury and currently yet to play this season due to a left shoulder injury. Hopefully, he can have an injury-free spell and start climbing back up the rankings. 23.10 Unranked - not played an ATP match all year through injury. Cruel luck. 

5. Fritz (WR145 age 18.2) - Already 6'4 and touted as the great American hope. The 2015 US junior champ and year end junior number 1. Already with 3 challenger level titles, he made his slam debut at the Australian, making his way through qualifiers before losing in 5 to Jack Sock. Expect him to be top 50 by year end. 23.10 WR 73 - breakthrough ATP final broke him into the top 100. No real exceptional results since but gaining great ATP level experience and still only 18. Also, managed to fit in getting married! 2016 Grade - B+

6. Khachanov (WR152 age 19.7) - Possibly the least heralded of the 11, the 6'6 Russian burst to prominence when just 17 with a win over Tipsarevic at the Kremlin Cup. Yet to make a breakthrough at ATP level. Still developing at Challenger level. 23.10 WR 63 - outstanding second half to the season including a 250 title have seen him jump 100 places. Looks a future top 10 player with a combination of movement and power. No one will want to face him next year. 2016 Grade - A

7. Ymer (WR153 age 19.8) - The older of the two Ymer brothers, seen as the future of Swedish tennis. Qualified for all 4 slams in 2015 but didn't make it past the first round. Another with wins at Challenger level. Best ATP result so far the 3rd round in Barcelona. 23.10 WR 158 - stagnant and one of the oldest of the bunch. No real signs of progress. 2016 Grade - C-

8. Donaldson (WR159 age 19.3) - The second of three Anericans in this list. Coached by Taylor Dent, he's again seen as a big hope. Yet to break through at ATP level and with only one title at Challenger level, still very much a work in progress. 23.10 WR 109 - broke into the top 100 following a R16 showing in Toronto and a superb R3 at the US Open (beating Goffin and Troicki). Promising. 2016 Grade - B

9. Halys (WR172 age 19.2) - The top French junior. Produced a promising display against Novak in Oz. Still very raw but looks to have the game if he can pull it all together. 23.10 WR 149. Has won a Challenger but not progressed significantly this year. 2016 Grade C-

10. Tiafoe (WR176 age 18) - The youngest of the 11 and another American. Already made his slam debut at the French 2015. Two Challenger finals already and beat Sam Groth in Dallas this week. 23.10 WR 102. Broke the top 100 a couple of weeks ago. Two Challenger titles and several other finals. Sporadic ATP appearances so far but looks to have the tools to make it. Expect big strides next year. 2016 Grade - B+

11. Rublev (WR195 age 18.3) - The 4th player on this list with a junior slam title (French 14). Has an explosive game. Yet to win a Challenger title but seen by many as a future top tenner. Expect big ranking strides this year. 23.10 WR 166 - disappointing year for one of those most hyped youngsters. One Challenger title amongst a sea of mediocre results. The only one yet to make his grand slam debut. Still only just 19, so don't write him off yet! 2016 Grade - D

Good luck to all the youngsters!

Edmund wins in third set tiebreak (8-6). Just Djoko to beat next !

Zverev & Fritz through.

Nice comfortable win for Fritz against Bolelli.

Born Slippy wrote:Most of these guys have made the Miami draw, one way or the other. Fritz and Paul came through qualies. No less than 9 teenagers in the draw. All of them have winnable matches:

Donaldson v Nishioka
Zverev v Mmoh (all teenage battle)
Rublev v Cervantes
Fritz v Bolelli
Chung v Kudla
Paul v Smyczek
Ymer v Delbonis
Coric v Istomin

Donaldson, Rublev, Chung, Paul, Coric out
Zverev, Fritz through
Ymer up a break in the decider

Fritz came out of nowhere, but he is putting together some really nice portfolio of results this spring.  Zverev continues to perform well too, but not as unexpected.

Disappointed with Chung, not too surprised by Coric.

Yeah, Fritz and Zverev feel like they are setting themselves apart from the others. Coric losing to a player who hadnt won a main draw match this year is poor.

Decent, though ultimately unsuccessful, efforts by Paul and Ymer.

Hmm, pretty bad tournament for the youngsters. All 9 of the teenagers gone already. Great win for Nishioka though to put out Lopez.

Nishioka, Fritz and Kozlev (another 18 year old) all in the SF of the Le Gosier challenger.

Coric is in the Marrakesh 250 SF.

Zverev losing to Granollers in MC is disappointing. With Nole going out, I thought Zverev could perhaps make the SF even. But it was not meant to be.

Born Slippy wrote:Hmm, pretty bad tournament for the youngsters. All 9 of the teenagers gone already. Great win for Nishioka though to put out

Lopez.

May I ask why you consider that a great win,.. Nishikori is Ranked 6 and 26 yrs old.. Feli now in the autumn of his career ranked 23 and 34 yrs old
8 yrs Nish's senior  I thought Nishi was supposed to be full of promise (though rarely have I seen it)

Erm, Nishioka not Nishikori...

They are different players............

Nishioka is 20 and ranked outside top 100 and Nishikori is a different Japanese player with a similar surname.

Yes LS I'm fully aware who Nishikori is and indeed I have heard (if not watched Nishioka)
I know too they are both Japanese
It was my stupid error I misread it.. seen one Japanese name and you have seen them all
LOL Not to them I know !!!
Apologies BS for my error

Good hard fought win for Edmund over former Bucharest champ Rosol, 7-6 7-6.

The BBC report it as:

The South Africa-born 21-year-old beat his 30-year-old Czech opponent in straight sets 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-5).

Meanwhile, British number two Aljaz Bedene begins his Barcelona Open campaign later on Monday. The Slovenia-born 26-year-old plays Russian qualifier Karen Khachanov ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/36074119

If the BBC are going to mention birth place they should do it in all their reports e.g The Nigerian born Kenyan .... The Czechoslovakian (now Slovakia) born Australian ...

Watching Karen Khachanov, the 19 yo Russian playing Bautista Agut at Barcelona now. This Russian boy is leading 5-2 as I typed, he has such a big FH and serve, moving quite well for his 6'6" frame. He looks promising.

Bad week for the youngsters. Kyrgios and Thiem both losing tournaments they should have won (Thiem particularly managing the remarkable feat of outchoking Kohli). Taylor Fritz lost in qualies in Madrid to the 37 year old Stepanek.

Halys did win his first Challenger though - beating Tiafoe in the final. He moves back up to a career high after a disappointing run post Oz.

Don't agree.
Almagro is a former top 10er who on clay can and has beaten the best and clay is not Kyrgios' best surface at all.
Outchoking a former top 16 player who has won this title many times and almost beat Murray last year in the final? Again I don't agree.
Progress is being made.

LuvSports! wrote:Don't agree.
Almagro is a former top 10er who on clay can and has beaten the best and clay is not Kyrgios' best surface at all.
Outchoking a former top 16 player who has won this title many times and almost beat Murray last year in the final? Again I don't agree.
Progress is being made.

Hmm, disagree. Both Kohli and Almagro are fine players but they are very much second tier. For youngsters looking to break through to the very highest echelons they should be being beaten. Progress is being made but it wasn't evident this week.

Does Pouille qualify as next generation?

Was very impressed with him against Goffin yesterday. He also won a title last week.

He's younger than Thiem so yes. Just turned 22.
I'm counting younger generation as Vesely (1993) and below.

Yep good win for Pouille.
Lots coming through and good to see new blood...but to be honest I still don't see any breakthrough Nadal/Fed/Djoko's or even Murray types...

Khachanov won a Challenger today and Ymer is in a SF later. Both closing in on the top 100.

And for that great achievement he wins $7200.
That's $80 per ATP point.

The winner of Rome will get $810 per ATP point.
Even an R1 loser gets $150 per point.

Rome's prize money pot is $4.86m vs. Samarkand's $50,000.

That's true imbalance for you...sorry if this moaning/negative but it's not fair what goes on in the Challengers vs. ATP Tour, esp. when considering all the very top guys came from the CH tour originally. Also, if you're outside the top 50 you can't even enter ATP (not slams) events so you HAVE to enter Challengers to compete. The ATP/ITF ruling body is literally allowing the ATP tour to be 10 times more valued than the challenger circuit yet it's meant to be the feeder ground which many more players compete in.

Yes it's never going to be equated due to market forces but more should be redistributed across the ATP/CH/F tours so the tour isn't just ran for the top 20-30 players.

Interesting to note that Zverev and Edmund were locked at 1 set all yesterday when Edmund had to retire. Hopefully, he will recover for the French.

About 4 months on from this article and I thought a quick update is in order. The five below have made strong progress:

Fritz (+85) - now ranked 62 and only just 18.5. Had a glorious run just after I made this thread. Solid on clay - unfortunate to keep running into an on-fire Stepanek in qualies. Expect more progress on grass, where his game is well suited. 

Khachanov (+56) - into the 90s in the rankings and in a Challenger final today so could go higher still. Quiet but swift progress from the giant Russian.

Zverev (+33) - Now the leader of this generation and on the verge of being seeded for slams. I think he will be top 20 by the end of the year.

Halys (+29) - solid progress to #143 but still some way away from the top 100.

Donaldson (+19) - now #140. Very similar to Halys. Looks a bit away from a tour level breakthrough. 

Of the rest, Coric has stayed around the 40 ranking without really having any standout results. Ymer and Tiafoe are basically treading water rankings-wise but I could see both of them kicking on over the second half of the year.

Chung has been disappointing (down 36 places to 104). He's really struggling to make the tour level breakthrough. Unfortunately, Kokkinakis has been out since last October so he's ranked in the 300s now!

Two other 18 year olds are also worth watching: 

Stevan Kozlov (18.3) - was ranked 343 when I wrote this article. His live ranking is now 176 having made an ATP level QF in S-H this week.

Tommy Paul (19) - sitting at 202 in the rankings currently, although he has broken the top 200 a few weeks back.

I still see Thiem and Pouille as the next generation. Both 22.

Doesn't really belong here but comedy stat from Lexington today. Quentin Halys won 100% first serve points but still managed to lose 62 62. Admittedly he did only serve 36% first serves and served 10 double faults.

Shapovalov (Wimbledon junior champ) about to play Kyrgios in Montreal. Quite funny that Kyrgios is facing someone a full 4 years younger than himself.

Shapovalov looks a very good prospect. Beat Kyrgios yesterday...seen him play a challenger semi-final against Dan Evans.

Single handed backhand too.

Zverev becomes the first teen to win a title since 2008 beating Stan, snapping his final winning streak, which is a heck of a result for him.

Pouille outplayed Thiem to win his first title. Very good week for the youngsters.

Teenagers must have won more matches on the tour this year than since the young days of Rafa, Murray and Djoko. Eight years of no teenage titles is a heck of a statistic.

Starting to think Pouille might be the best of the lot.

Khachanov beat Feliciano Lopez to reach the semi final of Chengdu today. He's already beaten Joao Sousa & Mannarino to get this far.

Troicki is his opponent in the semi finals.

Like the look of him too.

KHACHANOV wins his first title!
Up to 55 now!

Edmund (who I think still just about counts for this thread) continuing his good form, beating Marchenko in Antwerp and with David Ferrer up next - an interesting match up between an in form youngster and a fading star.

Career high ranking at 43 for Kyle, and if he has a good week he'll be pushing on into the top 40. Took him a while this season to get going and start winning against the middling tour pros (his best performances early on were against big name players), but he's ending the season on a high.

Edmund seems to have kicked on really nicely from his DC heroics in Belgrade, after a somewhat disappointing defeat at Wimbledon (more for the manner of it than the fact he lost, Mannarino can be a tricky custommer). Great run at the US obviously, with terrific wins against Gasquet and Isner. That FH is really a huge weapon, and you feel the more he plays the better he gets, in terms of how and when to unleash it. His BH has also become really solid, and he's clearly trying to improve his net skills, though the latter still need a fair bit of work (and with that huge FH being able to come in and put away the volleys should be really useful).

All moving in the right direction certainly, here's hoping it can continue...

Edmund beats Ferrer!

Another bug result for Kyle. Seppi up next, who is certainly beatable, and then probably Gasquet and Goffin.

Be interesting to see how he gets on - has shown himself to be a good winner on the Challenger circuit, but obviously the strength in depth is greater here.

Edmund seems to represent a person with the right attitude and right approach to fulfil his potential, whatever that potential is. He is also an example of the effort required for a top junior to make the transition into the senior ranks. It seems that he is also taking advantage of the advice and support being offered to him from Leon Smith & Andy Murray. In the Davis Cup quarter-final where he won both his singles matches he explained in the interview his approach to training: make it as physically intense as a real competitive match - to build up the correct mindset and stamina needed for a real match.

In a real match one cannot duplicate the affect of "pressure" and playing in front of a live crowd - so that is something that has to be learnt in-situ. Tournament tennis requires maintenance of that intensity throughout a week or two period. Then there is the travelling and acclimatising etc. Then there is the medical side of things - maintaining health, reading the body to avoid serious injury, overcoming niggles.

NS

Agree with your assessment of Kyle - if you could graft his head onto Kyrgios's body you'd have a guy challenging the top 5 already.

As for my above comment, I think Kyle's chances of winning the tournament this week are slim (<5%), but that he has a chance based on past performances - Seppi is currently #100 and on the slide, he beat Gasquet a few weeks ago and he led Goffin 2 sets to love in the DC final last year.

It's more an issue of changing mindset though - earlier in the season Kyle just needed to get a few match wins on the main tour and get established at ATP tour level rather than being one of the best players on the Challenger circuit. Now he's played a fair amount, had a bit of success and beaten a few decent to good top 20 players. If he plays well, winning one of these lesser 250 level tournaments is a realistic 'long goal' (noting that Goffin as 12 in the rankings was the top seed at this one, and the fields in Moscow and Stockholm are comparable) - I don't think he's close yet to competing with the top half dozen guys, but he can potentially beat anyone else, but hasn't yet shown he can string together 3 or 4 results.

Edmund beats Seppi to make the SF. Gasquet next.

Another good win tonight by Edmund - 3 and 4 over Seppi which takes him thru to a semi. The top 40 beckons.

Ah. I see I was just beaten to it with this news.

There are only two guys younger than Edmund ahead of him in the rankings - Zverev and Kyrgios. At this rate, he could make top 10 one day.

Edmund takes the first set. If he continues like this, he could be seeded at the AO.

Edmund loses the second set 7:5, having been up a break at 4:3.

summerblues wrote:Edmund loses the second set 7:5, having been up a break at 4:3.

Edmund loses the match - I think he lost the last 4 games in losing the third set 6-2.

Not sure whether Edmund's loss was due to Gasquet working Edmund's game out or whether Edmund faded physically and mentally - it has been a longish tournament.  We know that Edmund tends not to finish matches stronger than he starts, in fact he tends to fade off quite quickly after two sets in highly competitive matches.  He needs to work on endurance and matchcraft - knowing when and how to conserve energy during a match.  That said I didn't watch the match and it may have been Gasquet's talent shining through after having worked out Edmund's game - but I doubt that was the case given what I have seen of Edmund in the past.  That said - Edmund is progressing in the right direction and hopefully he can replace Murray, when Murray retires, as someone who patriotic Brits can follow.

Apart from Edmund I can't see anyone else on the horizon, apart from Johanna Konta of course and maybe Katie Swan.

Zverev lost to Sock in the Stockholm SF. That's him now done for the season apparently. Excellent season for him. Certainly the best teenager since DP.

I've updated the article to show current rankings and my grade for their year - slightly early but I may not have time later in the season. Summary grades as follows:

Zverev - A+
Khachanov - A
Tiafoe - B+
Fritz - B+
Donaldson - B
Coric - C
Halys - C-
Ymer - C-
Chung - D
Rublev - D
Kokkinakis - no grade

Two other teenagers are also now well in the top 200: 

Duckhee Lee (18.4) - WR 152
Stefan Kozlev (18.7) - WR 155

Based on their swift progress, both are on track to be future top 10 players but I've not yet seen either play.

Edmund having to retire five games into his match against Ferrer in Vienna with a hip injury. Possibly his long-ish season and the increased intensity of playing at the top level just catching up with him a little, he's been playing a fair bit of tennis recently...