{"id":2624,"date":"2018-05-09T16:09:13","date_gmt":"2018-05-09T16:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=2624"},"modified":"2018-05-09T16:09:13","modified_gmt":"2018-05-09T16:09:13","slug":"the-unique-late-career-surge-of-mihaela-buzarnescu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2018\/05\/09\/the-unique-late-career-surge-of-mihaela-buzarnescu\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unique Late-Career Surge of Mihaela Buzarnescu"},"content":{"rendered":"

The newest member of the WTA top 32 got there the hard way. Mihaela Buzarnescu<\/a>, who achieved her latest career-high ranking with a run to the final of last week’s Prague event, where she lost a three-setter to Petra Kvitova<\/a>, made her professional debut 14 years ago. Despite a dose of junior success, including a junior doubles title at the 2006 US Open, she didn’t crack the top 100 until last October.<\/p>\n

This isn’t how tennis career trajectories are supposed to work. Yes, the game is getting older and stars are extending their careers, but Buzarnescu’s year-long winning spree, in which she has climbed from outside the top 400 to inside the top 40, began after her 29th birthday. The closer we look at what the Romanian has achieved, and the age at which she’s doing so, the more unusual it appears.<\/p>\n

The oldest top 100 debuts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since the beginning of the 1987 season, 630 women have debuted in the top 100. Their average age, on the Monday they reached the ranking threshold, is just under 20 years and 6 months. Only 29 of the 630–less than five percent–broke into the top 100 after their 26th birthday.<\/p>\n

Only 14 players did so after turning 27:<\/p>\n

Player                 Debut  Age (Y)  Age (D)  Peak Rank  \nTzipi Obziler       20070219       33      306         75  \nA. Villagran Reami  19880801       31      359         99  \nMihaela Buzarnescu  20171016       29      165         32  \nJulie Ditty         20071105       28      305         89  \nEva Bes Ostariz     20010716       28      183         90  \nMashona Washington  20040719       28       49         50  \nMaureen Drake       19990201       27      317         47  \nTatjana Maria       20150406       27      241         46  \nHana Sromova        20051107       27      211         87  \nLaura Siegemund     20150914       27      193         27  \nFlora Perfetti      19960708       27      160         54  \nLouise Allen        19890227       27       51         83  \nKristina Barrois    20081020       27       20         57  \nIryna Bremond       20111017       27       11         93<\/pre>\n
Buzarnescu doesn’t quite top this list, but she is certainly a more consequential force on tour than either of the women who debuted at a more advanced age. Tzipi Obziler<\/a> fought her way through the lower levels of the game for just as long as Buzarnescu did, though she never cracked the top 70.\u00a0Adriana Villagran Reami<\/a> played a limited schedule; she may have had the skills to play top-100 tennis long before the ranking table made it official, but she was never a tour regular.<\/p>\n
The most comparable player to Buzarnescu is Laura Siegemund<\/a>, who reached a double-digit ranking a few years ago, and has since climbed as high as No. 27. Of the oldest top-100 debutants, though, very few have continued to ascend the rankings as far as Buzarnescu and Siegemund have.<\/p>\n
Here are the oldest top-100 debuts of players who went on to crack the top 32:<\/p>\n
Player                      Debut  Age (Y)  Age (D)  Peak  \nMihaela Buzarnescu       20171016       29      165    32  \nLaura Siegemund          20150914       27      193    27  \nSybille Bammer           20050822       25      117    19  \nShinobu Asagoe           20000710       24       12    21  \nManon Bollegraf          19880215       23      310    29  \nJohanna Konta            20140623       23       37     4  \nAnne Kremer              19981019       23        2    18  \nLesia Tsurenko           20120528       22      364    29  \nKveta Peschke            19980420       22      286    26  \nPetra Cetkovska          20071022       22      256    25  \nTathiana Garbin          20000214       22      229    22  \nLi Na                    20041004       22      221     2  \nMara Santangelo          20040202       22      219    27  \nGinger Helgeson Nielsen  19910325       22      192    29  \nCasey Dellacqua          20070806       22      176    26<\/pre>\n
Here’s an indication of just how young women’s tennis is: The 9th-oldest top-100 debutant on this list achieved her feat\u00a0before her 23rd birthday<\/em>. Put another way: Of the 107 women to break into the top 100 after their 23rd birthday, only\u00a0eight<\/em> went on to a ranking of No. 32 or better. By comparison, about one-third of all top-100 players peak at a ranking in the top 32. In this category, Buzarnescu is charting entirely new territory.<\/p>\n
Making up for lost time<\/strong><\/p>\n
The last six months or so have been a whirlwind for the Romanian, as she has gone from a fringe tour player that no one had ever heard of, to a solid tour regular that … well, most fans still don’t know much about. Many players need some time to adjust to the higher level of competition and spend months, even years, stagnating in the rankings. Buzarnescu, on the other hand, has barely stopped to take a breath.<\/p>\n
It took 203 days from her top-100 debut last October to her latest career-high at No. 32 on Monday. Siegmund, by comparison, needed 315 days; Sybille Bammer<\/a> took 574 days; Roberta Vinci<\/a>, who eventually cracked the top ten, required 2,520 days, or nearly seven years. The average player who reaches the top 32 needs two and a half years between her first appearance in the top 100 and clearing the higher bar.<\/p>\n
Buzarnescu’s climb doesn’t fit the mold of older debuts. Her climb has more in common with those of teenage sensations. Again since 1987, here are the 20 quickest ascents:<\/p>\n
Player              Age (Y)  Age (D)  Peak  Ascent Days  \nJennifer Capriati        14       11     1            0  \nAnke Huber               15      266     4           49  \nAgnes Szavay             18      164    13           77  \nLindsay Davenport        16      238     1          112  \nNaoko Sawamatsu          17       31    14          119  \nClarisa Fernandez        20      265    26          133  \nMaria Sharapova          16       58     1          133  \nSerena Williams          16       52     1          133  \nMiriam Oremans           20      145    25          140  \nVenus Williams           16      301     1          147  \nSofia Arvidsson          21      223    29          154  \nLeila Meskhi             19      308    12          168  \nTatiana Golovin          16       22    12          175  \nEugenie Bouchard         19       42     5          189  \nMartina Hingis           14       31     1          189  \nAna Ivanovic             16      361     1          196  \nConchita Martinez        16      107     2          196  \nMihaela Buzarnescu       29      165    32          203  \nDarya Kasatkina          18      137    11          203  \nAshleigh Barty           20      316    16          210<\/pre>\n
The player Buzarnescu knocked out of the top 20: Kim Clijsters<\/a>. She is the only woman on the list to have cracked the top 100 after her 22nd birthday, yet here she is, climbing from No. 101 to No. 32 in less time than 92% of her peers.<\/p>\n
Common sense suggests that Buzarnescu can climb only so much higher: Most players don’t set new career highs in their 30s, especially those who have such a short track record of tour-level success. On the other hand, she has adapted quickly, recording her first top ten win, over Jelena Ostapenko<\/a>, in February and taking a set from Kvitova in Saturday’s final.<\/p>\n
What’s more, she’ll reap the benefits of seeds at many events, probably including Roland Garros and Wimbledon. Having proven that she can defeat top 50 players–she holds a 6-7 career record against them–her new status as a top-32 player means she’ll get plenty of opportunities to rack up points against a less-daunting brand of competition. After more a decade of fighting steeply uphill battles, she has finally–improbably–earned a place among the game’s elite. Now all she has to do is keep winning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The newest member of the WTA top 32 got there the hard way. Mihaela Buzarnescu, who achieved her latest career-high ranking with a run to the final of last week’s Prague event, where she lost a three-setter to Petra Kvitova, made her professional debut 14 years ago. Despite a dose of junior success, including a … Continue reading The Unique Late-Career Surge of Mihaela Buzarnescu<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,91,93,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aging-trends","category-rankings","category-records","category-wta"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}