If Ryan Harrison qualifies for the French Open and reaches the second round, he’ll probably break into the top 100. I wouldn’t bet on that degree of success at Roland Garros, but the relevant point is that the young American is close–if he falters in Paris, a couple of deep runs at challenger events will do the trick.<\/p>\n
Harrison just turned 19, and he is the youngest<\/a> player in the top 150. When Grigor Dimitrov turns 20 next Monday, Harrison will the be the top-ranked 19-year-old in the world. There is a widespread sense that reaching the top 100 is one measure of “making it,” and an equally popular notion that if a player hits that benchmark at such a young age, he is probably destined for success.<\/p>\n Indeed, hitting the top 100 as a teenager is rare, and it’s getting even less common. \u00a0Of the 940 players who have spent time in the top 100 in the history of the ATP ranking computer, fewer than 150 (16%) broke in when they were teenagers. \u00a0Since the beginning of 2001, 209 players have broken in, including only 25 teenagers (12%).<\/p>\n As you might expect, those 25 have generally gone on to very successful careers. \u00a020 have reached the top 20, and 17 have climbed into the top 10. \u00a0It’s even better than that, since in time, Dimitrov and Kei Nishikori seem likely to make those numbers 22 and 19 out of 25.<\/p>\n If Harrison breaks into the top 100 by the end of July, he’ll become the 20th youngest player to do so since the beginning of 2001. \u00a0If we want to get technical and limit the span to exactly 10 years, he’ll become the 16th youngest player since mid-2001. \u00a0(Early 2001 was a good time for teenagers, with Jose Acasuso, Andy Roddick, Mikhail Youhzny, and Tommy Robredo all reaching the top 100 in the span of three months.)<\/p>\n Incidentally, Bernard Tomic has a chance to make an even more impressive mark, as he is five and a half months younger than Harrison. \u00a0However, he’s 50 spots and 130 points lower on the ranking computer, so his appearance in the top 100 as a teenager seems far less assured.<\/p>\n After the jump, see the full list of teenagers who reached the top 100 since 2001.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If Ryan Harrison qualifies for the French Open and reaches the second round, he’ll probably break into the top 100. I wouldn’t bet on that degree of success at Roland Garros, but the relevant point is that the young American is close–if he falters in Paris, a couple of deep runs at challenger events will … Continue reading Teenagers in the Top 100<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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":[85,91,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prospect-rankings","category-rankings","category-research"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","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=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Player Debut100 DebutAge PeakRank \nRafael Nadal 20030421 16.9 1 \nRichard Gasquet 20030929 17.3 7 \nJuan Martin Del Potro 20061009 18.1 4 \nNovak Djokovic 20050704 18.1 2 \nKei Nishikori 20080428 18.3 46 \nDonald O Young 20071126 18.4 73 \nTomas Berdych 20040202 18.4 6 \nAndy Murray 20051003 18.4 2 \nErnests Gulbis 20070226 18.5 21 \nJose Acasuso 20010423 18.5 20 \n\nPlayer Debut100 DebutAge PeakRank\nEvgeny Korolev 20060911 18.6 46 \nAndy Roddick 20010402 18.6 1 \nMikhail Youzhny 20010129 18.6 8 \nGael Monfils 20050502 18.7 9 \nMario Ancic 20021202 18.7 7 \nTommy Robredo 20010226 18.8 5 \nRobin Soderling 20030825 19.0 4 \nMarin Cilic 20071015 19.1 9 \nNicolas Almagro 20040913 19.1 9 \nSam Querrey 20070129 19.3 17 \n\nPlayer Debut100 DebutAge PeakRank\nDavid Nalbandian 20010723 19.6 3 \nMarcos Baghdatis 20050131 19.6 8 \nGrigor Dimitrov 20110131 19.7 64 \nRobby Ginepri 20020715 19.8 15 \nFernando Verdasco 20030915 19.8 7<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"