{"id":324,"date":"2011-05-13T13:00:23","date_gmt":"2011-05-13T13:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=324"},"modified":"2011-05-13T13:00:23","modified_gmt":"2011-05-13T13:00:23","slug":"breaking-in-and-breaking-through","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/13\/breaking-in-and-breaking-through\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking In and Breaking Through"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday we looked at players who broke into the top 100 when they were teenagers<\/a>. \u00a0As expected, those guys generally went on to great success–17 of the last 25 eventually reached the top 10, and at least two more may still do so.<\/p>\n

We can gain a broader perspective by analyzing more than just teenagers. \u00a0If a 19-year-old entering the top 100 is likely to become a top-10 player, what chances do 22-year-olds or 26-year-olds have? \u00a0By examining a few decades of the ATP ranking system, we can begin to answer these questions.<\/p>\n

I used a sample of 590 players–everyone who entered the top 100 between 1980 and 2005. \u00a0(It’s possible that a few recent players will continue to improve, but the vast majority of players get close to their peak within five years, so 2005 seems like \u00a0a reasonable cutoff date.) \u00a0A bit less than half of those 590 broke into the top 100 between the ages of 20 and 22, about a third were older, and the remainder were teenagers.<\/p>\n

As you can see in the table below, there is a clear correlation between breaking into the top 100 at an early age and reaching the higher echelons of the pro game. \u00a0In the last 30 years, only one #1-ranked player (Pat Rafter) hadn’t reached the top 100 as a teenager, and he made it into the top 100 when he was 20. \u00a0Almost every eventual top-10 player had broken into the top 100 by age 21.<\/p>\n

Age  Players  Top50  Top20  Top10  Top5  Top1\n16         4   100%   100%   100%   75%   50%\n17        16   100%    88%    69%   56%   38%\n18        38    87%    76%    61%   34%   11%\n19        61    89%    48%    41%   20%    8%\n20        88    86%    48%    25%   13%    1%\n21        99    63%    22%    12%    7%    0%\n22        83    47%     8%     5%    2%    0%\n23        61    44%    16%     3%    0%    0%\n24        62    31%     3%     0%    0%    0%\n25        32    25%     0%     0%    0%    0%\n26        10    60%    10%     0%    0%    0%\n27        16    31%     0%     0%    0%    0%\n28        10    20%     0%     0%    0%    0%\n29+       10     0%     0%     0%    0%    0%<\/pre>\n
It’s not entirely clear that these trends are consistent from decade to decade–yesterday, I noted that fewer teenagers had reached the top 100 in the last ten years or so. \u00a0It’s possible that as the quality of the game improves and a larger amount of training is necessary to prepare for the pro tour, there will be fewer prodigies like Nadal, who broke in at age 16, and Richard Gasquet, who arrived as a 17-year-old.<\/p>\n
But even if the ages shift by a year or two, the overall conclusions should hold. \u00a0The older you are when you arrive in the top 100, the less likely it is that you will advance considerably further.<\/p>\n
One obvious application of this data is to make predictions regarding players as they enter the top 100. \u00a0The last two men to break in are Benoit Paire (age 22) and Matthias Bachinger (age 24). \u00a0Paire is still young enough to have an outside shot at the top 10; Bachinger will have a hard time doing much better than #50. \u00a0Another recent newbie is Go Soeda, a 26-year-old. \u00a0To find someone who made a top-20 success out of so late a breakthrough, you have to go back to Steve Denton in the mid-80s.<\/p>\n
Another way to use this information is to find top prospects among current players. \u00a0Among active tour pros, the four men who broke in at the youngest ages are Nadal, Gasquet, Juan Martin del Potro, and Novak Djokovic. \u00a0The next two might surprise you: Kei Nishikori and Donald Young. \u00a0Nishikori has only now recovered from battles with injury–perhaps he will start to make good on his promise. \u00a0Young may be a unique case–were it not for his many, many wildcards, he would not have reached the top 100 so early.<\/p>\n
Another surprise is the active player with the 10th-youngest age-of-reaching-100: Evgeny Korolev. \u00a0The Russian has also struggled with injury, but he did crack the top 50 last year.<\/p>\n
The more oft-mentioned “prospects” are a little further down the list. \u00a0Grigor Dimitrov broke in at 19.7 years of age, while Milos Raonic appeared just after his 20th birthday–a few days older than the first appearance of Mischa Zverev. \u00a0Alexander Dolgopolov is further down than you might expect, having broken in at age 21.3, while Ryan Sweeting didn’t get there until 23.5.<\/p>\n
Of course, “age of first appearance in the top 100” is just one metric, and it doesn’t tell the whole story. \u00a0Perhaps players who spend several years in college account for that blip in the table at age 23–John Isner, for instance, didn’t reach the top 100 until he was nearly 23, and he has already hit a peak ranking of #18. \u00a0The metric might also underrate the chances of those who suffer prolonged injury at an early age–perhaps if Nishikori had lost his two years to injury one season sooner, he would have only recently reached the top 100 with the same skills and potential.<\/p>\n
Warts and all, this angle is a good reminder of why we should keep a close eye on youngsters in the futures and challenger tours–the latest, greatest 23-year-old is almost guaranteed not<\/em>\u00a0to be the future of the sport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday we looked at players who broke into the top 100 when they were teenagers. \u00a0As expected, those guys generally went on to great success–17 of the last 25 eventually reached the top 10, and at least two more may still do so. We can gain a broader perspective by analyzing more than just teenagers. … Continue reading Breaking In and Breaking Through<\/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-324","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\/324","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=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}