flyinghippos101
Legend
This year so far has been a good one. The younger guys have finally began making their move into the top echelon of players and we're getting a glimpse of what's to come in the near distant future. At the moment I can think of four guys that have so far made the most progress
Milos Raonic (CAN) Current Ranking: No. 28 (July 18, 2011)
Raonic made a lot of fans early in the year and his early Verdasco drummings made for some LOLs on the forum. Made a surprise run to the 4th round at the Australian Open. He Had some decent runs in 250s and 500s afterwards and managed to win SAP Open and makes the finals of Morgan Keegan consecutively. After IW and Miami...not a whole lot. Raonic Had some success during the clay season making the semis of Estoril but crashed out in the first round of the French. Since then he's been MIA after his injury at Wimbledon
The guy is huge first and foremost and has easily one of the best serves on tour. He has a surprisingly decent all-court game and has good touch at the net. The only gaping flaw in his game is his return. A lot of his matches are going to tiebreaks and he's hardly aggressive enough on snail second serves either. His movement is also pretty suspect and considering how big guys like Del Potro and Soderling have good movement, it's definitely something that can be improved.
Grigor Dimitrov (BGR) Current Ranking: No. 57 (July 25, 2011)
Promising junior hyped to oblivion, but has made some ground in the rankings. Made the second round of the AO and Wimbledon, losing both times to decent seeded players (Wawrinka and Tsonga) Since then Dimitrov have made a couple quarter finals; at Atlanta and Munich.
Dimitrov's game is very pretty, his game is obviously modeled after Federer which isn't a bad thing, but reminds me too much of Rampras. Despite the Federer imitation, his movement is nowhere near as graceful as Fed's. His movement is his biggest limitation. The guy almost inevitably stumbles after every shot under pressure which makes for easy points wrong footing him. Court IQ is also questionable at times, makes head-scratcher shots from time to time.
Ryan Harrison (USA) Current Ranking: No. 94 (July 25, 2011)
Up till only recent, had mediocre success at tour level events with the exception of Indian Wells where he made the 4th round beating Raonic and giving Fed a decent match. Had meh success at slams but pushed Soderling at the French to four sets. Despite his minimal success early in the year, he definitely made good progress by reaching two straight semi finals in Atlanta and at the on-going Farmer's Classic beating Lu too.
He has a all-round solid game. His serve is pretty good and can get his some free points. Net play is pretty good too. Overall has a great game and is fun to watch, only drawback is that he comes off as a dooosh. The guy screams, throws rackets and whines when the chips are down. Easily the most annoying of the top young players coming out. He's Andy Roddick 2.0, in more ways than one...
Bernard Tomic (AUS) Current Ranking: No. 68 (25 July 2011)
The youngest and probably the most promising of all the prospects. Made a great QF run at Wimbledon beating quality players like Soderling, Malisse, Andrev and Davydenko. Lost to Djokovic in four. He also made a decent third round run at Australia. Haven't made a whole lot of success on main tour events but has had good results at Challenger events.
Haven't seen him play at all yet, but from what I hear, he has great court sense but not that many weapons. This may be his biggest advantage over the rest of the guys; if he can already mess with some of the top guys heads at age 18, then there's no telling how much he will improve in the future.
Milos Raonic (CAN) Current Ranking: No. 28 (July 18, 2011)
Raonic made a lot of fans early in the year and his early Verdasco drummings made for some LOLs on the forum. Made a surprise run to the 4th round at the Australian Open. He Had some decent runs in 250s and 500s afterwards and managed to win SAP Open and makes the finals of Morgan Keegan consecutively. After IW and Miami...not a whole lot. Raonic Had some success during the clay season making the semis of Estoril but crashed out in the first round of the French. Since then he's been MIA after his injury at Wimbledon
The guy is huge first and foremost and has easily one of the best serves on tour. He has a surprisingly decent all-court game and has good touch at the net. The only gaping flaw in his game is his return. A lot of his matches are going to tiebreaks and he's hardly aggressive enough on snail second serves either. His movement is also pretty suspect and considering how big guys like Del Potro and Soderling have good movement, it's definitely something that can be improved.
Grigor Dimitrov (BGR) Current Ranking: No. 57 (July 25, 2011)
Promising junior hyped to oblivion, but has made some ground in the rankings. Made the second round of the AO and Wimbledon, losing both times to decent seeded players (Wawrinka and Tsonga) Since then Dimitrov have made a couple quarter finals; at Atlanta and Munich.
Dimitrov's game is very pretty, his game is obviously modeled after Federer which isn't a bad thing, but reminds me too much of Rampras. Despite the Federer imitation, his movement is nowhere near as graceful as Fed's. His movement is his biggest limitation. The guy almost inevitably stumbles after every shot under pressure which makes for easy points wrong footing him. Court IQ is also questionable at times, makes head-scratcher shots from time to time.
Ryan Harrison (USA) Current Ranking: No. 94 (July 25, 2011)
Up till only recent, had mediocre success at tour level events with the exception of Indian Wells where he made the 4th round beating Raonic and giving Fed a decent match. Had meh success at slams but pushed Soderling at the French to four sets. Despite his minimal success early in the year, he definitely made good progress by reaching two straight semi finals in Atlanta and at the on-going Farmer's Classic beating Lu too.
He has a all-round solid game. His serve is pretty good and can get his some free points. Net play is pretty good too. Overall has a great game and is fun to watch, only drawback is that he comes off as a dooosh. The guy screams, throws rackets and whines when the chips are down. Easily the most annoying of the top young players coming out. He's Andy Roddick 2.0, in more ways than one...
Bernard Tomic (AUS) Current Ranking: No. 68 (25 July 2011)
The youngest and probably the most promising of all the prospects. Made a great QF run at Wimbledon beating quality players like Soderling, Malisse, Andrev and Davydenko. Lost to Djokovic in four. He also made a decent third round run at Australia. Haven't made a whole lot of success on main tour events but has had good results at Challenger events.
Haven't seen him play at all yet, but from what I hear, he has great court sense but not that many weapons. This may be his biggest advantage over the rest of the guys; if he can already mess with some of the top guys heads at age 18, then there's no telling how much he will improve in the future.
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he has a nice all court game, and he actually uses is slice very well (unlike fellow American Roddick, lol), I think a couple of years at most, he will put it all together and start his big run to the top.
