Nadal_Power
Semi-Pro
http://www.**************.org/Does-...aw-field-in-tennis-history-articolo33253.html
Analyzing the average age of 2016 Australian Open main draw (you can read it HERE) we could see that the number was 27,5 which is pretty much the standard in the recent few years. It's a common fact that many players over the last few years are achieving their best results after they turn 28, 29 or in many cases 30, which affects the average age of the players in the Top 100 and by that the Grand Slam main draws as well. That tendency is probably here to stay for many years, as only a few youngsters can make an impact and crack the Top 100 group, to soften this dominance of the older players at least in some measure. Roland Garros is no exception to this trend, with an average age of the main draw players reaching the magical number of 28 (28,08 to be precise)! We can say that this is a unique tournament by that fact and that this event has the oldest average field of any Grand Slam in the modern times (Australian Open 1971 was also around this number but with a much smaller draw and 3 players older than 40)! One thing is certain, 2016 Roland Garros contains the biggest number of players with the age of 30 or more, no less than 50 of them which is unmatched by any other Major from the past. In January, there were 39 players of that age group playing at Australian Open, so the increase by 11 is significant and it is the main reason for the overall average of the players being that high. For example, between 1979-1985 there were never more than 22 players in that age group, and it is almost uncomparable with today's tennis.
In Melbourne, we had 9 players in the age group between 18-20, which was a solid number, and it dropped to just 6 at Roland Garros (just 8 players born in 1995 or later). In addition, players aged between 21 to 24 could also make a difference, but there are 6 less of those comparing Melbourne and Paris. Biggest age group is that with players with 25 to 29 years, and that stays pretty much the same in comparison of these two Slams, but then comes the ultimate difference that made this Roland Garros having such a high average age. In Melbourne, there were 39 players in their thirties and the number has incredibly jumped to 50 in Paris. To see it from another angle, 39% of the competitors are at the age of 30 or more, and we can see that too from the table with the age groups and also on the list where the players are sorted by year of birth:
18-20 : 6
21-24 : 20
25-29 : 52
30+ : 50
1978 : 1 (Radek Stepanek)
1979 : 1 (Ivo Karlovic)
1980 : 3 (Victor Estrella Burgos, Stephane Robert, Albert Montanes)
1981 : 4 (Feliciano Lopez, Paolo Lorenzi, Julien Benneteau, Benjamin Becker)
1982 : 6 (Paul-Henri Mathieu, Dmitry Tursunov, David Ferrer, Nicolas Mahut, Daniel Munoz de la Nava, Mikhail Youzhny)
1983 : 7 (Yen-Hsun Lu, Florian Mayer, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Carlos Berlocq, Philipp Kohlschreiber, Gilles Muller, Fernando Verdasco)
1984 : 9 (Steve Darcis, Juan Monaco, Malek Jaziri, Rajeev Ram, Andreas Seppi, Janko Tipsarevic, Dustin Brown, Gilles Simon, Rogerio Dutra Silva)
1985 : 14 (Brian Baker, Tomas Berdych, Nicolas Almagro, Marcos Baghdatis, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Dudi Sela, Horacio Zeballos, Lukas Rosol, Stan Wawrinka, Simone Bolelli, Ivan Dodig, Adrian Ungur, John Isner, Teymuraz Gabashvili)
1986 : 8 (Denis Istomin, Pablo Cuevas, Tobias Kamke, Rafael Nadal, Marcel Granollers, Kevin Anderson, Viktor Troicki, Richard Gasquet)
1987 : 15 (Novak Djokovic, Marsel Ilhan, Santiago Giraldo, Illya Marchenko, Sam Groth, Kenny De Schepper, Fabio Fognini, Mikhail Kukushkin, Robin Haase, Jeremy Chardy, Leonardo Mayer, Igor Sijsling, Sam Querrey, Thomaz Bellucci, Andy Murray)
1988 : 6 (Roberto Bautista Agut, Thiemo de Bakker, Ernests Gulbis, Adrian Mannarino, Albert Ramos-Vinolas, Marin Cilic)
1989 : 12 (Aljaz Bedene, Thomas Fabbiano, Inigo Cervantes, Joao Sousa, Andrej Martin, Martin Klizan, Kei Nishikori, Steve Johnson, John Millman, Donald Young, Radu Albot, Benoit Paire)
1990 : 13 (Gerald Melzer, Federico Delbonis, Evgeny Donskoy, Vasek Pospisil, Facundo Bagnis, Ricardas Berankis, David Goffin, Jan-Lennard Struff, Milos Raonic, Marco Trungelliti, Guido Pella, Dusan Lajovic, Jordi Samper-Montana)
1991 : 4 (Pablo Carreno Busta, Pierre-Hugues Herbert, Grigor Dimitrov, Andrey Kuznetsov)
1992 : 7 (Bernard Tomic, Damir Dzumhur, Jack Sock, Diego Schwartzman, Denis Kudla, Marco Cecchinato, Nikoloz Basilashvili)
1993 : 5 (Dominic Thiem, Jiri Vesely, Roberto Carballes Baena, Taro Daniel, Bjorn Fratangelo)
1994 : 5 (Gregoire Barrere, Lucas Pouille, Adam Pavlasek, Jordan Thompson, Mathias Bourgue)
1995 : 3 (Nick Kyrgios, Kyle Edmund, Laslo Djere)
1996 : 3 (Borna Coric, Hyeon Chung, Quentin Halys)
1997 : 2 (Taylor Fritz, Alexander Zverev)
Just like in Melbourne, most players are born in 1987 (15), and it already sounds scary that they will turn 30 next year. Still, those who are 2 years older are also very close to the top with 14, led by Berdych, Tsonga, Wawrinka, and Isner. The oldest participants are Radek Stepanek and Ivo Karlovic (the oldest player in the 3rd round since Jimmy Connors at US Open in 1991), with 3 additional players born in 1980. We can say that players born in 1982 or before are clear veterans of the game, turning at least 34 this year, and there are 15 of them in the main draw. On the other side of the list, there are only 18 players born in 1993 or later, which is really not a good sign! Players from precisely that age group are lacking in the quest to keep the average age at least on 27, and if we don't see a breakthrough by some other teens the number can stabilize at 28 just like here at Roland Garros. It will be extremely important for the names like Karen Khachanov, Elias Ymer, Yoshihito Nishioka, Jared Donaldson, Noah Rubin, Frances Tiafoe, Andrey Rublev, Stefan Kozlov, Duck Hee Lee and others to step up and make their flashover towards the Top 100 company, and on the other side we will continue to follow the number of the players older than 29 at Wimbledon and US Open.
Analyzing the average age of 2016 Australian Open main draw (you can read it HERE) we could see that the number was 27,5 which is pretty much the standard in the recent few years. It's a common fact that many players over the last few years are achieving their best results after they turn 28, 29 or in many cases 30, which affects the average age of the players in the Top 100 and by that the Grand Slam main draws as well. That tendency is probably here to stay for many years, as only a few youngsters can make an impact and crack the Top 100 group, to soften this dominance of the older players at least in some measure. Roland Garros is no exception to this trend, with an average age of the main draw players reaching the magical number of 28 (28,08 to be precise)! We can say that this is a unique tournament by that fact and that this event has the oldest average field of any Grand Slam in the modern times (Australian Open 1971 was also around this number but with a much smaller draw and 3 players older than 40)! One thing is certain, 2016 Roland Garros contains the biggest number of players with the age of 30 or more, no less than 50 of them which is unmatched by any other Major from the past. In January, there were 39 players of that age group playing at Australian Open, so the increase by 11 is significant and it is the main reason for the overall average of the players being that high. For example, between 1979-1985 there were never more than 22 players in that age group, and it is almost uncomparable with today's tennis.
In Melbourne, we had 9 players in the age group between 18-20, which was a solid number, and it dropped to just 6 at Roland Garros (just 8 players born in 1995 or later). In addition, players aged between 21 to 24 could also make a difference, but there are 6 less of those comparing Melbourne and Paris. Biggest age group is that with players with 25 to 29 years, and that stays pretty much the same in comparison of these two Slams, but then comes the ultimate difference that made this Roland Garros having such a high average age. In Melbourne, there were 39 players in their thirties and the number has incredibly jumped to 50 in Paris. To see it from another angle, 39% of the competitors are at the age of 30 or more, and we can see that too from the table with the age groups and also on the list where the players are sorted by year of birth:
18-20 : 6
21-24 : 20
25-29 : 52
30+ : 50
1978 : 1 (Radek Stepanek)
1979 : 1 (Ivo Karlovic)
1980 : 3 (Victor Estrella Burgos, Stephane Robert, Albert Montanes)
1981 : 4 (Feliciano Lopez, Paolo Lorenzi, Julien Benneteau, Benjamin Becker)
1982 : 6 (Paul-Henri Mathieu, Dmitry Tursunov, David Ferrer, Nicolas Mahut, Daniel Munoz de la Nava, Mikhail Youzhny)
1983 : 7 (Yen-Hsun Lu, Florian Mayer, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Carlos Berlocq, Philipp Kohlschreiber, Gilles Muller, Fernando Verdasco)
1984 : 9 (Steve Darcis, Juan Monaco, Malek Jaziri, Rajeev Ram, Andreas Seppi, Janko Tipsarevic, Dustin Brown, Gilles Simon, Rogerio Dutra Silva)
1985 : 14 (Brian Baker, Tomas Berdych, Nicolas Almagro, Marcos Baghdatis, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Dudi Sela, Horacio Zeballos, Lukas Rosol, Stan Wawrinka, Simone Bolelli, Ivan Dodig, Adrian Ungur, John Isner, Teymuraz Gabashvili)
1986 : 8 (Denis Istomin, Pablo Cuevas, Tobias Kamke, Rafael Nadal, Marcel Granollers, Kevin Anderson, Viktor Troicki, Richard Gasquet)
1987 : 15 (Novak Djokovic, Marsel Ilhan, Santiago Giraldo, Illya Marchenko, Sam Groth, Kenny De Schepper, Fabio Fognini, Mikhail Kukushkin, Robin Haase, Jeremy Chardy, Leonardo Mayer, Igor Sijsling, Sam Querrey, Thomaz Bellucci, Andy Murray)
1988 : 6 (Roberto Bautista Agut, Thiemo de Bakker, Ernests Gulbis, Adrian Mannarino, Albert Ramos-Vinolas, Marin Cilic)
1989 : 12 (Aljaz Bedene, Thomas Fabbiano, Inigo Cervantes, Joao Sousa, Andrej Martin, Martin Klizan, Kei Nishikori, Steve Johnson, John Millman, Donald Young, Radu Albot, Benoit Paire)
1990 : 13 (Gerald Melzer, Federico Delbonis, Evgeny Donskoy, Vasek Pospisil, Facundo Bagnis, Ricardas Berankis, David Goffin, Jan-Lennard Struff, Milos Raonic, Marco Trungelliti, Guido Pella, Dusan Lajovic, Jordi Samper-Montana)
1991 : 4 (Pablo Carreno Busta, Pierre-Hugues Herbert, Grigor Dimitrov, Andrey Kuznetsov)
1992 : 7 (Bernard Tomic, Damir Dzumhur, Jack Sock, Diego Schwartzman, Denis Kudla, Marco Cecchinato, Nikoloz Basilashvili)
1993 : 5 (Dominic Thiem, Jiri Vesely, Roberto Carballes Baena, Taro Daniel, Bjorn Fratangelo)
1994 : 5 (Gregoire Barrere, Lucas Pouille, Adam Pavlasek, Jordan Thompson, Mathias Bourgue)
1995 : 3 (Nick Kyrgios, Kyle Edmund, Laslo Djere)
1996 : 3 (Borna Coric, Hyeon Chung, Quentin Halys)
1997 : 2 (Taylor Fritz, Alexander Zverev)
Just like in Melbourne, most players are born in 1987 (15), and it already sounds scary that they will turn 30 next year. Still, those who are 2 years older are also very close to the top with 14, led by Berdych, Tsonga, Wawrinka, and Isner. The oldest participants are Radek Stepanek and Ivo Karlovic (the oldest player in the 3rd round since Jimmy Connors at US Open in 1991), with 3 additional players born in 1980. We can say that players born in 1982 or before are clear veterans of the game, turning at least 34 this year, and there are 15 of them in the main draw. On the other side of the list, there are only 18 players born in 1993 or later, which is really not a good sign! Players from precisely that age group are lacking in the quest to keep the average age at least on 27, and if we don't see a breakthrough by some other teens the number can stabilize at 28 just like here at Roland Garros. It will be extremely important for the names like Karen Khachanov, Elias Ymer, Yoshihito Nishioka, Jared Donaldson, Noah Rubin, Frances Tiafoe, Andrey Rublev, Stefan Kozlov, Duck Hee Lee and others to step up and make their flashover towards the Top 100 company, and on the other side we will continue to follow the number of the players older than 29 at Wimbledon and US Open.
