Third Serve
Talk Tennis Guru
Just to clarify, I refer to the batch of players that range from, say, Medvedev’s age (25) to Shapovalov’s age (22). You could make a case for Kyrgios (age 26) being in this generation too.
For years we’ve talked about how they’ll be the next big thing in tennis and how they’re just about to enter their peaks and start taking over the tour. Well, that hasn’t happened and you can blame Djokovic or their collective mediocrity (or both) for that. Either way, that isn’t what this thread is getting at. Not directly, at least.
These guys are in their early-to-mid-20’s now. They’re not rising teenagers or players who have just hit the 20-year mark like the tennis generation after them (which would probably consist of Auger-Aliassime, Sinner, Musetti, Alcaraz, and a few others). They’re players who are at what should be their peak physical prowess, based on how previous generations have fared in their early 20’s.
Alright, now maybe we can say that times have changed and players are maturing later in this increasingly physical game. And that is true, to a certain extent. We aren’t gonna see teenage Slam champions like Becker, Wilander, and others anymore just due to how the game has changed to favor more physically mature players. Nadal is just about the only exception in recent history and that guy was a freak of nature. So yeah, the game is much less kind to ascendant teenagers, which is why I don’t really fault the gen-after-next-gen for the missteps some of them have made.
But I think it’s a completely different argument when we’re talking about the Medvedev/Zverev/Tsitsipas generation of players who are in their early-20’s. By all accounts, they should be in their primes. And we don’t really need to reach all the way back to the 80’s or 90’s to see examples of players hitting their peaks at that age. Just take a look at the previous generation, often called the “Lost Gen” around here, because they aren’t that far away from the next gen in age. Its most successful members include Dimitrov (age 30), Raonic (30), Nishikori (31), and Thiem (27, soon to be 28; there is still room for him). Let’s look at those four:
Dimitrov’s best seasons were 2014 and 2017 I think. He put in his best performances at the Slams in those years (minus a couple of fluke QF-SF runs in 2018-2021), pushing Nadal and Djokovic to tight and reasonably high-quality matches. In 2017, he also took home his sole Masters and WTF win, though the field was admittedly terrible at that point in time. He was 23 and 26 in those years, respectively.
Raonic’s best season was 2016 without a doubt, but he also had a great 2014 season just like Dimitrov. I remember him being incredibly consistent throughout most of the big events (he made QF or better in 7 of the 9 Masters and 2 of the 4 Slams). So he was 23 and 25 in those years (he’s about six months older than Dimitrov).
Nishikori’s best season was probably 2014 when he made his sole Slam final, but he was (until quite recently) a very consistent player who gathered nice, solid results in the following years as well: 2015, 2016, and 2018. That’d put him at ages 24, 25, 26, and 28.
Thiem peaked a lot later than the rest of his group but he’s also on the younger side of the Lost Gen. His best season was definitely 2020, but he had good 2018 and 2019 seasons as well. Might even throw 2017 in there. In fact, let’s do that. So that’d be ages 24, 25, 26, and 27. He still has room to add more prime seasons to the tally, but odds are that his 2021 season won’t fit in among them.
I think it’s safe to say that we have a good prime estimate for all of these guys except maybe Thiem, and we’re seeing a common trend here. Their best seasons generally fall from age 23 to age 28 (with a lean towards the front end of the scale) which looks a bit later than previous generations but we’re still looking at a roughly similar prime period here, a period that Medvedev, Zverev, Berrettini, and (in less than a month) Tsitsipas all find themselves in. Their results seem to line up with that as well, only they generally hit good streaks of form even earlier than the Lost Gen (but that could be because they’re just better players overall). Shapovalov falls on the younger side of the Next Gen spectrum but in a year or so, he’ll be in that “prime age”. Sure, I suppose there are outliers like Wawrinka who didn’t hit his stride till he was in his late 20’s. But they’re just that: exceptions to the rule. Stan’s own peers generally started playing their best tennis in their early 20’s.
I just thought it was kind of interesting to bring this up because the next gen talk was all well and good in 2016-2018 when they really were very young. But I don’t think it makes sense now, at least not since 2019, because all of these players are at around the age at which the vast majority of players from all sorts of eras generally perform at their best. So do we think that same rule applies to them and that they are indeed at their peaks? That is, have they really reached their ceilings? Or do we think they’ll improve even more in the following years, living up to their “Next Gen” label? Or is it a bit of a mix, as I think? I doubt Medvedev and Zverev can continue to improve (Zverev could have done that back in 2019 but he actually regressed rather than progressed), but there’s just a little bit of potential left for the 22-(and soon to be 23)-year-old Tsitsipas and Shapovalov. What does TT make of this?
For years we’ve talked about how they’ll be the next big thing in tennis and how they’re just about to enter their peaks and start taking over the tour. Well, that hasn’t happened and you can blame Djokovic or their collective mediocrity (or both) for that. Either way, that isn’t what this thread is getting at. Not directly, at least.
These guys are in their early-to-mid-20’s now. They’re not rising teenagers or players who have just hit the 20-year mark like the tennis generation after them (which would probably consist of Auger-Aliassime, Sinner, Musetti, Alcaraz, and a few others). They’re players who are at what should be their peak physical prowess, based on how previous generations have fared in their early 20’s.
Alright, now maybe we can say that times have changed and players are maturing later in this increasingly physical game. And that is true, to a certain extent. We aren’t gonna see teenage Slam champions like Becker, Wilander, and others anymore just due to how the game has changed to favor more physically mature players. Nadal is just about the only exception in recent history and that guy was a freak of nature. So yeah, the game is much less kind to ascendant teenagers, which is why I don’t really fault the gen-after-next-gen for the missteps some of them have made.
But I think it’s a completely different argument when we’re talking about the Medvedev/Zverev/Tsitsipas generation of players who are in their early-20’s. By all accounts, they should be in their primes. And we don’t really need to reach all the way back to the 80’s or 90’s to see examples of players hitting their peaks at that age. Just take a look at the previous generation, often called the “Lost Gen” around here, because they aren’t that far away from the next gen in age. Its most successful members include Dimitrov (age 30), Raonic (30), Nishikori (31), and Thiem (27, soon to be 28; there is still room for him). Let’s look at those four:
Dimitrov’s best seasons were 2014 and 2017 I think. He put in his best performances at the Slams in those years (minus a couple of fluke QF-SF runs in 2018-2021), pushing Nadal and Djokovic to tight and reasonably high-quality matches. In 2017, he also took home his sole Masters and WTF win, though the field was admittedly terrible at that point in time. He was 23 and 26 in those years, respectively.
Raonic’s best season was 2016 without a doubt, but he also had a great 2014 season just like Dimitrov. I remember him being incredibly consistent throughout most of the big events (he made QF or better in 7 of the 9 Masters and 2 of the 4 Slams). So he was 23 and 25 in those years (he’s about six months older than Dimitrov).
Nishikori’s best season was probably 2014 when he made his sole Slam final, but he was (until quite recently) a very consistent player who gathered nice, solid results in the following years as well: 2015, 2016, and 2018. That’d put him at ages 24, 25, 26, and 28.
Thiem peaked a lot later than the rest of his group but he’s also on the younger side of the Lost Gen. His best season was definitely 2020, but he had good 2018 and 2019 seasons as well. Might even throw 2017 in there. In fact, let’s do that. So that’d be ages 24, 25, 26, and 27. He still has room to add more prime seasons to the tally, but odds are that his 2021 season won’t fit in among them.
I think it’s safe to say that we have a good prime estimate for all of these guys except maybe Thiem, and we’re seeing a common trend here. Their best seasons generally fall from age 23 to age 28 (with a lean towards the front end of the scale) which looks a bit later than previous generations but we’re still looking at a roughly similar prime period here, a period that Medvedev, Zverev, Berrettini, and (in less than a month) Tsitsipas all find themselves in. Their results seem to line up with that as well, only they generally hit good streaks of form even earlier than the Lost Gen (but that could be because they’re just better players overall). Shapovalov falls on the younger side of the Next Gen spectrum but in a year or so, he’ll be in that “prime age”. Sure, I suppose there are outliers like Wawrinka who didn’t hit his stride till he was in his late 20’s. But they’re just that: exceptions to the rule. Stan’s own peers generally started playing their best tennis in their early 20’s.
I just thought it was kind of interesting to bring this up because the next gen talk was all well and good in 2016-2018 when they really were very young. But I don’t think it makes sense now, at least not since 2019, because all of these players are at around the age at which the vast majority of players from all sorts of eras generally perform at their best. So do we think that same rule applies to them and that they are indeed at their peaks? That is, have they really reached their ceilings? Or do we think they’ll improve even more in the following years, living up to their “Next Gen” label? Or is it a bit of a mix, as I think? I doubt Medvedev and Zverev can continue to improve (Zverev could have done that back in 2019 but he actually regressed rather than progressed), but there’s just a little bit of potential left for the 22-(and soon to be 23)-year-old Tsitsipas and Shapovalov. What does TT make of this?
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