Stats and numbers always need context to be truly meaningful. I feel like tennis statistics is far behind most of the other majors sports in terms of analysis and context. However, for now, we have what we have.
The OP stats show that the Big 3 were more successful in their 30's. There are a couple of ways to interpret this, as we see by the posts on this thread.
- The Big 3 are better players in their 30's.
- The competition the Big 3 were playing in their 30's is/was weaker.
Athletically and physically, it's been well shown that players age and decline starting in their 30's. This is fairly conclusive. It used to be said that athletes - at least in baseball - used to peak between 25-29, mostly because it was the converging of the players physical skills still being good and having the major league experience to be successful. Most rookie baseball players struggle to varying degrees because of the jump in competition. There are exceptions to this, naturally. Physically, most athletes are in their prime from the very late teens to their mid twenties. I've seen various studies about this, but this seems to be the consensus - something from 19-26 or 27, roughly. Obviously, there's a fair amount of individual variation on this as some 19 year olds are far more developed than others.
Now, we have modern training methods and nutrition and ... honestly, medicine that is extending and changing the landscape of the age of athletes. Before, you played hard as a young athlete and usually by the time you were 26 or 27, it's not unlikely you'd have an injury that would have limited you going forward. However, treatment for many, many injuries is far better than it's ever been and athletes recover better and faster than before. It's allowing older athletes to maintain their abilities to a far greater degree than previously, though - of course - there is some variability to this.
Something people overlook is the benefits of cumulative experience and victories for the Big 3. They are now better than ever at elevating for finals, especially at their favourite tournaments. Djokovic spoke about this after beating Thiem in the 2020 AO final, that he felt his experience was a big advantage.
Djokovic in 2012-2014 was capable of things that Djokovic cannot do in 2021, but he was much less confident and clear-headed in the big moments and in slam finals. 2021 Djokovic would never throw away a slam SF against Nishikori, for example, or melt down in a final he was dominating on hard court like in the 2013 US Open.
If you watch the 2020 RG final where Nadal doesn't miss a return for 2 sets and crushes every short ball, it's clear that (on top being the GOAT claycourter generally speaking) his past success at RG makes it easier than ever for him to reach his best level and harder than ever for the opponent to believe he can beat him.
It was the same in the 2021 AO final -- you can see that Djokovic is empowered by the ridiculous record he's accumulated at the AO.
Even Federer has clearly benefitted from the experience he's accumulated -- look at how he played Nadal in 2008-2012 and how regularly he lost his composure (despite showing off ridiculous shot-making) and compare how clear-headed and efficient he is when beating Nadal at Wimbledon 2019 SF (Nadal obviously a different player by this point, but still).
This is the post of the thread, as far as I'm concerned.
Before, athletes would peak physically, be successful, start to decline physically, and try to use their experience to try to offset their physical decline to still have good results. Sometimes, players would adapt their game to their new circumstances, but usually it was relying on just having "been there, done that" to give them a leg up on, possibly less experienced opponents. What we see in the Big 3, is a further extension and expansion of this. With better training, nutrition, better medicine to help recovery from injuries, these 3 have not extended their physical primes, but they have blunted their physical decline. Not only that, they've actually improved parts of their game, something we rarely see in older players. Add that to the wealth of experience they've accumulated in their decade and a half on tour, a unprecedented length of high level play - and it makes for a situation that we haven't really seen before in tennis.
Back to the OP and the statistics about the Big 3 playing their best in their 30's. Statistics always need context. The stat only people dismiss the "eye test" crowd who dismiss statistics. The reality is, we need better statistics - but regardless the "eye test" is subjective, BUT also necessary to apply to the statistics to give them context. Between the two poles of:
- The Big 3 are better players in their 30's.
- The competition the Big 3 were playing in their 30's is/was weaker.
The reality is that the truth is that both of these are probably true in varying ways and degrees.
The Big 3 have declined physically - less than previous great players, but still, they have. However, they are smarter, more experienced players now, that is not insignificant and are actually better in certain parts of their game. It's hard to quantify the strength of their competition - but at the very least, the last two generations of competition haven't been very successful and have been largely inconsistent in making slam quarterfinals, let alone challenging the Big 3 in the latter stages of slams. Obviously, some of that is due to the presence of the Big 3, but frankly, they are only 3 players in the field and often don't come into play until the later stages of tournaments for the higher seeds and they've generally struggled regardless. These statistics, however limited, seem to suggest that the field of competition for some time hasn't been as strong as was in the past. It's just difficult to know how much weight to give to each of these factors for the current state of the ATP tour for the last decade or so.
