College and ATP (Men vs Women)

[tennisballer]

Watching both the men's and women's individual finals and was curious to hear everyone's opinion on why collegiate men have had such more success transitioning to the professional level than women have (at least lately). The college guys who have achieved success has been well documented (Stevie, Isner, K. Anderson, etc.) and we've only had a couple of women who have been able to achieve success (Burdette, Falconi, Gibbs). Is it the way they are trained? Or is it just that the overall level of competition on the men's side in college tennis is higher than the women? Giron and Sarkissian look like they have top 200 hundred talent as well players like Winston Lin and possibly a Clay Thompson. I will say I have been impressed with Danielle Collins game (big serve and strong groundies).

 

[DaveKB]

Watching both the men's and women's individual finals and was curious to hear everyone's opinion on why collegiate men have had such more success transitioning to the professional level than women have (at least lately). The college guys who have achieved success has been well documented (Stevie, Isner, K. Anderson, etc.) and we've only had a couple of women who have been able to achieve success (Burdette, Falconi, Gibbs). Is it the way they are trained? Or is it just that the overall level of competition on the men's side in college tennis is higher than the women? Giron and Sarkissian look like they have top 200 hundred talent as well players like Winston Lin and possibly a Clay Thompson. I will say I have been impressed with Danielle Collins game (big serve and strong groundies).

Tennis is by far the highest paying women's sport with golf a distant second. Thus, if you are a great female athlete you will gravitate towards tennis. This is especially true in Europe where most of the top women pros not named Williams are from. I think the pro competition is too good for the college women players.

For men, tennis is maybe the 5th or 6th best paying sport behind soccer, FB, BB, golf, and probably ice hockey. Thus, the men have more choices and in terms of pure athletes there are far "athletes" choosing tennis, so the college guys have a somewhat better chance.

College tennis is for the most part below the Futures tour level. The top 25 or so college players are Futures tour quality, but only the very best ever make it to the ATP tour and very, very few make the top 50. Isner has done it with one weapon (his serve) and tennis's scoring system that allows him to win almost every other game and most TB'ers with his great serve, but he has a Futures tour or worse game otherwise Kevin Anderson is similar. Two time NCAA champ Somdev Devarrman is now around #100. I see where Steve Johnson is now ranked #64 and is now the 2nd highest ranked American, because he has been tearing it up on the Challenger Circuit. He has a better all around game than Isner and Anderson and he might move into the top 50, but I doubt he will ever be a top 25 guy.

 

[Clemson_tennis]

d1 top 75 teams are basically equal to future level. Every week on the future tour college guys do damage and a lot of the time not even top players. For instance Joao Monteiro (#3 player for VT and unranked) made the Portugal futures quarters last week. David Sofaer and Chris Cooprider made future finals while being unranked in college last year.

The top 25 players are more like challenger level than future

 

[MC86]

Some college guys also transition better to the pro's than others as well. There have been plenty of top ranked guys who've never made it out of the futures on the pro tour.

 

[DaveKB]

d1 top 75 teams are basically equal to future level. Every week on the future tour college guys do damage and a lot of the time not even top players. For instance Joao Monteiro (#3 player for VT and unranked) made the Portugal futures quarters last week. David Sofaer and Chris Cooprider made future finals while being unranked in college last year.

The top 25 players are more like challenger level than future

I did some googling and roughly speaking -

ATP tour = top 100
Challenger tour= 100 to 250
Futures tour = 250 to 500/600, but some below that may try qualifying. Obviously there are many who are ranked below this, but by my definition they are not Futures players.

The ITA website lists former college players in the ATP top 500 and there are currently 51 men (8 in top 100, 8 from 100 to 250, and 35 from 250 to 500. I recognized several names and they were top two or three players from the best NCAA teams. For UVA (all played #1 at some point) there was Devarmann #88, Jenkins #235, Shabaz #438, Singh #374. These guys were all extremely good college players and All Americans, but none are playing Challengers regularly, except for two time NCAA champ Devarrman who plays mostly ATP 250 events these days.

Here is the link:

http://www.itatennis.com/Players/Players-in-the-Pros.htm

There is no way everyone in the top 6 for the top 75 D1 programs are what I call Futures level players. If you are pro, technically you are called a Futures player, but I am talking about modestly successful ones roughly from 250 to 600.

 

[ClarkC]

Watching both the men's and women's individual finals and was curious to hear everyone's opinion on why collegiate men have had such more success transitioning to the professional level than women have (at least lately).

Women reach their final height and close to their final strength at an earlier age than men. By 18, the top 2-3 junior girls are ready to turn pro. They bypass college more than men as a result. Lots of them turn pro well before the spring of 12th grade, which is usually about the earliest time that boys decide to turn pro these days.

 

[2ndServe]

to me it's kind of obvious the which guys have a game that MIGHT transition to money making pro tennis. It really kind of depends on the quality of their serves and 2nd serves for high level men's play. And I'm not talking about just bombing it 125mph, the good ones mix it up like a good pitcher and their 2nd ball needs to be a great serve. If it's an above avg 2nd ball in college it's just an absolute sitter in pro tennis.

Steve j, Isner, Andersen, Klahn, Becker etc. all have had success on the pro level because they serve really well. They also stand a small chance of upsetting a top player because the serve dictates the flow of their points. Now a guy like Somdev who was a world beater in colllege, his game stands no chance against a top 20, and you can see that before he ever tried the pro tour.

For an prospective ATP players he

1) needs to serve
2) needs to have exceptional movement
3) a steady return

you can have 1 be missing 2,3 and you'd still compete against the world's best.

if you are missing 1 but have 2+3 you're still going to have a hard time.

Maybe not enough kids play soccer but in the US. The movement is far more fluid and efficient at the pro game.

I don't watch enough women's tennis to discern the differences but the college women simply lack the mph. The guy at tennisspeed blog used a radar and it's said they are lacking 15+ mph on the serves between top college female and pros.

 

[serb4life]

There's going to be serious talent coming out of Orlando within the next decade. That USTA mega complex should churn out a few prospects through the developmental program.