Is the tour getting younger?

James P

G.O.A.T.
Was looking at the stats that @helterskelter provides for the age of players per round, and it has become apparent that older players are fading quite a bit, but I didn't want to leave it at that without doing some diligence. So I created a table of all players 30 years old at the start of the season (ie born in 1990 or earlier) in 2020 and compared their rankings then and now. Keep in mind, it's actually harder than normal to move both up and down the rankings with Covid rankings starting in March of 2020 although we're getting closer to normal week by week. 30 players out of 41 have dropped, 3 have stayed the same, and only 8 have gone up. Of the 30 players that have dropped, 16 have dropped double digits, 5 have dropped 20 positions or more, 3 30 positions or more. Only Delbonis (+34) and Chardy (+16) have double digit improvements. Big faders in the top 30 include Fognini (17 to 29), Wawrinka (18 to 28), Lajovic (26 to 39), and Paire (28 to 46). Six players that were in the earlier top 100 have fallen out, Pablo Cuevas actually also fell out, but jumped back in a few weeks back. Meantime, youngsters like Lorenzo Musetti and Carlos Alcaraz have replaced some of these names. Anyway, it was interesting to see what's changed in 18 months.

NameNationDOBRank 1-1-20Rank 6-7-21 (live)Delta
Novak DjokovicSRB05/22/87
1​
1​
0​
Rafael NadalESP06/03/86
2
3
-1
Roger FedererSUI08/08/81
5
8
-3
Gael MonfilsFRA09/01/86
11
16
-5
Roberto Bautista AgutESP04/14/88
13​
10​
+3​
Milos RaonicCAN12/27/90
14
18
-4
David GoffinBEL12/07/90
15​
13​
+2​
Fabio FogniniITA05/24/87
17
29
-12
Stan WawrinkaSUI03/28/85
18
28
-10
John IsnerUSA04/26/85
25
33
-8
Dusan LajovicSRB06/30/90
26
39
-13
Benoit PaireFRA05/08/89
28
46
-18
Daniel EvansGBR05/23/90
32​
25​
+7​
Adrian MannarinoFRA06/29/88
35
41
-6
Jan-Lennard StruffGER04/25/90
36
44
-8
John MillmanAUS06/14/89
38
42
-4
Kei NishikoriJPN12/29/89
41
57
-16
Marin CilicCRO09/28/88
42
45
-3
Guido PellaARG05/17/90
43
62
-19
Albert Ramos VinolasESP01/17/88
46​
37​
+9​
Richard GasquetFRA06/18/86
47
54
-7
Sam QuerreyUSA10/07/87
53
66
-13
Aljaz BedeneSLO07/18/89
58
60
-2
Pablo AndujarESP01/23/86
60
69
-9
Vasek PospisilCAN06/23/90
61
64
-3
Jo-Wilfried TsongaFRA04/17/85
62
80
-18
Gilles SimonFRA12/27/84
63
71
-8
Feliciano LopezESP09/20/81
64​
63​
+1​
Fernando VerdascoESP11/15/83
65
101
-36
Pablo CuevasURU01/01/86
67
97
-30
Ricardas BerankisLTU06/21/90
69
84
-15
Steve JohnsonUSA12/24/89
72​
72​
0​
Jeremy ChardyFRA02/12/87
75​
59​
+16​
Kevin AndersonRSA05/18/86
81
103
-22
Federico DelbonisARG10/05/90
82​
48​
+34​
Norbert GombosSVK08/13/90
88​
88​
0​
Mikhail KukushkinKAZ12/26/87
89
104
-15
Joao SousaPOR03/30/89
90
108
-18
Attila BalazsHUN09/27/88
92
112
-20
Radu AlbotMDA11/11/89
93​
90​
+3​
Philipp KohlschreiberGER10/16/83
98
128
-30
 

skip1969

G.O.A.T.
I think the big takeaway is that men's tennis isn't a teenager's game anymore. It's a man's game. I mean, obviously there will be teenagers climbing up the rankings and gaining more and more experience. But the tour is a grinder's tour now. To succeed at the highest levels, at the biggest events takes strength and stamina, and an endurance, both mental and physical, that most teens and young 20-somethings just don't have.

Everyone plays a grinding game now, and it's all year long, too. Long rallies from way behind the baseline, long matches, round after round, month after month. On every surface. The Big 3 are still around for a reason. Even at their ages, they still have the endurance that the younger players don't. Reminds me of when a teenager opts to go into the NBA from high school or a year of university. They may have excelled there, but now they're playing against grown men, bigger and stronger.
 

James P

G.O.A.T.
I think the big takeaway is that men's tennis isn't a teenager's game anymore. It's a man's game. I mean, obviously there will be teenagers climbing up the rankings and gaining more and more experience. But the tour is a grinder's tour now. To succeed at the highest levels, at the biggest events takes strength and stamina, and an endurance, both mental and physical, that most teens and young 20-somethings just don't have.

Everyone plays a grinding game now, and it's all year long, too. Long rallies from way behind the baseline, long matches, round after round, month after month. On every surface. The Big 3 are still around for a reason. Even at their ages, they still have the endurance that the younger players don't. Reminds me of when a teenager opts to go into the NBA from high school or a year of university. They may have excelled there, but now they're playing against grown men, bigger and stronger.
I definitely agree with this. There are a few precocious ones that break into the top 100, we have three right now, but overall there's Djokodal and the 22-28 crowd when players are at their peak performance abilities.
 

Third Serve

Talk Tennis Guru
Yeah, I think we can’t really compare the likes of Becker or Wilander to teenagers now and in the future. The game just requires considerably greater physicality nowadays.

We certainly can, however, compare the likes of Nadal to them since the physical nature of the game probably hasn’t changed a whole lot since the mid-2000s compared to the 80’s or 90’s, but Nadal was really one of a kind so it probably wouldn’t tell us much.
 

Third Serve

Talk Tennis Guru
It certainly doesn’t excuse the 21-24 year old #DiamondGen’s failures, but we have some leeway on the 18-20 gang.
 

skip1969

G.O.A.T.
When the surfaces varied more, there were more opportunities to "break through", so to speak. You didn't have to grind out several four-hour matches. Some players played all-court or full-on attacking tennis. You could get hot and turn a couple of wins into an extended run during the grass or hard court season. Some players played games that were much less taxing on the body. They could recover quickly for that next match, next round.

How many times have we broken "longest match in history" record in the last 15 years? I don't know, I'm asking. But quite a few times. Because matches are getting longer and longer, not shorter. They've made them so because of surface manipulation. Long 4-5 hour matches used to be on slower courts and maybe a round or two here and there. Now they're more commonplace and can happen anywhere. Because the courts allow it, and because just about every player is a grinding baseliner, content to have one long rally after another. It's a battle of attrition now. It's whoever can last the longest out there. It didn't always used to be like that in our sport. It wasn't "Survivor" every round. It is now.

We used to be impressed by those extra fit/fast guys who were "backboards." Now, every guy is a backboard. And the biggest backboards, the Big 3, are the ones still owning the biggest, longest grindfests . . . the Slams.
 

James P

G.O.A.T.
I'm in the process of nerding out, creating a quarter-by-quarter spreadsheet (not sure yet how far I'll go back, maybe 20+ years, we'll see) that will give me the ages of any variable I choose (average age of top 10 or top 50, for instance) to see where the trends are going. I've already created the spreadsheet with formulas, just a matter of plugging in the info each quarter, which is time-consuming.
 

sandmammal

New User
I'm in the process of nerding out, creating a quarter-by-quarter spreadsheet (not sure yet how far I'll go back, maybe 20+ years, we'll see) that will give me the ages of any variable I choose (average age of top 10 or top 50, for instance) to see where the trends are going. I've already created the spreadsheet with formulas, just a matter of plugging in the info each quarter, which is time-consuming.
Good stuff, but begs a few key questions: What is the covariance of those statistics? Is the data and relationship subject to homoskedacity? Did you run the White Test for significance? What is best linear unbiased estimate here?
 

James P

G.O.A.T.
Good stuff, but begs a few key questions: What is the covariance of those statistics? Is the data and relationship subject to homoskedacity? Did you run the White Test for significance? What is best linear unbiased estimate here?
I'm an amateur statistician, my dude. Miss me with that ****(skedacity) bull.
 

Mediterranean Might

Professional
Good stuff, but begs a few key questions: What is the covariance of those statistics? Is the data and relationship subject to homoskedacity? Did you run the White Test for significance? What is best linear unbiased estimate here?
You asked the same thing (more or less) 4 times, we get it you're a data scientist 8-B

The answer is probably no, but not everyone has to be a statistician or data scientist. Most of the graphs and info you see out there are from passionate tennis fans who scour the numbers and put together neat views. It's doesn't need to be so serious
 
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