Attacking_Tennis
Banned
Wednesday, 27 August 2014
Young guns alert: on Borna Coric, Kokkinakis et al
In an earlier post I suggested that the rankings of some of the young up and comers, particularly those who move up the ranks quickly through the futures/challenger circuit, give a pretty misleading picture of their real level.
The classic case of that in today's results with seventeen year old qualifier Borna Coric (currently ranked 204), who has just routed Rosol (ranked 24).
The score was 6-4, 6-1, 6-2!
I'm not sure what exactly happened there (alas the match was not livestreamed), maybe Rosol wasn't at his best.
All the same, there is possibly another factor at work here.
The young gun problem
One of the problems for those players who rise rapidly is that the running year ranking system disadvantages them when it comes to getting entry to tour level tournaments, even at qualifying level (and when it comes to seeding). That means they can't compete in tournaments giving higher levels of points (unless they can crack a wildcard).
This compounds the second issue, namely that their rankings arguably often look lower relative to the top 100 group than their real playing level because of the 2009 changes to the points weightings, which doubled the points for Grand Slams and higher level tournaments.
My 'where have all the teenagers gone?' post goes through the protections top group get against intruders from outside the top 100, but the bottom line is that the effect of it is that when the young guns do get to play the top group, they often seem to do unexpectedly well.
I'm not suggesting all of these young up and comers are genuinely top players as yet. On the face of it, several have more time to do in challengers before they should move up. But there is a good case for making sure they get more top level experience opportunities - like slam wildcards - to help them make the transition.
What the top players looked like back then...
There has been a bit of work around suggesting that junior performance (ranked no 1, Slams) might be good indicators of those who will make it to the very top. On the face of it, though, the real test of making the jump is how they go at challenger level.
Consider, for example, the table below showing win/loss ratios for players challenger and future careers. First for some of the top players, so you can see how the best fared at that level, back in the day. The table shows that few of them had to play all that many challenger matches before being able to get the next level up. But they also played enough of them to get a pretty positive win/loss ratio at that level before they did.
Some (though not all) of the newer crop of rising stars - such as Messrs Kyrgios and Thiem in particular - have pretty similar (or even better) success rates at the challenger level, as the table below illustrates.
In fact, on the whole, this group is had a faster and more positive trajectory than the current 'young guns' group in the top 100, perhaps explaining why they have yet to win a slam.
Finally, take a look at the very young guns group, the players ranked 100-300 or so and rising rapidly (data from mid-July). On the face of it they haven't yet outgrown challengers. But they will, very soon. Very soon.
**I should note, the figures for this group are changing rapidly: a month or so on Kokkinkis is now at 14/11 for challengers, for example.
http://lifeunitennis.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/young-guns-alert-on-borna-coric.html
The article is a couple of months old; but it is worthy of posting, because it gives a significant sense of perspective on the prospects of the "young guns."
