Players who have had surprisingly impressive longevity (non-big 3)

[clout]

Gael Monfils was named ATP rookie of the year way back in 2005 and as of 2020/2021, he's still ranked 11th in the world at 34 years old. Given his play style, I would've thought he'd break down years ago.

Fabio Fognini is 33 years old but he's still ranked 17th in the world even though I've seen his name on TV since the late 2000s. Also, given his wildcard/temperamental behaviour I thought it would've forced him to fall off eventually but nope he's still here. He even won his first Masters title in 2019.

Fernando Verdasco has hung around the top 30-40 rankings for more than 15 years despite hitting the ball with 110% of his effort on every stroke. His ranking dropped in 2020 after not being able to play due to catching the virus but as recent as 2019, he was in the top 30 in his mid/late 30s.

Gilles Simon's ranking has also taken a tumble in 2020 but in 2019, he was ranked in the top 30 despite having little to no weapons to get easy points with. As boring as his pushy style of game is, he's won more than $15 million in prize money throughout a career that's lasted nearly two decades

 

[Sudacafan]

Karlovic is 40+ now. It helps he only uses his shoulder and arm, maybe the secret of it all.

 

[travlerajm]

Gael Monfils was named ATP rookie of the year way back in 2005 and as of 2020/2021, he's still ranked 11th in the world at 34 years old. Given his play style, I would've thought he'd break down years ago.

Fabio Fognini is 33 years old but he's still ranked 17th in the world even though I've seen his name on TV since the late 2000s. Also, given his wildcard/temperamental behaviour I thought it would've forced him to fall off eventually but nope he's still here. He even won his first Masters title in 2019.

Fernando Verdasco has hung around the top 30-40 rankings for more than 15 years despite hitting the ball with 110% of his effort on every stroke. His ranking dropped in 2020 after not being able to play due to catching the virus but as recent as 2019, he was in the top 30 in his mid/late 30s.

Gilles Simon's ranking has also taken a tumble in 2020 but in 2019, he was ranked in the top 30 despite having little to no weapons to get easy points with. As boring as his pushy style of game is, he's won more than $15 million in prize money throughout a career that's lasted nearly two decades

These guy all have one thing in common. They were born at the right time.

 

[MichaelNadal]

Won Queens singles and doubles in 2019

 

[travlerajm]

Karlovic is 40+ now. It helps he only uses his shoulder and arm, maybe the secret of it all.

Height ages pretty well.

 

[clout]

Won Queens singles and doubles in 2019

Didn't he nearly beat Rafa in Bercy just this past year too? Feli is another player who deserves a mention on this thread

 

[Sudacafan]

Height ages pretty well.

Well, it depends until where you want to get. Some say very tall people live less.

 

[The Blond Blur]

Won Queens singles and doubles in 2019

 

[Moose Malloy]

The top 100 is the oldest it's been since the rankings were created in 1973, so it makes sense that many players are having "impressive longevity" in this era. Guess modern medicine should get most of the credit.

 

[daggerman]

Venus Williams

 

[MichaelNadal]

Venus Williams

Come through and slay!

 

[Jonesy]

Big age shift. This is not a theory, this is a fact we are experimenting, and not just in tennis.

 

[MeatTornado]

Karlovic is 40+ now. It helps he only uses his shoulder and arm, maybe the secret of it all.

 

[socallefty]

Guess modern medicine should get most of the credit.

Wonder what all is included in the ‘modern medicine’ given by their ‘special’ doctors.

 

[Gary Duane]

Wonder what all is included in the ‘modern medicine’ given by their ‘special’ doctors.

ANYTHING that they can get away with. I don't even blame them. But to compare modern players against players from earlier eras is insane because of the "medicine" and "training".

By the way, those of us who are old but in shape and active are doing things people our age didn't even think about decades ago. At my age (72) my father was retired. I'm still teaching full time. He watched TV, drank beer at night. No exercise. I run 2 miles a night and push myself in all sorts of ways as hard as when I was half my age. My dentist is about my age. He played in a rock band until Covid and was still out surfing. There is an across the board rebellion against "being over", so that's part of what's going on in all walks of life. In my area, piano, the things top players are doing over the age of 70 is amazing. The best have lost very little technique, and their interpretive skills keep rising.

Now, if we can just keep from getting killed by Covid...

 

[thrust]

Venus Williams

Ken Rosewall was 33 when the OE began. Between 33-39 he won 4 slams, reached 4 other slam finals, won 2 WCT titles, over 30 other titles as well as some doubles titles.

 

[CYGS]

For Fed's well celebrated longevity, he has surprisingly short peak and prime periods according to his fans. Not exactly a GOAT quality imo.

 

[MeatTornado]

For Fed's well celebrated longevity, he has surprisingly short peak and prime periods according to his fans. Not exactly a GOAT quality imo.

His prime was no shorter than Nadal or Djokovic.

There's just been no one to push Nadal and Djokovic out of the picture. They never had the equivalent of an early-mid 20s Djokodal hunting them down while in their late 20s/early 30s, allowing them to hang around and look prime longer than they really are.

 

[CYGS]

His prime was no shorter than Nadal or Djokovic.

There's just been no one to push Nadal and Djokovic out of the picture. They never had the equivalent of an early-mid 20s Djokodal hunting them down while in their late 20s/early 30s, allowing them to hang around and look prime longer than they really are.

Tell that to 99% of the Fed trolls here who thinks Fed has become a grandpa starting 2008

 

[mike danny]

His prime was no shorter than Nadal or Djokovic.

There's just been no one to push Nadal and Djokovic out of the picture. They never had the equivalent of an early-mid 20s Djokodal hunting them down while in their late 20s/early 30s, allowing them to hang around and look prime longer than they really are.

Where is this notion that his prime was shorter coming from? YEC 2003 - AO 2010 is a healthy prime period: 6 years and 2 months.

Djokovic's lasted even less if we consider his consistent prime to have started in 2011 and ended in mid 2016.

Nadal benefitted from injury breaks which re-energized him, otherwise who knows how long his prime would have lasted. Would have loved to see re-energized Fed taking on Nadal in 2008.

 

[MeatTornado]

Where is this notion that his prime was shorter coming from? YEC 2003 - AO 2010 is a healthy prime period: 6 years and 2 months.

Djokovic's lasted even less if we consider his consistent prime to have started in 2011 and ended in mid 2016.

Nadal benefitted from injury breaks which re-energized him, otherwise who knows how long his prime would have lasted. Would have loved to see re-energized Fed taking on Nadal in 2008.

Yeah I've always looked at their true primes as the years they started winning multiple slams a year and ended with multiple slams.

For Fed it's 2004 - 2009 (6 seasons)
For Nadal it's 2008 - 2013 (6 seasons)
And Djokovic is 2011 - 2016 (6 seasons)

They're all identical. Now those streaks got thrown off course since 2017 with Fed (2017), Rafa (2017/19) and Novak (2018/19) all having multi-slam seasons again, but that's an indictment on the tour itself. Most Nadal fans will still say his prime ended in 2014 (either saying it happened the day of the AO final, or post-RG when he got hurt and sent him into a 2 year tailspin). Which is very similar to your cutoff for Federer at AO 2010, which I simply round down to 2009. Doesn't mean he didn't still have some good peaks in 2011, 12, 15, etc, but those were never true prime years. Novak's fan base seems to be the only one with fans that think he's actually still in his prime 2018-present.

Edit: I just saw that Lew has a thread up comparing Fed's 04-09 to Novak's 11-16 too

 

[mike danny]

Yeah I've always looked at their true primes as the years they started winning multiple slams a year and ended with multiple slams.

For Fed it's 2004 - 2009 (6 seasons)
For Nadal it's 2008 - 2013 (6 seasons)
And Djokovic is 2011 - 2016 (6 seasons)

They're all identical. Now those streaks got thrown off course since 2017 with Fed (2017), Rafa (2017/19) and Novak (2018/19) all having multi-slam seasons again, but that's an indictment on the tour itself. Most Nadal fans will still say his prime ended in 2014 (either saying it happened the day of the AO final, or post-RG when he got hurt and sent him into a 2 year tailspin). Which is very similar to your cutoff for Federer at AO 2010, which I simply round down to 2009. Doesn't mean he didn't still have some good peaks in 2011, 12, 15, etc, but those were never true prime years. Novak's fan base seems to be the only one with fans that think he's actually still in his prime 2018-present.

Fed's prime is the easiest to recognize. His prime ended when his slam SF streak pretty much ended.

He did play prime-ish (but not prime) tennis from USO 2011 until Cincy 2012. Great 12 month period for him with an 80-8 win loss record (including Davis Cup), 9 titles (1 slam, 4 masters 1000, 1 WTF title, 3 500's) and a 20-5 record vs the top 10.

As for the bolded part, if Federer and Thiem actually did their jobs, no one would believe that.

 

[MeatTornado]

As for the bolded part, if Federer and Thiem actually did their jobs, no one would believe that.

They would just double-down on the idea that Federer is still playing prime tennis.

 

[mike danny]

They would just double-down on the idea that Federer is still playing prime tennis.

Pretty much.

 

[RaulRamirez]

For Fed's well celebrated longevity, he has surprisingly short peak and prime periods according to his fans. Not exactly a GOAT quality imo.

C'mon, man. This thread's title even says "(non-Big 3)". Do we need this on every single thread?!

 

[mike danny]

Gael Monfils was named ATP rookie of the year way back in 2005 and as of 2020/2021, he's still ranked 11th in the world at 34 years old. Given his play style, I would've thought he'd break down years ago.

Fabio Fognini is 33 years old but he's still ranked 17th in the world even though I've seen his name on TV since the late 2000s. Also, given his wildcard/temperamental behaviour I thought it would've forced him to fall off eventually but nope he's still here. He even won his first Masters title in 2019.

Fernando Verdasco has hung around the top 30-40 rankings for more than 15 years despite hitting the ball with 110% of his effort on every stroke. His ranking dropped in 2020 after not being able to play due to catching the virus but as recent as 2019, he was in the top 30 in his mid/late 30s.

Gilles Simon's ranking has also taken a tumble in 2020 but in 2019, he was ranked in the top 30 despite having little to no weapons to get easy points with. As boring as his pushy style of game is, he's won more than $15 million in prize money throughout a career that's lasted nearly two decades

They have impressive longevity, but their peaks were a long time ago.

 

[James P]

The OP says besides the Big 3
So of course a Big 3 argument breaks out

There are a lot of solid, if unspectacular, vets in the 40-70 ranking range right now. Cuevas, Simon, Tsonga (probably retiring), Cilic, Ramos, Gasquet, Querrey, Andujar, Verdasco, Chardy, Kevin Anderson...

 

[mike danny]

The OP says besides the Big 3
So if course a Big 3 argument breaks out

There are a lot of solid, if unspectacular, vets in the 40-70 ranking range right now. Cuevas, Simon, Tsonga (probably retiring), Cilic, Ramos, Gasquet, Querrey, Andujar, Verdasco, Chardy, Kevin Anderson...

Man, what has become of Cilic....He seems to lose to the first decent opponent he encounters these days. Has completely lost his ability to win matches.

I'm not sure if lasting until 32 is a good thing with results like these in his case.

 

[aldeayeah]

Robredo was a top 100 player for about 15 years and i think he still plays challengers / tries to qualify for slams these days

 

[Phoenix1983]

Lopez. Hasn't missed a slam for 19 years, and still well ranked comfortably inside the top 100.

 

[DMP]

I run 2 miles a night

I am 73 and I hate running, I find it utterly boring. I have to be chasing a ball, so I still play. Much more interesting . And it keeps you young. Last match I played I partnered a 13-year-old and the other pair in our team were 12 and 13, So I was nearly twice the combined age of the other three!

The young lads can play like robots from the baseline and run for ever, but they don't really have a net game, and they are short so I can be much more of a nuisance at the net. Also they don't understand doubles tactics and court geometry as well as I do.

 

[Adman]

I'd say Raonic. I know he's not yet 30, but he looks like 40+ on and off the court.

 

[mike danny]

Robredo was a top 100 player for about 15 years and i think he still plays challengers / tries to qualify for slams these days

Robredo is the worst player to ever exist, so he doesn't count.

 

[Sport]

Yeah I've always looked at their true primes as the years they started winning multiple slams a year and ended with multiple slams.

For Fed it's 2004 - 2009 (6 seasons)
For Nadal it's 2008 - 2013 (6 seasons)
And Djokovic is 2011 - 2016 (6 seasons)

They're all identical. Now those streaks got thrown off course since 2017 with Fed (2017), Rafa (2017/19) and Novak (2018/19) all having multi-slam seasons again, but that's an indictment on the tour itself. Most Nadal fans will still say his prime ended in 2014 (either saying it happened the day of the AO final, or post-RG when he got hurt and sent him into a 2 year tailspin). Which is very similar to your cutoff for Federer at AO 2010, which I simply round down to 2009. Doesn't mean he didn't still have some good peaks in 2011, 12, 15, etc, but those were never true prime years. Novak's fan base seems to be the only one with fans that think he's actually still in his prime 2018-present.

Edit: I just saw that Lew has a thread up comparing Fed's 04-09 to Novak's 11-16 too

Your analysis is true and exact on a general level. But if we want to be more specific, I think you will agree with me that it is a little bit simplistic to assume that a player's prime starts the exact same day that a calendar year starts. For instance, Djokovic wasn't non-prime the 31th of December of 2010 and suddenly became prime the 1st of January of 2011. Djokovic certainly started his prime at the US Open 2010 where he defeated a well-playing, still young (just turned 29) Federer. At the US Open 2009, Djokovic lost in 3 sets to Federer. At the US Open 2010, Djokovic defeated Federer in 5 sets saving match points, exactly the same situation than in the US Open 2011.

Analogously, a player's prime doesn't necessarily end the exact same day that a calendar years ends. Djokovic didn't became non-prime the 1st of January of 2017, did he? I think most people would agree Djokovic wasn't playing that great during the second half of 2016.

I think it's better to round up Djokovic's prime to something like this:
Second half of 2010-first half of 2016 (6 years).

By the way, @MeatTornado, even if I disagree with part of your thesis, I still really enjoy discussing these topics with you. You are a well-educated forum member that never insult me for the simple fact of stating a different viewpoint. You are one of the nicest fans from the Federer fanbase and from TTW in general.

 

[MeatTornado]

Your analysis is true and exact on a general level. But if we want to be more specific, I think you will agree with me that it is a little bit simplistic to assume that a player's prime starts the exact same day that a calendar year starts. For instance, Djokovic wasn't non-prime the 31th of December of 2010 and suddenly became prime the 1st of January of 2011. Djokovic certainly started his prime at the US Open 2010 where he defeated a well-playing, still young (just turned 29) Federer. At the US Open 2009, Djokovic lost in 3 sets to Federer. At the US Open 2010, Djokovic defeated Federer in 5 sets saving match points, exactly the same situation than in the US Open 2011.

Analogously, a player's prime doesn't necessarily end the exact same day that a calendar years ends. Djokovic didn't became non-prime the 1st of January of 2017, did he? I think most people would agree Djokovic wasn't playing that great during the second half of 2016.

I think it's better to round up Djokovic's prime to something like this:
Second half of 2010-first half of 2016 (6 years).

By the way, @MeatTornado, even if I disagree with part of your thesis, I still really enjoy discussing these topics with you. You are a well-educated forum member that never insult me for the simple fact of stating a different viewpoint. You are one of the nicest fans from the Federer fanbase and from TTW in general.

Oh for sure, I'm looking at it from the standpoint of if the season on a whole counts as a prime season (as in, at least 51% of the season). In most of those instances I laid out, the player won a slam both soon before and after those specific cutoffs. I'm just rounding for simplicity.

It's just easier to round to 2011-16 for Novak than to say US Open 2010 to French Open 2016. It's simpler to go by whole seasons.

 

[clout]

Robredo is the worst player to ever exist, so he doesn't count.

His $15 million net worth says otherwise

 

[mike danny]

His $15 million net worth says otherwise

I'm not the one actually making that claim. One of the VB members did

 

[socallefty]

Novak's fan base seems to be the only one with fans that think he's actually still in his prime 2018-present.

Novak did win 5 out of 7 Slams starting with Wimbledon 2019 including 3 Slams in a row and 4 out of 5 Slams. Hard to argue that his results are not close to his prime period.

 

[Red Rick]

The top 100 is the oldest it's been since the rankings were created in 1973, so it makes sense that many players are having "impressive longevity" in this era. Guess modern medicine should get most of the credit.

It takes some credit but I think the terribleness of the younger generations plays a massive role as well. Monfils shouldn't be top 15 in the world. He's not doing anything special. He's even slower than he used to be. Didn't change his game. So his peak is worse, yet his ranking is high cause the field came down THAT much.

I think the top performances of Djokovic and Nadal and sometimes Federer at this point flatter their overall level which then inflates young dudes when they beat them on their trash days.

 

[MeatTornado]

Novak did win 5 out of 7 Slams starting with Wimbledon 2019 including 3 Slams in a row and 4 out of 5 Slams. Hard to argue that his results are not close to his prime period.

Results don't equal form. Roger won 3 out of 5 in 17-18, but he was nowhere near prime level.

Nadal had 2 multi slam years at ages 31 & 33, winning 2 US Opens, but do you think those were anywhere near his 2010 & 2013 performances?

 

[Crazy Finn]

People get fooled into thinking primes are longer when players keep winning over lesser competition.

People bag on tennis in the 90's but Courier, Sampras, Agassi and others pretty much closed the door on the Becker/Edberg/Wilander/Lendl era - even if some of those guys ended up only being one slam winners like Stich. People talk about the early 2000's as weak, but guys like Hewitt, Safin, and a young Fed kind of closed the door on the Sampras era. Nadal and Djokovic challenged and ended the Federer era. Who has rose up since then? Like in the last 6 years. Hmm....

(crickets)

Maybe finally we're getting some contenders, maybe, but in the past there would be people that were more than just candidates at this point, and it's been almost half a decade.

There's no doubt that the Big 3 have declined. They've declined less than other players in the past, but part of the longevity of their success is that no one of comparable skill has risen to challenge them. Fanbois would say that it's because their skill is incomparable. Others would say that the highest level of their competition is mediocre. Watching these guys play, and going back and watching them during their prime years, it's clear that they aren't as good as they were, despite what they might say or even think. However, they still get excellent results.

Old Federer, Mid--30's Novak and Rafa are still better players than their competitors, for the most part - up to this point. It's allowed Federer to still be more than just competitive, but essentially a top 5 player for almost two decades, which is kind of unbelievable when you think about it.

So, in reality, the truth is probably some of each. The Big 3, even past their prime are still very good. The new competition just hasn't been good enough - a rare phenomenon in tennis. At least not, yet....

 

[Deleted member 777746]

Considering Sampras had a stamina disorder that had no medicinal/medical treatment/attention/cure, I'd say sticking around until 31 was some amazing longevity.

 

[Swingmaster]

Considering Sampras had a stamina disorder that had no medicinal/medical treatment/attention/cure, I'd say sticking around until 31 was some amazing longevity.

Stamina disorder? Hmm. Not doubting it but what’s the actual name of it?

By the way, is that new Sampras book worth reading for a non die hard?

 

[Deleted member 777746]

Stamina disorder? Hmm. Not doubting it but what’s the actual name of it?

By the way, is that new Sampras book worth reading for a non die hard?

Thalassemia minor

Yep, tho maybe start with his auto bio. Greatness Revisited is for tennis nerds as well as Sampras aficionados

 

[socallefty]

Results don't equal form. Roger won 3 out of 5 in 17-18, but he was nowhere near prime level.

Nadal had 2 multi slam years at ages 31 & 33, winning 2 US Opens, but do you think those were anywhere near his 2010 & 2013 performances?

Apart from results, all you have is the eye test. Novak looked to me like he was playing at a pretty high level in that period when he won 5 out of 7 Slams. Others may have seen it differently which is why fans argue all the time.

I’m not going to go back and watch replays of old matches from 2011 and 2015-16 to compare with his 2018W-2020AO hot streak. From memory, it seemed to me like he played his best tennis in that 2015AO-2016FO period which was slightly better than his 2011AO-2012AO period. I would certainly put 2018-2020 slightly below both those hot streaks, but it was still an incredibly high level of tennis that he displayed.

Unlike Federer and Nadal who had defined periods of consecutive years where they looked the best from an eye test standpoint, Novak has been much more streaky and has three good periods separated by several years when he didn’t look as good. So, it is hard to have a discussion of when his prime was. I don’t think of 2012-2014 as prime years as he played very passively and lost 6 Slam finals where he was outhit in almost all cases.

 

[MeatTornado]

Apart from results, all you have is the eye test. Novak looked to me like he was playing at a pretty high level in that period when he won 5 out of 7 Slams. Others may have seen it differently which is why fans argue all the time.

I’m not going to go back and watch replays of old matches from 2011 and 2015-16 to compare with his 2018W-2020AO hot streak. From memory, it seemed to me like he played his best tennis in that 2015AO-2016FO period which was slightly better than his 2011AO-2012AO period. I would certainly put 2018-2020 slightly below both those hot streaks, but it was still an incredibly high level of tennis that he displayed.

Unlike Federer and Nadal who had defined periods of consecutive years where they looked the best from an eye test standpoint, Novak has been much more streaky and has three good periods separated by several years when he didn’t look as good. So, it is hard to have a discussion of when his prime was. I don’t think of 2012-2014 as prime years as he played very passively and lost 6 Slam finals where he was outhit in almost all cases.

He was absolutely playing at a high level, no question about it. 99.9999% of all tennis players would kill to be able to play like Novak does in his 30s. But this is getting graded on a curve, he simply wasn't as good as he was in his mid-20s. Yes it's an eye test, but it couldn't be more clear to my eyes the difference in his speed & stamina.

It's a testament to how obscenely good these 3 guys are that they can still dominate the tour even without their best stuff.

And I really don't like the whole chopping up of prime years. Prime in large part refers to the athlete's physical prime. And it's not like Novak's body gave out on him in 2012-14, he just didn't play as well as he did in 2011 or 15. Federer's 2008 wasn't as good as his 2007 or 2009, but it's still part of his prime. Nadal's 2009 was mostly a lost cause after Australia, but it was still part of his prime years.