youngest major winners at the start of every five years

George Turner

Hall of Fame
1980;

John McEnroe (20 years 11 months)
Bjorn Borg (23 years 6 months)
Vitas Gerulaitis (25 years 5 months)

1985; (Boris Becker won Wimbledon aged 17 this year)

Stefan Edberg (19 years 11 months)
Mats Wilander (20 years 4 months)
Yamnick Noah (24 years 7 months)

1990; (Pete Sampras won US open aged 19 this year)

Michael Chang (17 years 10 months)
Boris Becker (22 years 1 month)
Pat Cash (24 years 7 months)

1995;

Michael Chang (22 years 10 months)
Pete Sampras (23 years 4 months)
Sergi Brughera 23 years 11 months)

2000; (Safin won US open aged 20 this year, Lleyton Hewitt did so aged 20 in 2001.

Carlos Moya (23 years 4 months)
Gugu Kuerten (23 years 4 months)
Yevgeny Kalelnikov (25 years 10 months)

2005; (Nadal won French open aged 19 this year.)

Andy Roddick (22 years 4 months)
Roger Federer (23 years 4 months)
Lleyton Hewitt (23 years 10 months)

2010;

Juan Martin Del Potro (21 years 3 months)
Novak Djokovic (22 years 7 months)
Rafael Nadal (23 years 6 months)

2015;
Juan Martin Del {Potro (26 years 3 months)
Marin Cilic (26 years 3 months)
Novak Djokovic (27 years 7 months)

2020; ???
Juan Martin Del Potro (31 years 3 months)
Marin Cilic (31 years 3 months)
Novak Djokovic (32 years 7 months)

Up until 2010, the youngest three major winners were all under 26 years old. Even with the Agassi Sampras rivalry in the 90's there was still room for some younger major winners at the start of 2000.

Right now in 2019 there's none at all under 30 years, as we all know. Also note there have been only three major finalists under 30 and none of them won a set.

Clearly this change of pattern has gone on far too long to be an outlier and it indicates something drastic has changed with the way young players are being coached. While it's easy to blame the big three, no young player has even been able to consistently get deep in majors to face them (as Murray did time and time again.) While some of their performances against them have been embarassing (Nishikori vs Djokovic, Chung vs Federer, Tsitsipas vs Nadal.) So the big three is not the reason for this situation.

P.S. Djokovic is one week younger than Murray. Sorry Murray fans.
 
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ollinger

G.O.A.T.
it indicates something drastic has changed with the way young players are being coached

It indicates nothing whatsoever with any real clarity. With only three data points each five years it's not even clear that these differences would be statistically significant. If the differences are significant, it may say less about how the young are coached than it does about how the older players are better conditioned and get better treatment of injuries. Also, many of the top older players seem to play fewer tournaments than players 30 years ago and thus preserve their abilities and health longer.
 

reaper

Legend
It looks an aberration to me. 31 years 3 months might be the youngest slam winner in 2020, but I suspect there'll be a return to trend of about age 22 in 2025.
 
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