On why players are seemingly winning more after 30

[mrzz]

I swear I looked for a thread to bump, as the subject has been heavily debated, but after 15 pages I gave up. So, new thread it is.

Here is the thing: We had endless debate about if and why players are peaking later, or at least are being able to prolong their carrers more than in recent past (we even came up with a pretty name, I guess peak shift theory). It may seem obviously the case, but as I remember well some remarks made by @El Dude which were quite to the point, you have to look at the whole data set a bit more carefully as sometimes the immediate data can be misleading. We debated a lot (wtf, on what freaking thread it was?), and at least I ended up convinced that it was actually the case. We moved on as to discuss why that would have happened, and lot of possible reasons were brought up, a compelling case for gear technology was made by @Federberg (and you two behave, for GOAT's sake), so on and so forth...

Now a very simple thing has occurred to me, and I guess that it helps explaining much about all this age thing. In one phrase, my take is that the Federer/Nadal/Djokovic rivalry has a lot with that.

The set up is simple. Back then the major count was not that important, and even the actual argument about GOATness was not that present. But together with tennis becomming more popular, the majors became more important, etc etc... then comes along Sampras who wins 14 of them, and for a while it seems no one would come close to that (actually, I guess the ones who thought that were a bit short sighted, as some odd cases like Borg and Laver clearly indicated otherwise). But the point is that after him there was some kind of target.

Then comes along Federer, and he had still "only" a few majors to his name when the talk about GOAT began. It is quite reasonable that that helped to set his eyes on the 14 majors target. While he gets closer and closer, comes Nadal.

Here is an important bit. I remember someone quoting Tony Nadal saying that in the 2007 (or 2008) Wimbledon final, on a rain delay, he caught Nadal crying saying that he would be never be as good as Federer. Ok, he might have exaggerated, but assuming there is some truth on it, that shows that the personal competition for him was quite important, so it is a very small leap to extend this match by match competition to the majors count. Then comes Djokovic and somehow inserts himself on this conversation.

All of a sudden we have three active players fighting for a place in history books. These guys are competitors, and just found an ultimate competition. Not that before them players did not want to accumulate majors, but now the conversation is different. They have money and resources to provide themselves the best possible means to prolong their careers and keep playing their particular game.

Now, this has side effects. Put your self on the position of some 27 or 28 years old player out there. You see guys winning majors at 30, 31, 35, 36... why the hell you would think of stopping? You can keep playing, keep earning money, even getting better (as Djokovic was close to 30 when he won 4 majors in a row, to give a non Federer example).

So, the new factor here is the incentive, the perception that it is possible to play at a high level after 30. Obviously there are more factors, but (to finally cut this story short), my suggestion here is that in the end of the day Federer/Nadal/Djokovic competition is the major reason behind it.

Sorry if the post is not that clear, I usually spend more time revising long posts, but right now I can't. Hope it is understandable.

 

[Ricardo]

Well the only guy who wins slams well into his 30s is only Federer, and the only other guy over 30 winning slams is just Rafa. The road for 30s + isn’t as wide as it appears.

 

[El Dude]

Good ramble, @mrzz. I think @herios was a major participant in this conversation. Anyhow, my point back in the day was not that "peak shift theory" wasn't happening, but I was questioning to the degree that it was happening - and pointing out that the signal was muddied by certain noises, especially the weakness of Lost Gen.

Let's look at the distribution of Slam titles in the Open Era by age, with all Slam winners in blue and active players in pink.

There isn't a huge difference in terms of distribution: sure, a large portion of the 35+ Slams are active, but that's one player, and a true outlier if there ever was one.

In other words, the distribution pattern--as seen by the basic shape of the bars (we could get a more accurate depiction if we looked at percentages rather than raw totals)--is pretty close to historical norms.

That said, we'll know more in just a couple years as Rafa, Novak, Andy, and Stan all get deeper into their 30s, and of course if Cilic and del Potro win anymore, and if anyone from the Lost Gen wins any in the upcoming years (Kei Nishikori turns 30 at the end of 2019!). In other words, we're 2-3 years away from getting more definitive proof.

Either Roger and, to a less degree, Rafa is an outlier, or players are truly peaking later. Remember: neither Andy or Novak has yet won a Slam in their 30s, and both will be 31 at the next Slam. Roger has won 4, and Rafa and Stan 2 each, but Roger is the only active player who has won a Slam past the tipping point of age 31-to-32. In the Open Era, only 8 of 200 (4%) of Slams have been won by players age 32 and older.

That will be the real test, in my opinion: If tons of Slams are being won by players age 32 and older...so far it has only been Roger among active players.

And yes, I realize this is just Slam counts. Rankings give further weight to the peak shift theory....but again, as far as the biggest prize of the tour - the Slam titles - we're still a couple years away from getting the data we need to say definitively either way.

 

[mrzz]

Well the only guy who wins slams well into his 30s is only Federer, and the only other guy over 30 winning slams is just Rafa. The road for 30s + isn’t as wide as it appears.

(answering quite in a hurry)

Slams, yes. But my point (which I couldn't make clear enough as your reply shows) was more general than that, as there are a bunch of guys who are reaching their peaks quite late on their careers. The big boys have their grip on the majors still, but on the "rest" you already can see the effects. Anyway, as @El Dude says we are about to see. With Wawrinka and Cilic the guys most likely to win a major outside the big 3, it could get quite clear.

 

[herios]

Stan also was 30+ when he won his second and third slam.

 

[Federberg]

Now a very simple thing has occurred to me, and I guess that it helps explaining much about all this age thing. In one phrase, my take is that the Federer/Nadal/Djokovic rivalry has a lot with that.

I believe the argument I made was that we were missing the point if we focused on the guys at the top. I firmly believe that more players are getting their best results at older ages. In fact I actually argued that looking at the Big 3 obscures that fact, and while they are around longer than their HoF antecedents it's tough to say the best results of the Big 3 have actually occurred in their later years, the facts simply don't support that.

As I said the reasons for this phenomenon are likely due to:

• better technology, whether that's racquet, conditioning or dietary improvements

• more prize money in the game, as well as sponsorship

but I would also add that the fact that technology is a big factor also means that these guys have more of a chance to reach their potential for longer now than ever before. Hope that makes sense

 

[El Dude]

Stan also was 30+ when he won his second and third slam.

Not sure if this was a response to me, but I did mention that above.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

I think this is because the fans are getting older and to keep up with them the players are getting older.

 

[Horsa]

I swear I looked for a thread to bump, as the subject has been heavily debated, but after 15 pages I gave up. So, new thread it is.

Here is the thing: We had endless debate about if and why players are peaking later, or at least are being able to prolong their carrers more than in recent past (we even came up with a pretty name, I guess peak shift theory). It may seem obviously the case, but as I remember well some remarks made by @El Dude which were quite to the point, you have to look at the whole data set a bit more carefully as sometimes the immediate data can be misleading. We debated a lot (wtf, on what freaking thread it was?), and at least I ended up convinced that it was actually the case. We moved on as to discuss why that would have happened, and lot of possible reasons were brought up, a compelling case for gear technology was made by @Federberg (and you two behave, for GOAT's sake), so on and so forth...

Now a very simple thing has occurred to me, and I guess that it helps explaining much about all this age thing. In one phrase, my take is that the Federer/Nadal/Djokovic rivalry has a lot with that.

The set up is simple. Back then the major count was not that important, and even the actual argument about GOATness was not that present. But together with tennis becomming more popular, the majors became more important, etc etc... then comes along Sampras who wins 14 of them, and for a while it seems no one would come close to that (actually, I guess the ones who thought that were a bit short sighted, as some odd cases like Borg and Laver clearly indicated otherwise). But the point is that after him there was some kind of target.

Then comes along Federer, and he had still "only" a few majors to his name when the talk about GOAT began. It is quite reasonable that that helped to set his eyes on the 14 majors target. While he gets closer and closer, comes Nadal.

Here is an important bit. I remember someone quoting Tony Nadal saying that in the 2007 (or 2008) Wimbledon final, on a rain delay, he caught Nadal crying saying that he would be never be as good as Federer. Ok, he might have exaggerated, but assuming there is some truth on it, that shows that the personal competition for him was quite important, so it is a very small leap to extend this match by match competition to the majors count. Then comes Djokovic and somehow inserts himself on this conversation.

All of a sudden we have three active players fighting for a place in history books. These guys are competitors, and just found an ultimate competition. Not that before them players did not want to accumulate majors, but now the conversation is different. They have money and resources to provide themselves the best possible means to prolong their careers and keep playing their particular game.

Now, this has side effects. Put your self on the position of some 27 or 28 years old player out there. You see guys winning majors at 30, 31, 35, 36... why the hell you would think of stopping? You can keep playing, keep earning money, even getting better (as Djokovic was close to 30 when he won 4 majors in a row, to give a non Federer example).

So, the new factor here is the incentive, the perception that it is possible to play at a high level after 30. Obviously there are more factors, but (to finally cut this story short), my suggestion here is that in the end of the day Federer/Nadal/Djokovic competition is the major reason behind it.

Sorry if the post is not that clear, I usually spend more time revising long posts, but right now I can't. Hope it is understandable.

It's nice to see people write their own stuff. Not everyone does. I understand it perfectly & think it's very well-written if my opinion holds much weight because at the end of the day it's just my opinion.

 

[Moxie]

It's a good thread, @mrzz, and I think it takes its own tack. But I sort of think you're making a couple of points here, beyond just the thread title, in your OP.

As to the notion of a GOAT, and the Pete Challenge: I think this is apt, in terms of what keeps Federer, then Nadal, then Djokovic running. (As to the reasons, I think one is the rise of internet tennis forums after Pete/beginning Roger. But, yes, I think they spur each other on. However, that would account for longevity in the game/continued motivation of the Big 3, but they did all win big young, so they're not so much doing better late-career as they are continuing into the post-30s. (With Djokovic just entering the realm and in the TBD category for his post-30 career, really.) But they are future HoFers, and the rest of the field was never going to catch that.

As for some later-career Majors, for sure they had to find their opportunities, and to some extent they had to wait for the blast furnace of Fedal, then later including Djokovic, with a bit of Murray, to calm down a little, at least. The guys that stepped up weren't Lost Gen, but more contemporary to Fedalovic. Why? Maybe just more talented than the younger hopefuls. (I'd say there's something in there.) Here I do like your point about them having examples of great achievements still coming at the later stages of the career, though I almost think, more than the Big 3, their examples are each other. They know they're not going to be competing for GOAT, but see that career bests are still possible after 28-29, etc. Another point you made which could be easy to miss but is very interesting: that as they earn more, they can afford more in the way of physios, great coaches, etc. I think everyone here agrees that Magnus Norman was great for Stan, in terms of making that big leap. I don't believe that he could have afforded Norman earlier in his career. (In this I sort of amalgamated your points with those of Federberg.)

I split it a little bit, for my own clarity, but I hope it makes sense to you.

 

[mrzz]

Thx for the replies folks, and it seems that I made my self understandable. There is one thing that I could not leave clear enough, but it is tricky anyway. It is a fact that no one of the big 3 peaked after 30 (but the "Novak Slam" was close to 30). The point was that they showed that you can be extremely competitive after 30, and this was a great example to the rest of the field (and some took it to the next level by finding their peak forms after 30).

Regarding your points, @Federberg, yes, I can see that the better gear would lead to less injuries, but on the other hand the game itself is so much more physical that if I had to guess, I would say that this surpasses by far the advance in technology. As yourself have noted in other discussions, when you look at the 70's and 80's matches it seems almost another sport. I few weeks ago GSM mentioned that famous fourth set tie-break between Mcenroe and Borg, and I reached out for it on youtube. Fine match for sure but even if they were playing with tree branches and rocks that would not be more challenging on the body than the crazy war of attrition that we have today. Regarding this I would expect guys calling it quits sooner, in fact. Ok, advances in medicine could have countered it back. Anyway, it is not so clear cut.

 

[El Dude]

I like how you emphasize a part of this, @Moxie, that may not only be under-emphasized but possibly the key: the psychological element -- that the Big 3-4 are competing with each other, that their lesser peers are perhaps sticking around, hoping to outlast them, etc. And that it all combines into a kind of cultural gestalt that is extending prime years, at least for a time.

In the end, there are a bunch of factors that combine for a kind of paradigm shift in tennis. The thing to remember, though, is that these things can be cyclical. This is why I'm not ready to buy @Federberg's argument wholesale; it is part of the picture, but not all - and perhaps not even the main part.

What is cyclical? Player aging, peak and prime ranges, age of Slam winners and top ranked players, etc. The tour was as old or older than it is today in the early 70s, with some similar factors, including an aging generation of world-class talents (led by Laver and Rosewall), a weak younger generation (players born between 1939-42 won all of two Slams), and of course the Open Era itself probably had something to do with it - the integraton of the pro and amateur tours.

The tour got younger and younger, from the early 1970s into the 90s, then stabilized for a bit before starting to get older in the mid-00s. I am fairly certain that we'll see it swing downward again, even if Gen Nadkovicurray hangs in there for years to come (which may or may not be the case; I suspect the older guys - Tsonga, Berdych, Wawrinka, Almagro, etc - are heading for a cliff).

I think part of the shift in aging is because talent comes in waves. There's a nice pocket of talent born from 1981 to '87, then it gets pretty weak from 1988 to '94-96ish (still too soon to tell), and starts getting stronger in 1997 with Zverev, Rublev, hopefully Fritz, etc.

 

[Horsa]

Thx for the replies folks, and it seems that I made my self understandable. There is one thing that I could not leave clear enough, but it is tricky anyway. It is a fact that no one of the big 3 peaked after 30 (but the "Novak Slam" was close to 30). The point was that they showed that you can be extremely competitive after 30, and this was a great example to the rest of the field (and some took it to the next level by finding their peak forms after 30).

Regarding your points, @Federberg, yes, I can see that the better gear would lead to less injuries, but on the other hand the game itself is so much more physical that if I had to guess, I would say that this surpasses by far the advance in technology. As yourself have noted in other discussions, when you look at the 70's and 80's matches it seems almost another sport. I few weeks ago GSM mentioned that famous fourth set tie-break between Mcenroe and Borg, and I reached out for it on youtube. Fine match for sure but even if they were playing with tree branches and rocks that would not be more challenging on the body than the crazy war of attrition that we have today. Regarding this I would expect guys calling it quits sooner, in fact. Ok, advances in medicine could have countered it back. Anyway, it is not so clear cut.

You're welcome. You did make yourself understandable. I don't think it was the case of the point you wanted to make clear wasn't emphasized enough but that people were too busy discussing the other points that it was omitted or they may have been like me & need new specs so didn't see it. Also when you write a lot & people don't have much time they adopt a skim-reading technique so miss bits rather than either reading normally or critically. Lol.

 

[Federberg]

Regarding your points, @Federberg, yes, I can see that the better gear would lead to less injuries, but on the other hand the game itself is so much more physical that if I had to guess, I would say that this surpasses by far the advance in technology.

I'm not sure it does. Back in the day, those guys weren't going through the conditioning regimens they do today. The game is physical because of that. And modern players are far more able to withstand the rigors of the tour and recover as well. It cancels out. What is different is what players believe is possible now as well as the income they can generate into their mid 30s. That simply wasn't there then, otherwise I guarantee you more of them would have stayed playing for longer even if they were on crutches

 

[Federberg]

http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/31/news/companies/tom-brady-roger-federer-sponsorship/index.html

 

[mrzz]

I'm not sure it does. Back in the day, those guys weren't going through the conditioning regimens they do today. The game is physical because of that. And modern players are far more able to withstand the rigors of the tour and recover as well. It cancels out. What is different is what players believe is possible now as well as the income they can generate into their mid 30s. That simply wasn't there then, otherwise I guarantee you more of them would have stayed playing for longer even if they were on crutches

About "canceling out", surely both things contribute in opposite directions, but "cancel out" is too strong. Why it has to be like "2 -2 = 0"? It could well be " -2 + 4 =2" or even "2 - 4 = -2". Honestly I am not technically equipped enough to make a decent call on this, only my gut feeling tells me that physical aspect of the game now is "stronger" than the better diets, training and etc.

About money, well, if we were comparing to the early 70's, ok, but wasn't there enough "incentive" on the 90's and the early 00's?

 

[Federberg]

About "canceling out", surely both things contribute in opposite directions, but "cancel out" is too strong. Why it has to be like "2 -2 = 0"? It could well be " -2 + 4 =2" or even "2 - 4 = -2". Honestly I am not technically equipped enough to make a decent call on this, only my gut feeling tells me that physical aspect of the game now is "stronger" than the better diets, training and etc.

About money, well, if we were comparing to the early 70's, ok, but wasn't there enough "incentive" on the 90's and the early 00's?

I think the money is a relatively new thing in terms of the lower echelons which was the point of my original speculation. I mean.. look at what the top guys get now in comparison to even 10 years ago. And one of the things that Roger and Rafa have been able to do is spread the wealth a bit more for the lower guys.

Re: the physicality, perhaps I'm not expressing my point well enough? I contend that the guys in the 70s and 80s weren't really taking care of themselves professionally. That's the easiest way to get injured. Lendl was the catalyst for more professionalism and things took off from there. I would also add that in my view injuries would probably be less if the courts were generally faster, encouraging less attritional tennis. Something for the powers that be to consider. I well understood the need to slow the courts down in an age of big servers, but what the authorities aren't accounting for now is that modern racquet technology has really helped with the ROS, so perhaps they can look at increasing court speeds again

 

[britbox]

I believe the argument I made was that we were missing the point if we focused on the guys at the top. I firmly believe that more players are getting their best results at older ages. In fact I actually argued that looking at the Big 3 obscures that fact, and while they are around longer than their HoF antecedents it's tough to say the best results of the Big 3 have actually occurred in their later years, the facts simply don't support that.

As I said the reasons for this phenomenon are likely due to:

• better technology, whether that's racquet, conditioning or dietary improvements

• more prize money in the game, as well as sponsorship

but I would also add that the fact that technology is a big factor also means that these guys have more of a chance to reach their potential for longer now than ever before. Hope that makes sense

The Big Three have been getting results throughout their entire career... I'd just put that down to three exceptional players... well... being exceptional. Nadal and Djokovic aren't exceptionally old yet, so no real age-related phenomenon as far as they are concerned. I think it's fair to say these guys were so good that it shrunk the window for everybody else... I don't buy the mental midget argument for the entire field.... never did.

I think the biggest problem for the young guys coming in is the step up in physicality... it takes time to bridge the gap. Tennis is far more attritional than it was in the 80s.- that's largely down to strings .. it's transformed the sport. Is it markedly better? Well, it looks better... but if you took a cut at the ball with a wooden racquet and gut string like they do in the modern game then the ball ends up in Row Z of the pavilion stand. These old pros could play... they were just using different technology and played within those constraints.

 

[calitennis127]

The talent in the younger generation is poor. Talent overrides age.

 

[Federberg]

The Big Three have been getting results throughout their entire career... I'd just put that down to three exceptional players... well... being exceptional. Nadal and Djokovic aren't exceptionally old yet, so no real age-related phenomenon as far as they are concerned. I think it's fair to say these guys were so good that it shrunk the window for everybody else... I don't buy the mental midget argument for the entire field.... never did.

I think the biggest problem for the young guys coming in is the step up in physicality... it takes time to bridge the gap. Tennis is far more attritional than it was in the 80s.- that's largely down to strings .. it's transformed the sport. Is it markedly better? Well, it looks better... but if you took a cut at the ball with a wooden racquet and gut string like they do in the modern game then the ball ends up in Row Z of the pavilion stand. These old pros could play... they were just using different technology and played within those constraints.

I'm not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me. When I made the point originally in the other thread. I said it made no sense to look at the Big 3 (I agree with you, they're freaks, and I actually think their best results were all in their mid to late 20s). My point is that if you look lower down the ranks, there are so many older players getting the best results of their career in their later years