Age of players breaking through the top 100

[herios]

In the wake of seeing more teenagers breaking through recently in the top 100, I compiled an analysis of the breakthroughs over the last year.
There were 22 new players who reached the top 100 for the first time in 2015.
I grouped the players in 4 age categories, as follows:

- Group 1 The teenagers

there were 3: Chung, Kokkinakis, Zverev.

- Group 2 The On time players, aged 20-23:

there were 9: Dzumhur, Duckworth, Pouille, Coppejans, Cecchinato, Basilashvili, Edmund, Bhambri, Daniel.

- Group 3 The late bllomers, aged 24-27:

there were 6 of them: Bemelmans, Millman, Albot, Herbert, Krajicek, Cervantes

- group 4 : The exceptionally late developed players, aged 28 and above:

there were 4 of them: Dustov, Ward, Munoz de laNava, Vanni.

Another important data point is, which of these players were able to remain in the top 100 by the year end (of course, those who broke through in the autumn might not have had enough time to confirm their new ranking status or to prove they can stay longer than a few weeks).

Exactly 50% or 11 players did not manage to stay in the top 100 by year end, those who remained there were:
the 3 teenagers, from the second group Dzumhur, Pouille, Cecchinato, Bhambri, Daniel, From group 3 Millman Cervantes and from group 4 only Munoz de la Nava.

The players who are found in the last 2 groups will most likely peak in the 50-100 range and may flip flop in and out of the top 100 for a while or could drop out right away and never be able to return again.
The future top 50 players will be most likely be found in the first two groups and some of them could be top 20 or even top 10 players. But also we will most likely have some players who despite developing early or on time, not being able to develop further and remain bound to a ranking outside of the top 30 for their whole career.

In any case, my conclusion is that seeing how many players are developing late or very late, diminishes the chances that the men tennis elite to get younger in the near future.

I know El Dude mentioned that he expects more teenagers to breakthrough this year. I am skeptical.
I am seeing less and less retirements, guys are staying in later and populating massively the field in every competition making much harder for young players to advance.

 

[El Dude]

A man after my own heart - nice post, herios.

One thing to consider is that "Generation Federer" (born 1979-83) is turning 33-37 this year. We're seeing more and more of these guys retiring - it is just the way of things. The top 100 is already getting younger as these guys filter out and more young players come in. I suspect that we'll see this happening more strongly in the top 20-30 over the next year or two.

One interesting thing about Fed's generation is that most of the guys that are still around aren't the elites. Other than Roger and Ferrer, all of the top 10 players of that era are retired. There are a few top 20-30 types--Robredo, Lopez, Karlovic--but most of the remaining Gen Fed guys are #50-100 types.

As far as more teenagers breaking out this year, I suppose it depends what is meant by "breakthrough." I assume you mean a top 100 ranking? If that is the case, I think we'll at least see one--Taylor Fritz--and possible several more, including Jared Donaldson, Quentin Halys, and maybe Francis Tiafoe and Andrey Rublev. Yoshihito Nishioka, Karen Kachanov, and Elias Ymer will all probably crack the top 100 but Nishioka is already 20 and the other two will be soon. Actually, an exciting proposition for American tennis is that by this time next year we could see three young Americans--Fritz, Tiafoe, Donaldson--in the top 100.

Andrey Rublev and Duckhee Lee probably won't make the top 100 this year, but have a good shot next year when they'll both still be teenagers for much (Rublev) or all (Lee) of the year. Tiafoe is probably in this category, but I think has a chance this year.

What we still don't know is if the age of elites becoming elites has changed or not. It could be that players like Sock, Thiem and Vesely are late-blooming and that this is the new norm, or it could be (more likely) that they simply aren't future elites, and if that is the case then their developmental curves aren't off for top 20 players.

One view is that the entire process has aged by about two years. 24 is the new 22, so to speak. In the past, players reached their peak level sometime in the 20-22 range, which lasted 5-6 years, and then started to decline sometime in the 26-28 range. Now it seems like players are reaching their peak in the 22-24 range and not declining until around 30, if not later.

But I don't think we'll know if this is definitely true until we see when the next group of elite players becomes elite (by "elite" I mean players who rank in the top 5 and win Slams). If none of Kyrgios, Coric, Chung, or Zverev win a Slam in the next couple years but do so in 2019-20 or later, I think we can start taking seriously the idea that the game has aged. But given the strength of the Nadal-Djokovic generation (84-88), which reached its peak in the traditional age ranges, and the weakness of the Nishikori-Raonic-Dimitrov generation (89-93), which should be dominating now but isn't, it is just too soon to tell.

Now let's say Milos wins Wimbledon, and players like Thiem, Coric, and Kyrgios all start going deeper into Slams, and one or two of them win Slams in 2017. If that's the case, I think we could say that the generation born from 1989-93ish is just weak, and that we'll see a return to the usual elite breakout in the 20-22 range. But if Milos (or Kei or Grigor) doesn't win a Slam soon, and if the other players don't break into the top 20 soon and start making noise at Slams, I think we'll be able to more strongly veer towards the Later Peak Theory.