Up and coming Players

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Up and coming Players

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I'm not talking about the GB 1998-ers. They were just an example of federation selection priorities that make it tricky to rely on Davis Cup performance as an indicator because many don't get the chance to participate.

I'm just saying that if you look at Andy Bettles and George Morgan and Oli Golding (as well as others, both in GB and many other countries), lots don't go on to make the top 100, for many different reasons. Therefore, it's not that a reliable indicator. Which is not a criticism because there isn't any real reliable indicator. i.e. many Grand Slam winners don't go on to be top 100 either. But one can't just use those that succeeded who did do well in Davis Cup as an example and not use the others too.

Spectator · All-time great

Part of the issue with the junior DC/Fed Cup format as an indicator of success is that it's not about one person - so, leaving aside federation biases, there are all kinds of potential reasons why a team might do well, but at least some of its members not have the potential to 'make it' in adult tennis.

I do think that junior Slams are a fairly good indicator: remember doing a comparison of slam winners and career highs a few years back and seeing quite a high percentage of junior slam winners with CHs in the top 100 ... especially if you counted their CHs in doubles (lowest percentage with the AO, I think, which isn't surprising, and highest percentage with the USO, I think ... which surprised me). But I'd stick with my view that the best indicators for junior players, if you're not actually watching to see their tennis, tend to be not abstract results but who a player is beating and to whom they are losing... and how.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Yep a U.S. Junior slam win is a very strong indicator of future transition to a top 20 player let alone top 100, indeed this century the odds are in your favour that you will be a top ten player as opposed to not and of those over 20 only 2 have not made the top 200 and Peliwo at 22 still stands a chance. Lojda (CH 161) along with Mr Golding have not reached the top 100.

Very impressive list: Roddick, Muller, Gasquet, Tsonga, Murray, Sweeting (64), Lojda, Berankis, Dimitrov, Tomic, Sock, OMG, Peliwo, Coric, Jasika (CH 256 but still 19), Fritz and Auger-Aliassime.

DC As a team event by definition it's results are a sum of its parts, you are combining variables making it a weaker predictor but the format does favour teams with a dominant player as we know from our recent senior DC success.

If you watch the junior DC final you will in the balance of probabilities see a future star perhaps 2. There has been the odd barren year but given Fed has also been a winner combine the two and you have picked out 3 of the 4 superstars of the last decade and many of the supporting cast!

02 Rafa, Marcel Granoilliers (19)
03 Zvrev M (45) Bachinger (85)
04 Roberts Bautista (14) Chardy (25)
05
06
07 Tomic
08 Kudla (53) Evan King
09 Jason Kubler (136)
10
11 Kyle, Quinzi
12 thanos K3, Quinzi (must get there eventually!)
13 Potero (318)
14 Mmoh (233) age 18
15 Shapovalov and Auger Aliassime
16 Auger Aliassime (595 age 16) and some lowly Russians who won so watch this space!

That along with teenagers who make the top 200 and I think you have a fairly decent snap shot of who may be a future star.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

NB there is a lot of interest in the next crop of young American but be assured Canadian tennis fans are going to have some fun, surely we must be able to do some sort of dodgie Rudestski type passport deal with at least one of them.

Spectator · All-time great

As will the Koreans. And the Russians.

On the ATP side, there are fifteen under 20s who won junior slams (a high number because of the unusual circumstance that since Nick Kyrgios, no one has won more than one). If you look at the 11 under 21s who are in the top 150 today (live rankings), three of them come from among the junior slam winnners. Eight don't. If you take it to the 16 in the top 200, five are junior slam winners, and eleven aren't. If to the 23 in the to 250, eight are junior slam winners and fifteen aren't.

Those who won slams but aren't yet in the top still have time. But while winning a Slam is a good positive predictor, not doing so is clearly not so good a negative predictor! That's especially true given that for the past few years so many of the very top teens have transitioned before their final year of junior eligibility.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

The earlier you try and predict if a child will become a professional skill athlete the less accurate you are regardless of the sport for multiple reasons. So DC success is a punt at 16 and slams generally at 18. If it was easy there would be no fun in it at all.

I don't think there was any suggestion that not winning a slam would be a negative predictor. Although being a child actor and inning a slam might. With 100 players in the top 100 and significant turn over month on month there are opportunities for many more players per year to progress than just a slam winner!

Yes I agree the capacity to predict becomes much less accurate when you include all the slams, the majority of ATP tennis is on hard courts, Wimbledon being on grass and RG on clay lend themselves to a specialist skill set to which juniors will have had a variable degree of exposure depending on where they are from. The Aussie Open is a long way from everywhere else which I think weakens the field.

For these reasons being a US open junior slam winner is the best positive predictor along with a wider broader sweep of making the top 200 as a teenager, at which point they are young adults.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Yes, good points, Spectator.

As done before, most people look at how many JWR 1 or Junior Slam Winners go on to be top 10/top 50/top 100 players.

Which is putting the question the wrong way round, focusing on the junior side which is not what we;re interested in.

When you put it the other way round and look at all the top 10/top 50/top 100 players and see how many of them were Junior WR 1 (or top 10) or Junior Grand Slam winners, you get a far more interesting picture. And the correlation is pretty slight. The question then is did their own federation detect them anyway? i.. the people who are actually tasked with detecting and nurturing talent.