We were having a small discussion in the Lexy thread, so I thought we'd have a thread to track the progress (till the end of 2009) of all players born in 1989 and later. I want this thread here and not in the General section just because it involves Evans in a major way.
Do players actually care about being the best in their age group? I have no clue, but I don't see how being at the top can hurt anyone's career.
Players currently ranked within 375 are -
Kei Nishikori [JPN] [1989] Current Rank - 103 Points To Defend - 550
Donald Young [USA] [1989] Current Rank - 163 Points To Defend - 302
Brydan Klein [AUS] [1989] Current Rank - 195 Points To Defend - 122
Jerzy Janowicz [POL] [1990] Current Rank - 231 Points To Defend - 152
Daniel Evans [GBR] [1990] Current Rank - 249 Points To Defend - 102
Marcelo Demoliner [BRA] [1989] Current Rank - 258 Points To Defend - 120
Bernard Tomic [AUS] [1992] Current Rank - 300 Points To Defend - 28
Grigor Dimitrov [BUL] [1991] Current Rank - 309 Points To Defend - 74
Greg Jones [AUS] [1989] Current Rank - 312 Points To Defend - 64
Ilya Belyaev [RUS] [1990] Current Rank - 325 Points To Defend - 106
Petru-Alexandru Luncanu [ROU] [1989] Current Rank - 327 Points To Defend - 90
Thomas Fabbiano [ITA] [1989] Current Rank - 349 Points To Defend - 92
Martin Klizan [SVK] [1989] Current Rank - 350 Points To Defend - 26
Tsung-Hua Yang [TPE] [1991] Current Rank - 357 Points To Defend - 64
Guillaume Rufin [FRA] [1990] Current Rank - 358 Points To Defend - 0
Federico Del Bonis [ARG] [1990] Current Rank - 363 Points To Defend - 26
Rufin's problem is that he's very inexperienced off the dirt and there aren't many clay events in Europe towards the end of the year. Of course, he may choose to spend a few weeks in South America, in which case it'll be easier for him to get points.
I'm going with Evans, purely because Janowicz has a lot more to defend.
Perhaps this thread would work better if it was treated like the ATP race and calculated on how many points they've already got this season rather than looking at current ranking and points to defend. Would be a lot simpler if we had a running total of points won for each player and then their current rank alongside it.
Like I said in the other thread, I'm going for either Rufin or Del Bonis to end the year ranked highest.
They both seem able to pick up points each week and seem to be very talented players, and with them having won the most points already this year, they've got that advantage already (Del Bonis only losing 4 and 5 to Wawrinka in Gstaad is a great result for him)
Evans has a chance but he cannot afford to have too many poor losses (like the loss to Anderson in the way the match turned out).
Young and Dimitrov, if they get their act together could do well, while Tomic's rank depends on the number of events he actually ends up playing.
Nishikori seems to have been injured all year so can't have picked up many points, which probably rules him out.
