I just happened to be looking at the junior rankings and noticed some real bias in the GB boys to dates of birth early in the year.
In the top 25, we have 6 - January, 8 - February, 2 - March, 5 - April, 2 - May, 1 - July and 1 - September.
That is 23 out of 25 first half of year, 14 out of 25 ( actually 14 of first 22 ) in January or february.
Now all things being equal, there would be a slight bias given the limit for junior rankings is based on the calendar year and the slightly older you are generally the better one might expect you to be, particularly at junior ages, but that seemed to me pretty remarkable,
It made me wonder if earlier age grouped tennis does have a huge effect, that the older ones maybe are more successful, partly just by being a bit older, and they consequently come through more compared to the poor say November / December borns. Is tennis almost beaten out of some of the late borns ? I am presumimg that tennis players aren't actively bred ( like racehorses ) to be born at a particular time
I then took up the cudgel a bit and looked at other rankings :
GB girls top 25 : Not as marked as the boys, but still 17 out of 25 first half of year, 8 out of 25 in January or February.
World boys top 25 : 14 first half, 11 second half
World girls top 25 : 17 first half, 8 second half
So although consistently first half more, it is GB boys most signoficant.
How does this look in seniors ? I looked at dobs of GB's ranked players :
Guys : 39 first half of year, 14 second half.
Girls : 19 first half of year, 15 second half
Again the male side much more biased and far more so than one could expect from any random distribution, particularly when moving away from juniors ( although some in there of course ). It is a bias pretty uniform as one moves up the age scale.
Anyway, just rambling away after I first noticed the dobs of the GB boys. It is certainly most marked in the GB male side, both junior and senior. And as I said, although I am not really familiar with how very early tennis is organised, I do wonder whether age group tennis from an early age is having quite a major influence on some making it and some falling by the wayside.
LTA are a lot more aware of this now - the attached is the latest update from them.
Since my son started playing they have changed the rules about 3 times regarding age limits on different levels. He is aged 7 and playing orange ball (3 quarters size court). Think they try and follow school years now.
I was maybe not totally clear, although you probably guessed, that when I was talking about age group tennis I was really wondering if grouping by calendar year of birth from an early age was causing the January / February and generally early year bias.
I suppose if tennis became more being organised generally on school year from an early age then some bias to whatever is the oldest birth months for each school year should logically follow
There was a rumour going around that certain nations tended to change a lot of DOBs of players who are born at the end of the year to the start of the following year in order to help their junior progression.
There was a rumour going around that certain nations tended to change a lot of DOBs of players who are born at the end of the year to the start of the following year in order to help their junior progression.
yes, i was of the opinion that a few of the eastern countries massage the figures a little.
There was a programme on the BBC a couple of years ago about athletics leading up to the Olympics in 2012, and Colin Jackson noted that athletes born in the early ACADEMIC year (not calendar year), i.e. starting in September, ending in August, are much more frequent, because when they are "spotted" and encouraged to come down to the county tracks and try out, they are "spotted" competing in events against others by academic year, they often have the edge because they are older and their younger classmates born from about March to August get overlooked.
Same curious pattern, albeit if tennis operates on calendar years, the principle's the same.
Interestinglly though if you look at the top 5 in the men's game:
Fed - August, er, sometime... Rafa - 3rd June Nole - 22nd May Andy - 15th May Delpo - September
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