Tennis Siblings

LadyTigress · County player

Tennis Siblings

steven · Tennis legend

I think same gender siblings being more common than different gender siblings and younger siblings tending to peak higher than older siblings (if it's true - my impression is that it is but I don't have time to check) must have a lot to do with the level of competition same gender siblings provide when they are young and the younger sibling always having to fight harder to keep up when they are young.

Btw Andrew and Anna Fitzpatrick aren't related.

LadyTigress · County player

Crud. Somebody told me they were! I'll go edit.

LadyTigress · County player

steven wrote:

younger siblings tending to peak higher than older siblings (if it's true - my impression is that it is but I don't have time to check) must have a lot to do with the level of competition same gender siblings provide when they are young and the younger sibling always having to fight harder to keep up when they are young.

I agree. I think Jamie and Andy are a perfect example of this. There are naturally pairs the other way round - the McEnroes for example - but I just have the impression that "the younger better than the older sibling" seems to be in the majority.

Maybe it only applies to siblings who are close in age, say 2 years or no more than 3 years? I'm thinking of the Djokovic siblings. Granted, I know the comparison isn't really fair because we'd have to wait until the end of all three's careers to make a true comparison. But I distinctly feel that Novak is a "better" player. A little soon to talk about his youngest brother, but certainly Marko Djokovic has been spending the last couple of years trying to break onto the pro Tour, and I just don't see that he is achieving anything like the kind of performances or results that Novak did at the same age. And yet Novak says that both his brothers are more talented than he is, and his youngest brother is the most talented of all three. As a junior, Marko has not achieved anything like what Novak did as a junior. Again, let's take the year in which each turned 18. Novak ended the year with a singles rank of 16, Marko ended it with a singles rank of 747. And there's quite a significant gap in age between these three brothers - Novak is 23, Marko is 19, Djordje is 15.

I think Safin and Safina are another good example to look at of siblings who are not close in age... and arguably have separately achieved similar levels of success. Dinara is a full 6 years younger than Marat, and the debate about which is the more successful is definitely arguable. Both have been world number 1, Marat for only 9 weeks but Dinara for 26, then again Marat held two Slams and Dinara has no Slams (but difficult to make this argument as Dinara could still win Slams), and Dinara has an Olympic silver medal whilst Marat has no Olympic medals... arguably Dinara is the more consistent of the two and has the greater work ethic, but until she takes a Slam it can remain debated that the two achieved similar success rather than one distinctly opening up a huge gap over the other.

To the other end of the scale, the Bryan twins who are obviously amongst the very closest in age are virtually inseparable in terms of success... and in large part because instead of setting themselves potentially against each other they've worked together. I think it was you, steven, who mentioned to me that one of them was a shade better than the other in singles but then they both gave up on singles careers in order to pursue doubles together.

-- Edited by LadyTigress on Thursday 15th of July 2010 05:32:11 PM

SMC1809 · All-time great

I can't believe you've missed Nick & Naomi, and Naomi and Liam.

SMC1809 · All-time great

The Battistone brothers I can excuse though.

Akhenaten · Pro player

Funny that you included the Baddeley twins, but not the Renshaw twins or the Doherty brothers.

Wimbledon titles

William Renshaw : 7 x Singles (1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886, 1889)
Ernest Renshaw : 1 x Singles (1888)
William & Ernest Renshaw : 5 x Doubles (1884, 1885, 1886, 1888, 1889)

Wilfred Baddeley :3 x Singles (1891, 1892, 1895)
Wilfred & Herbert Baddeley : 4 x Doubles (1891, 1894, 1895, 1896)

Reginald Doherty : 4 x Singles (1897, 1898, 1899, 1900)
Lawrence Doherty : 5 x Singles (1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906)
Reginald & Lawrence Doherty: 8 x Doubles (1897, 1898, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1903, 1904, 1905)

Reg was 3 years older than Lawro.

Akhenaten · Pro player

Nicolas & Giovanni Lapentti have a younger brother on the futures tour too - Leonardo Lapentti (19 years old), though his record so far is a pretty dire 4 wins from 23 matches.

steven · Tennis legend

I thought LT's list was pretty good off the top of her head - there are plenty of names on it that I wouldn't have come up with. The fact that we can all think of siblings she missed just shows how many there are/have been over the years!

Akhenaten · Pro player

It's more than "pretty good" to come up with that list from your head! It's extraordinary.

I haven't heard of lots of them. Didn't know there was a Tony Lloyd. Never heard of Kim Clijsters', Chris Evert's or Lleyton Hewitt's sisters. How good were they?

wolf · Tennis legend

steven wrote:

Btw Andrew and Anna Fitzpatrick aren't related.

Although you could be forgiven for thinking they are twins, as they were born on the exact same day.

Other examples of the top of my head are the Minar brothers (Ivo and Jan), Ratiwatana twins, Granollers brothers, Liam and Naomi Broady.

The Bondarenko sisters also had a third sister, Valeria.

One thing I've always thought, you don't see many French siblings in sport?

LadyTigress · County player

Gah, how could I forget so many?! I've seen the Battistones names pop up so often on the Challenger circuit recently as well! And the Minars, I don't know how I forgot them. I wasn't sure if Valeria Bondarenko counted, but yeah I can add her in.

I was tempted to mention Anne Keothavong and her brother James (and arguably her sister Lena), but James is nowadays an umpire as we all know, and I'm not sure if James and Lena qualify. When trying to think of examples myself that is, in some cases there's a "famous" sibling and a less famous one... I had to debate with myself the cutting off point - i.e. would it count if a top 100 player had a sibling who played a single Futures event once? In some cases it's kinda fluid whether or not it "counts". I attempted (badly, probably), to set the boundaries at having a world ranking and playing Futures at the lowest tier of the Tour... though as soon as I started thinking of past siblings in tennis that modern qualification rather does go out the window.

I'll go edit the original post now.

EDIT: Tony Lloyd was the youngest of the three, he played Wimbledon quite a bit in the late 70's, early 80's, as well as a handful of other events, at times variously partnering John and David in doubles.

Chris Evert was the eldest of the three sisters. Jeanne was three years younger and Clare was thirteen years younger. Jeanne played extensively in the 70s but little after that, she played every USO from 1972 to 1978 and occasionally Roland Garros and Wimbledon during that period. She also once played doubles with Linda Mottram at Wimbledon. I guess Clare can't really be included but she did play at Wimbledon once.

Elke is two years younger than Kim. She had a career high of 389 in 2003. Jaslyn is two years younger than Lleyton. Her career high was 304 in 2005. Neither Elke Clijsters nor Jaslyn Hewitt play anymore though. Jaslyn actually lost in the Aussie Open qualies in 2005 to Elena Baltacha.

-- Edited by LadyTigress on Friday 16th of July 2010 05:28:17 PM

Josh · Challenger level

Didn't Jaslyn turn to bodybuilding instead?

indiana · Tennis legend

Do folk believe in such things as tennis genes, i.e. that there are things shared in the biological make-up of these brothers and sisters that mean there are so many of them ?

Or is it much more circumstance and upbringing within the families, starting early and pushing each other, which would suggest given the right environment and early start many more tennis players could be "made" ?

Maybe some mixture of the two ?

-- Edited by indiana on Friday 16th of July 2010 11:01:21 PM

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

I would say the last is the most likely, ie a bit of both.

I guess that there is some sort of genetic/inherited ability to play sport. A tendancy towards athleticism and the required skills, eg hand/eye co-ordination. (I believe I've read something sciencey that collaborates this and you can see there are sporting families across different sports - the bubka family springs to mind for tennis/pole vaulting).

Beyond that, I suspect one of the main reasons a younger sibling would choose tennis is because the elder is already doing it, at the tender age of 3/4 the younger sibling wants to do everything the older one is doing. It's probably a case of ease for the parents as well, there seems to be an awful lot of travelling to competitions/coaching sessions etc for tennis parents and having both children in the same sport must be more convenient than having to run around for two completely separate sports - so it's unlikely parents are going to actively encourage the younger sibling to choose something else.