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KK


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Month of birth
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How much influence does their date of birth have on a junior's career in the UK?  Is it a coincidence that of our top boys in the junior rankings, all but Oli Golding were born in January or February. Our three top '95 boys(Kyle, Luke and Evan) were all born in January and Laura Robson, Katy Dunne and Eleanor Dean, the highest ranked girls from '94,'95, '96 were also born in January or Februray. 

I wonder if having to play against older players when they first start competing acts as a disincentive to those born in say October, November and December, and if so, whether this happens and throughout the world and whether there is a smaller proportion of top 500 players born in these months.

Obviously a truly exceptional player will succeed whenever they are born.



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DavidC


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It's an interesting question. Certainly our current top juniors are skewed heavily towards the early part of the year. I've had a quick look at the boys, girls and women's current top 100, where it is easy to find a file with the date of birth included. In each case there is a split between first and second half of the year of around 60-40, with March the month with most entries in total.

Month Boys Girls Women

Jan 15 5 8
Feb 11 9 12
Mar 11 13 11
Apr 10 10 10
May 7 11 11
Jun 7 9 6
Jul 10 9 7
Aug 5 9 7
Sep 10 7 11
Oct 9 5 6
Nov 5 6 5
Dec 0 7 6

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Spectator


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I think there have been a bunch of studies around this -- remember reading one a few years back. Googled, and came up with this, for example: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100202101251.htm. And this one, which shows the impact of a different "cut-off date": http://www.sabernomics.com/sabernomics/index.php/2006/05/age-cut-offs-and-month-of-birth-in-baseball/

I'm no statistician, though -- so can't evaluate! 



-- Edited by Spectator on Saturday 5th of November 2011 10:06:50 PM

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KK


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Thank you - that's very interesting.   And as the cut off for all other major sports is September, those born from September to December will be likely to drift towards another sport which they are good at, and at which they are having more early success due to their age.



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