2013 marks the 5th year since the 1990 boys "graduated". As someone who kind of specialises in the careers of tennis players born in 1990, one thing that I can tell you is that if you predicted back in 2008 that the only 1990 boys in the top 50 after 5 years would be Raonic, Janowicz and Pospisil, you'd be widely regarded as a lunatic.
So here's a good chance to have a laugh at each other. Predict 3 boys born in 1995 who you think will be top 50 at the end of 2018.
I'm going for -
Nick Kyrgios (too tall to not be in the top 100 then, at the very least) Laslo Djere Enzo Py
1) For your help, the top ranked 1995 boys can be found here. But please note that you CANNOT nominate people born in 1996 or later years. We'll do that next year, okay? 2) You have to get your entries in before 10th November 2013, 1800 GMT. 3) This is a social experiment and no points/scoring are involved. I just want to see how difficult/easy is it to predict how careers are going to progress. It's clear that there's no Gasquetesque prodigy in this age group, so there are no safe-as-a-house bets from what I can see.
As your post hints, how good are you at predicting growth spurts? 6'5", 6'8" and 6'4" for the players you mentioned. And those in the top 20 in 2007 (ahead of almost all those who have "made" it)? Berankis (5'9"), Ignatik (6' - the surprise of the group, to some degree), Eysseric (5'11"), Cunha (5'10"), Elias (5'11") and our own Dan Evans (5'9"). Oddly, if you look at the 2008 records, a lot of the top 20 1990s seem to have given up, and their information isn't on the ATP website ... hence the use of the prior year's stats.
Goffin (5'11" - can that be accurate?), of course, was top 50, but has found it difficult to sustain. Stebe (6") was 71, but has also slipped.
Makes David Ferrer's accomplishments all the more impressive.
Very impressed with Thanasi Kokkinakis when i saw him play in the US challengers. He is very under ranked now and has a big game, but no ideas where he will end up by 2018.
I guess it depends on attitude, injuries, funding, education.