Ah, I think I may have misinterpreted   

I had been thinking "on they day they first achieved their respective professional rankings" meant - on the day they were first ranked at least what they are now, so I was thinking how can the oldest not be EWS.

Ah, if it is on the day they were first ranked then the oldest is most certainly not EWS, indeed yes she would be closer to being the youngest although I'd still go with Laura even on that definition as the youngest. Suzy sounds a good shout for oldest although my head hurts now.

I accept though that your first answer and all that ...

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, steven gets +50 Kudos points
Here is the full list for currently ranked players:


I had a back-up question in case of such an eventuality though that even steven might struggle with :
For all GB players ranked since 1990 (their first ranking has to have been after 01/01/1990, if they were ranked prior to that date at any point, they are excluded):
a) how many different ranked players have we had in that time? (each player only counts once, even if they lost a ranking and regained it in the relevant period)
b) who was youngest when first gaining their ranking?
b) who was oldest when first gaining their ranking?

Edit: NB:The given ages are accurate to the month - as top and bottom have no ties at that granularity, I didn't do weeks or years to break the tie. Hence, a lot of similar mulitples - they are multiples of years divided by 12.
Edit 2: Added Jodie and Sarah Beth prompted in part by INdiana's astute observation below. Nell remains absent, her value would be 18.294

Oakland2002 wrote:

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Interesting, in terns of the youngest physical maturity must be almost as heavily weighted as talent level. Emma stared playing seniors in my view at the earliest possible point at which she could compete physically. I wouldn't have guessed Tara, I presume Tara has changed Little in terms of additional growth from 14?

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That is what I'm finishing up looking at, with CH the proxy for 'talent'

indiana wrote:

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Very interesting, thanks ABB.

3 not showing in your table - Jodie, Beth and Nell.

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I noticed that too. Jodie & Beth are spelling errors in the raw data (Beth still referred to as Askew, Jodie called by full ITF name 'Jodie Anna Burrage'). I've linked them up and included them, and updated the list above.

I realise now that the data ends on 28/05/2018. Nell received her ranking after that date, 11/06/2018. Nell's value would be 18.294.

Edit: Apologies for the error and confusion

steven wrote:

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Interesting table. No big shocks there, though seeing so many players getting WTA rankings while there were 16 or under makes the fact that from JoKo and Heather didn't get their first WTA rankings until they were 17 seem more surprising.

I wouldn't have guessed that Suzy was less than a year older than Tiffany when she got her first ranking either, or that Olivia was 22 when she got hers (presumably she only got a ranking after leaving uni)

Out of curiosity, where are you getting the base data from? (or is it simply that the WTA have finally reinstated their historical rankings since I last checked ...)

If I try to work out the answers to your tiebreak questions, it'll probably put back the reintroduction of the GB top 25 tables by another 6 weeks, so I'll resist the temptation

Edit: Still thinking about the tiebreak questions , so let's just make some wild guesses.

a) around 200 (probably fewer than 200 if we aren't counting those who were already ranked in 1990)

b) Still Tara, since none of the obvious suspects I can think of got their first ranking at a younger age than Tara, though the ranking rules have changed over the years and it may have been easier to get ranked at a young age if there were times when you didn't need 3 counters

c) Still Suzy, but in this case, I'm sure I must have missed someone who entered the rankings late and didn't get that high

Update: just remembered, Nik Slater didn't get her first WTA singles ranking until she was about 24y 8m (though she was ranked in doubles a couple of years earlier), so she beats Suzy for c), I'd still be surprised if she's the one though.

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The base data is all from the set kindly provided by Jeff Sackmann of Tennis Abstract the repository for all of his raw data files for WTA & ATP rankings, players, and matches is to be found here
I have downloaded all the data regarding players and rankings, and used Notepad++, Excel & Tableau to manage, handle & display the results.

a) There are at least 265 unique ranked GB women since 01/01/1990 that did not have a ranking prior to that date (some players have null DOB in the data, and I'm still backfilling them).

b) Correct! Tara is GB woman who achieved a first professional at the youngest age of any that I can find amongst reliable data. That data stretches back continuously to 01/01/1990.
Laura is second, with Eleanor Dean & Ines Janbakhsh tied in third on 15.08 (you could break the tie, by counting days, in which case Eleanor is third, by a margin of 3 days)

c) Nik is a very, very good call, being 3rd in the list - at 24.75 when she achieved her first ranking, just a few months earlier than Sarah Stallard, who was 24.67.
The top 2 are:
2: Philippa Palmer - first ranked 08/02/1993 aged 25.938
1: Hollie Bees - first ranked 29/07/2013 aged 29.33 , she held a singles ranking for just 7 weeks.

Full results to follow in time