No male player born in the 90s will ever win a grand slam

thegingerlightbulb · Intermediate Club Player

No male player born in the 90s will ever win a grand slam

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

I think it must be the 80's. Given there are a total of only 40 slams in a decade, 80 over two decades, it would take something amazing for a group in any one decade to have had dominance (given many turned pro after a few seasons in the years of the amateurs) or longevity (ditto I guess re players actually playing enough slams) to it be anything other than the Fededer/Nadal/Djokovic/Murray/Wawrinka/Delpo/Cilic era

Oakland2002 · All-time great

It would without doubt been the 50s had Borg not got bored and quit at 26. To be honest I am glad he did purely to give someone else a chance.

ROSAMUND · Futures level

thegingerlightbulb wrote:
Okay, here is a question: which decade of players born has won the most grand slams? I would imagine it would be the 80s, with Nadal, Federer etc having won around 65 titles between them. So far we have 1 from the 90s generation. What will that number end up being? I can easily see it being less than 10 with the growing emergance of FAA, Siner, and now Alcarez!

I've had a look at this just for the Open Era starting at the French of 1968 through to the Australian of 2021. There have been 211 championships and the most born is the 1980's with 72 titles. Next is the 1970's with 42, 1950's with 37, 1960's with 36, 1940's with 13,1930's with 10 and the 1990's with 1. . There were 3 players who won in both the Open and Pre-Open era in Newcombe, Laver and Rosewall.

I'll have a look at the ladies to compare with. Having multiple champions such as Graf, Evert , Martina and Serena helps. The ladies also have a champion born in the 2000's in Swiatek.

indiana · Tennis legend

I also did a counting exercise and am pretty much in agreement wirh Rosamund.

I though went back pre open era to count all post war slams, ie from the US Open 1945, and including 5 earlier Slams won by post war champions. That gave me a leading 4 decades of:

1. 80s 72
2. 30s 62
3. 70s 42
4. 50s 37

ie. agreeing with Rosamund's 80s, 70s and 50s figures and including the pre open era for the 30s figure.

The 30s included Emerson, Laver and Rosewall who similarly to Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, if not to quite such an extent, impacted on the following decade. I make the 40s total to be just 21 ( Newcombe won 7 of these ) including pre open era Slams.

Re Borg's 50s decade total of 37 ( 11 for Borg ) he would have had to have played continually on through to at least Wimbledon 1992, aged 36, to have been able to add an additional 35 Slam titles ( hence matching the 80s total of 72, with 46 for Borg! ) over and above these captured by other 50s born players such as Conmors and McEnroe. I'd suggest that would have been unlkely.

I'l leave Rosamund to look at the ladies

ROSAMUND · Futures level

I had a look at womens' which total 210 at the moment so missing 1.

The 2000's are 2, 1990's are 15, 1980's 65,(Serena 23 but more of a spread of players ) 1970's 26, 1960's 29(Graf 22), 1950's 48(Chrissie and Martina each 18) 1940's are 24,(Court 11, King 8) 1930's 1 .

This is from the French 1968 to Australia 2021.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Players born from the 80s onwards have had a massive advantage in terms of equipment, understanding how to peak for major tournaments and advances in minimally invasive surgical techniques that allow more precise treatment, rapid recovery from injury with minimal additional morbidity. The longevity of the likes of Federer has completely distorted the impression of dominance over earlier eras.
My feeling is given some decent kit a schedule that allowed for rehab and peaking for major tournaments. Borg given the change in paradigm he induced in the game could have dominated for another decade, he really had only one genuine peer in McEnroe (interestingly they seemed to need each other)

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/sport/2005/jun/05/tennis.features1

christ · Futures level

I guess the question is: were the 80's really that good, or were the 90's really that bad?

To follow Oakland's logic, surely the players from the 90's have even more and better access to newer equipment, medical techniques and sports psychology, so they should have been able to supplant their predecessors.

(... as Nadal did to Federer, and then Djokovic did to Nadal)

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Is the question when they were born and what drove that ie the 80s had something about them, or when they came of an age to play and do well in tennis , which would presumably be around the turn of the century and into the noughties? What conditions existed then that helped make them so successful as a group?

ROSAMUND · Futures level

At least the women from the 1990's have 15 wins already which the likes of Osaka will add to. The mens is only 1 which might have been nil if Djokovic had not got himself kicked out of the US Open.

indiana · Tennis legend

I think actually the 90s question is more interesting than the 80s.

I'd say the 80s figure is largely coincidental. We are really talking 3 players who have contributed 58 of these 72 Slam titles and Federer was born half a decade before the other 2.

But as these 80 players have aged why have the 90s born players not produced much more? Is that perhaps a generational thing re such as relatively very well off, not generally grafting as much etc? Maybe some of the advances that Oakland referred to will show a clearer effect in time in that they will have long lasting careers themselves and see off the noughties more than many expect. However, I suspect that for whatever reasons it just is a really poor decade for producing absolute top players.

thegingerlightbulb · Intermediate Club Player

Siner is into the semis and Korda may well follow. I think the 00s will far outstrip the 90s born players for honours won

-- Edited by thegingerlightbulb on Thursday 1st of April 2021 02:02:14 AM

GAMEOVER · Satellite level

indiana wrote:
I also did a counting exercise and am pretty much in agreement wirh Rosamund.

I though went back pre open era to count all post war slams, ie from the US Open 1945, and including 5 earlier Slams won by post war champions. That gave me a leading 4 decades of:

1. 80s 72
2. 30s 62
3. 70s 42
4. 50s 37

ie. agreeing with Rosamund's 80s, 70s and 50s figures and including the pre open era for the 30s figure.

The 30s included Emerson, Laver and Rosewall who similarly to Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, if not to quite such an extent, impacted on the following decade. I make the 40s total to be just 21 ( Newcombe won 7 of these ) including pre open era Slams.

Re Borg's 50s decade total of 37 ( 11 for Borg ) he would have had to have played continually on through to at least Wimbledon 1992, aged 36, to have been able to add an additional 35 Slam titles ( hence matching the 80s total of 72, with 46 for Borg! ) over and above these captured by other 50s born players such as Conmors and McEnroe. I'd suggest that would have been unlkely.
I'l leave Rosamund to look at the ladies

The ladies starting at US Champs of 1945 through to the AO of 2021(301 tournaments) produced the following results:

1910's 16, 1920's 23, 1930's 29, 1940's 47, 1950's 48, 1960's 29, 1970's 26, 1980's 66 , 1990's 15 and 2000's 2. Court and King accounted for 36 of the 1940's. Evert/Navratilova /Goolagong 43 of the 1950's ,Graf 22 of the 1960's. Even though Serena accounts for 23 of the 1980's she's the only really dominant lady born after the 1960's. The dominant ladies figures were born decades ago. Not sure if change of playing styles/equipment comes into this.

Vandenburg · Futures level

That time of year again.

I also think that nobody is actually believing that Thiem is a slam winner.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

But people will now believe that Medvedev is.
Born 1996.
Beat Djoko.
In three.