Coup Droit wrote:

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Var wrote:

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Coup Droit wrote:

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DavidC wrote:

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Mika is one of 10 2008 born in the top 100, but Hannah is on her own as a 2009 (Ksenia Efremova at 149 being the nearest)

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 Yes, but as Indy and others often point out, there's only 3 months difference between Hannah and Mika.

So if we took out the arbitrary 31st Dec. date and used another equally valid one, i.e. 30th June, we'd have a different look and Hannah and Mika would be in the same year (as would Ksenia). And also Emerson Jones (just).

But not Guilia Popa, for instance who is a late 2009.

Or Laura Samsonova, or Wakana Sonobe, say, who are both early 2008-ers

 

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 Goodness, these girls are still so young. Such a long journey ahead of them. I don't think a few months will make a difference in five years. It will be interesting to see who transitions to seniors the best and manages to stay fit and healthy.

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 Yes, absolutely, a few months makes no difference in the big picture. 

But, from the work I used to do in France, there used to be a big problem with the majority of the elite girls being born in the first half of the calendar year.

And it was obvious why - because all the year were put together, for training evaluation and competitions, and because 10 months made a big difference for the 8 and 9 and 10 year olds say, all the younger girls would get discouraged, and would drop out.  

So only the Jan-June kids carried on. So the elite were only from that group. 

As part of a group pushing for a different approach, we tried a couple of variations (rolling years, June-June years etc) and it was a pretty big success - the balance became far better, far more late-year players carried on and the elite groups were more representative. 

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Thats so interesting CD. 

Coup Droit wrote:

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JonH comes home wrote:

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does this flow through into pros? ie if we looked at the top 100 world pros or top 20 Brits, would there be a first half of the year bias? ANd does it make any difference for men/women/boys/girls?

Not asking anyone to go off and research it, just if anyone knows at all?

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 Re the above, it was definitely flowing into lower pros in France, in that once the elite is defined as a group those are the ones who tend to become pros as those are the ones with all the state aid (and, after all, if the other have quit, they're not becoming pros ) 

However, again only from my experience, it was primarily a problem for the girls and far less marked in the boys. 

Now, I don't like sweeping generalisations, they can be dangerous, but I also think it's daft and naive to ignore general characteristics totally and what we found was that, in terms of being born late in the year both boys and girls were less strong, less technical, less training etc.

BUT, basically, the boys would play their matches, lose, have a breakdown with smashing rackets and crying, and then five minutes later would all be playing pingpong in the clubhouse. It didn't really affect them. Whereas the girls took their losses to heart, would brood, and take it personally - and would drop out far more quickly than the boys. So the girls was far more skewed to the first half of the year. The federation even introduced 'girls' training styles and 'boys' training styles as it was shown that boys loved playing individual points, and matches, whereas the girls far prefered team exercises.  

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 fascinating CD, good insight. And you see that behaviour in the pros when for example women and men shake hands at the end, completely different attitudes , men much warmer and congratulation given, women often quite cold and offhand. So I can see how that starts in juniors and how it flows through to what you say happens in terms of dropouts 

paulisi wrote:

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It is obvious that we have a much bigger number of juniors playing ITF juniors than in the past and we need a big pyramid to move into the senior game. The bigger the base, the more likely to find a gem.
The talent coming through is good and there is depth in talent. Not just the odd one in each age group

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 Yes, the bigger number is obviously mainly due to the way bigger number of domestic events the LTA now hosts 

It doesn't make our players any better, as such, but it does at least give a neutral grading number, which eliminates some of the elite bias, and provides a springboard for those trying their luck elsewhere - and is also especially important in a country that, unlike USA, France, etc, does not have a strong domestic event system