Skip to main content

The Peak Age for Top Male Pros

I was surfing over at tennis-warehouse forums and got into a conversation about the peak age for male pros.  I poked around my spreadsheets and voila, came up with a few graphs.

The first is based on computer rankings in the open era. The data set is all men who won a slam and were born in 1950 or later (so that most of their careers are captured in the rankings). What the graph shows is the average computer ranking of all men in the data set. The peak in this graph is around 23 to 25. The attack is quite sharp to age 20, but the taper to age 31 or so is fairly gradual. It certainly illustrates that prime age is from 20 to 29-30. (Incidentally, the small hiccup at age 24 is almost totally due to Pat Cash, and the one at 27 to Del Potro.)





The second graph shows just the end of year rankings for the most recent 6 top men who were multi-year #1's, and had reasonably long careers (note that Sampras has the shortest career of this group). For Laver and Rosewall, rankings before 1973 are subjective, but use my majority opinion approach. All rankings after 1973 are computer rankings (so Connors, rightly or wrongly gets #1 for 1974-78).

In this graph the peak is at 26 or 27 when no one is ranked below #2.






The next graph is the number of majors won at each age by top major winners throughout tennis history. It includes all who won 4 majors or more, plus Murray and Wawrinka. 'Majors' include all Wim and USC/O, AO, RG since 1925, ITF majors (1912-24), and pro-majors (Wem, FrPro, USPro for the years universally recognized). Specifically, this includes: Renshaw, Sears, RDoherty, Larned, Wrenn, HDoherty, Wilding, Tilden, Johnston, Kozeluh, Borotra, Cochet, Richards, LaCoste, Crawford, Perry, Nusslein, Vines, Budge, Parker, Riggs, Kramer, Sedgman, Gonzales, Trabert, Rosewall, Hoad, Cooper, Emerson, Santana, Laver, Newcombe, Connors, Borg, Vilas, McEnroe, Lendl, Wilander, Becker, Edberg, Sampras, Courier, Agassi, Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, Wawrinka. 


The red line represents the total number of major titles won by this group at each age. The blue line is the two-year average for each age. This blue line tends to smooth out the line a bit to make the trend more visible. It seems that the longterm average peak major-winning age has been 24.










To see if there was a difference with modern times, I looked at just those who had won 6 or more slams in the open era (Connors, Borg, McEnroe, Lendl, Wilander, Edberg, Becker, Agassi, Sampras, Federer, Nadal, Djokovic). It looks like the peak is still about age 24.






Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Case for Rod Laver as GOAT - 25 Dec 2010

The Case for Rod Laver Two grand slams.   When one considers the near impossibility of winning a calendar year grand slam in this day and age, the thought of one player winning two boggles the mind.   It’s difficult enough to win the career slam – only 7 men have ever done it and only 4 in the Open era.   Winning a non-calendar slam is even more difficult and many great players have won three in a row and fallen just short:   like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Pete Sampras. So Rod Laver should be an open and shut case for the greatest of all time.   But it’s not that simple.   His first grand slam is really negligible and doesn’t count.   It was an amateur slam won in an era when the best players were professionals.   Especially in the 1960’s the pros were gaining more and more credibility.   The sheer number of pros was increasing as more and more tournaments began to be established for pro players.   Laver was by no means considered the best player of 1962 and some experts didn’t
3 comments
Read more

2016 Wimbledon Women's Preview

Wimbledon 2016 –Women’s Preview What does Garbine Muguruza’s victory at Roland Garros mean for tennis? Will she be able to play at a high level for Wimbledon?  Is she a legitimate contender for Serena Williams’ role as #1?  Is Serena done winning majors, or is she just ‘resting’? Muguruza’s victory at Roland Garros was surprising but not a complete shock.  Beforehand, she was deemed fourth-most likely by the bookies to take the tournament, pegged at 10:1 odds.  Anytime we welcome a new slam champion to the fold is a cause for celebration... especially a young one like Garbine, only 22.  She displaces Petra Kvitova as the last-born person to win a slam. Muguruza is one of 11 active players to have won a singles major:  Serena, Venus, Sharapova, Azarenka, Kvitova, Kuznetsova, Ivanovic, Kerber, Schiavone, and Stosur.   (There would be four more if it were not for the retirements in the last four years of Li, Bartoli, Clijsters, and Pennetta.)  These 11 players are probabl
2 comments
Read more

The Case for Bjorn Borg as GOAT

The case for Bjorn Borg   The case for Bjorn Borg as GOAT will always be interesting because the last half or third of his career didn’t happen.   But what he accomplished in the short time he played was remarkable.     He became the youngest man ever to win a grand slam title (to that time) when he did it within days of his 18 th birthday at the French Open in 1974.   No man has won more pro matches, titles, or grand slams by age 24 than he did.   He also has the best match winning percentage at the slams, with Nadal and Federer a distant 2 nd and 3 rd .   In addition to 5 consecutive Wimbledon titles, he only ever lost twice at the French Open, winning there 6 times, 4 times consecutively, and 3 times consecutively he followed up his French victory with the Wimbledon title 4 weeks later – the French-Wimbledon double.   No one else has done that.     His head to head record is top notch.   In the pool of all men who have won a grand slam title in the open
1 comment
Read more