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

Roland Garros Men – 2025 Preview

  Will anyone beside the Top Two make the final of the French Open at Roland Garros this year? Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz look a class ahead of the field.   But with Sinner’s rust and Alcaraz’s occasional inconsistency, the door may open for others – Casper Ruud, Jack Draper, Alex Zverev, maybe even Novak Djokovic…   Top Quarter Jannik Sinner has just returned to the tour after a probably-undeserved three-month suspension for doping. The locker room is visibly nervous about receiving a similar fate; they are on edge as the sword of Damocles hangs over all, seeming to strike randomly. A re-working of the doping protocols is probably in order.   Regardless, Sinner performed reasonably well in his first tournament back in Rome last week, making the final.   He will likely have some ups and downs, but playing best three of five sets in slams will likely give him time to find his game if he should start a match on the wrong foot. He was close to winning...
Post a Comment
Read more

Roland Garros Women – 2025 Preview

There’s not really a favourite for this tournament – which feels a bit weird, since Iga Swiatek has won it four of the last five years.   She’s also been #1 much of that time, but as of today is ranked only #5.   In her absence, Aryna Sabalenka has been entrenching herself at the top with multiple finals played this year, winning three of them.   The six clay tournaments since Miami have seen six different winners, so the answers are not clear cut.   Maybe Jasmine Paolini who won last week in Rome, in conditions very similar to Paris, should be regarded as the first horse.   She was indeed runner-up in the City of Lights last year.   Top Quarter Aryna Sabalenka has been burning up the tour this year. The top seed has opened her lead at #1 to nearly 4000 points.   Other than wobbly performances in Doha and Dubai, she has been a factor in every tournament she’s played.   Impressively, she’s 11-2 on clay.   It’s hard not to regard her a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Victory Points - Djokovic vs Connors, Lendl vs Sampras

Novak Djokovic has just won his 63 rd main tour title with his victory in Miami last week.  It seems like a lot of tournaments and is almost as many as Nadal has won with 67... or Sampras with 64.  But it’s still a lot less than Jimmy Connors’ open era record of 109 titles.  Here’s the title list for the top 20 of the Open Era (since 1968 when professionals were allowed to play with amateurs). 109 Connors 94 Lendl 88 Federer 77 McEnroe 67 Nadal 64 Sampras 64 Borg 63 Djokovic 62 Vilas 60 Agassi 58 Nastase 49 Becker 46 Laver 44 Muster 41 Edberg 37 Smith 35 Murray 34 Chang 33 Ashe 33 Wilander That list may or may not agree with various lists published on the ATP website or Wikipedia, and that’s because there was a fair bit of confusion in the early days of the open era (1968-1973) about what tournaments counted and which were exhibitions.  Some supposed ‘tournaments’ had draws of only four players or were ‘invitational’.  But after ...
Post a Comment
Read more