ATP & WTA rankings

[Suliso]

Interesting, so actually players who fit the mold but do not win a Slam are more rare than I thought. Statistically makes it even more likely that Zverev and Tsitsipas would win a Slam soon and the other three maybe a bit later as well. Zverev in particular is a very strong candidate off clay this year if Djokovic somehow falters.

[skatingfan]

So I've done another decade covering players who finished in the year-end top 10 between 2001 & 2010, leaving aside players who have already been presented in previous posts.

Grand Slam Champions who fit the pattern.

Andre Agassi 16.5/17.5/17.8
Pete Sampras 17.3/18.5/18.6
Carlos Moya 19.1/19.7/19.7
Marat Safin 17.5/17.8/19.4
Lleyton Hewitt 17.8/18.2/18.9
Andy Roddick 18.6/18.7/19.0

Players who fit the pattern but failed to win a Grand Slam.

Mark Philippoussis 18.7/19.0/19.9

Other Grand Slam winners who don't fit the pattern

Patrick Rafter 20.7/21.1/21.6
Yevgeny Kafelnikov 19.8/20.0/20.3
Albert Costa 19.0/19.3/20.7
Gustavo Kuerten 20.0/20.8/20.8
Gaston Gaudio 20.4/21.4/24.2
Juan Carlos Ferrero 19.3/19.6/20.2

Should be noted that Kafelnikov, Costa, Kuerten, Ferrero missed some, or all, of the milestones by mere months. Costa in particular was a surprise to me and if we we were making this list in the early 2000's he would make the list of potential slam winners, and I always viewed his win as huge surprise.

Other players who made some of the milestones, but missed the later ones include Tommy Haas, David Nalbandian, Guillermo Coria, Tommy Robredo, Mikhail Youzhny, Mario Ancic, & Robin Soderling.

[Suliso]

So if we extend the latter criteria to age 21 for the top 20 as we probably should only 5 players in 3 decades are still left out and from those only two (Wawrinka and Rafter) have won a Slam more than once. I think a correlation is way too strong to consider it a coincidence!

Surprisingly to me the other way around (now going back to more stringent age 20 criteria) is even more relevant. Mere two players have failed to win a Slam from that kind of start. Gasquet's best results are three semi finals (also 15 tour titles and 18 millions in prize money) and Philippoussis managed two runner up finishes (11 tour titles, 7 millions in prize money).

[ponchi101]

Rafter was indeed considered a late bloomer. I remember he came into the scene and then simply did not deliver for a while. Then again, Sampras and Agassi had his number.
Suliso's comment about women maturing earlier from the the other day made me think. There was this moment in the ATP when some of the slam champions were also very young. Becker and Edberg won grass court slams at 17. RG was plagued by teenage wins for a while: Borg, Wilander and Chang won there and then, much later, Nadal. Sampras then won his first USO at 19
You look at the women, and, as Suliso says, there are more. A lot of RG teenage winners: Evert, Graf, ASV, Seles and now Swiatek. Hingis won everything else as a teenager, Serena took her first USO as one, as did Venus (by mere days). Sharapova at W. There are more and I am missing some, of course, but this bodes well for Swiatek, who has now started this path of winning slams at a very young age.

[Suliso]

One could check how many teenage Slam winners stopped at only one. From top of my head I can only think of Michael Chang and that was a very long time ago.

[ponchi101]

And you have to remember that final against Edberg. Edberg had 10 breakpoints in the 4th set, and Chang passed him in every one, hitting the lines.
It was one of the finals in which I would say the better player DID NOT win the match. But Chang did.

[JTContinental]

Coco Gauff inside the top 40, at a career high 38. Can she get a seeding for the French Open?

[ponchi101]

Sure she could. Some players' points will start to drop off, and players above her.. I just hope she does not go out there and start chasing points, though. Her pace of progress is going fine.

[meganfernandez]

Sure she could. Some players' points will start to drop off, and players above her.. I just hope she does not go out there and start chasing points, though. Her pace of progress is going fine.

Agree, and I think her team and parents will do the right thing. They have made good decisions so far.

[Suliso]

I was just considering the youngest generation on WTA tour in terms of rankings and accomplishments. Here I'm drawing an upper age border with Anastasia Potapova and Iga Swiatek. This just happens to be really easy to do as the next older player with serious accomplishment (Bianca Andreescu) is a full year older. The bottom border is necessarily fuzzy, there could be someone 17 or even 16 years old coming up unexpectedly fast this year and joining the group profiled below. Right now I don't see who could it be, but also harder to judge due to scrambled rankings and lack of junior tournaments.

Below are profiles of clear front runners of this generation so far. Interestingly every single one of them has won a junior GS and most have been #1 or #2 in juniors. One Grand Slam already among them and I certainly expect a lot more!

Iga Świątek (POL)



Age: 19.7
Birthplace: Warsaw, Poland
Height: 1.76 m
Current ranking: #15
Career high ranking: #15
Best WTA results: 2020 RG W, 2021 Adelaide W
Best junior results: 2018 Wimbledon W
Personal: Father was an Olympic level rower. She lives in Warsaw suburbs and is coached by Piotr Sierzputowski


Amanda Anisimova (USA)



Age: 19.5
Birthplace: Freehold, NJ, USA
Height: 1.80 m
Current ranking: #32
Career high ranking: #21
Best WTA results: 2019 RG SF, 2019 Bogota W, 2018 Tokyo RU
Best junior results: 2017 USO W
Personal: Her parents immigrated from Russia few years before she was born. Currently living in Miami area, Florida.

Coco Gauff (USA)



Age: 16.9
Birthplace: Delray Beach, FL, USA
Height: 1.75 m
Current ranking: #40
Career high ranking: #38
Best WTA results: 2019 Wimbledon 4R, 2020 AO 4R, 2019 Linz W
Best junior results: 2018 RG W
Personal: Father player basketball at college level. Grew up first in Atlanta before moving back to Florida. Has trained in Mouratoglou academy in Paris.

Marta Kostyuk (UKR)



Age: 18.6
Birthplace: Kyiv, Ukraine
Height: 1.75 m
Current ranking: #81
Career high ranking: #78
Best WTA results: 2018 AO 3R, 2020 USO 3R, 3 ITF titles
Best junior results: 2017 AO W
Personal: She is coached by her mother Talina Beiko who played tennis at pro level (career high #391).

[Suliso]

Leylah Fernandez (CAN)



Age: 18.4
Birthplace: Montreal, Canada
Height: 1.68 m
Current ranking: #87
Career high ranking: #86
Best WTA results: 2020 RG 3R, 2020 Acapulco RU
Best junior results: 2019 RG W
Personal: She is of Ecuadorian and Filipino descent (her father born in Ecuador). She’s fluent in English, French and Spanish and currently resides in Palm Beach county, Florida.

Anastasia Potapova (RUS)



Age: 19.9
Birthplace: Saratov, Russia
Height: 1.75 m
Current ranking: #88
Career high ranking: #64
Best WTA results: 2021 AO 3R, 2018 Moscow RU, 2018 Tashkent RU
Best junior results: 2016 Wimbledon W
Personal: Her mother played volleyball competitively and grandmother was a basketball coach. She is currently residing in Khimki, Russia (Moscow suburbs)

Clara Tauson (DEN)



Age: 18.2
Birthplace: Copenhagen, Denmark
Height: 1.82 m
Current ranking: #96
Career high ranking: #96
Best WTA results: 2021 Lyon W
Best junior results: 2019 AO W
Personal: Her uncle Michael Tauson is a former pro player (career high #101). She resides in Copenhagen.

[Omess]

Good group of young talent. Tauson with her biggest week so far

[ponchi101]

A great QF draw at some Slam in 2025.

[Deuce]

Thanks for that, Suliso.

Tauson's past week should go a long way toward increasing her confidence that she can compete at the highest level. As they say - there's no substitute for experience.

Just want to add that Leylah's dad, Jorge, was a soccer player at a fairly high level. So - athletic genes. In her early childhood, Leylah wanted to be a soccer player. But her dad wanted to find a sport that used a smaller ball, because Leylah was so young. That's how Leylah started in tennis.

[Suliso]

Now we can say that four out of seven in this group have won a WTA title (2 more have fallen one win short).