Despite the fact that he is 29 years old and definitely one of the oldest Top Ten players on the ATP Tour, Roger “the Maestro” Federer insists that the demands of tennis are no longer easy for new, younger players.
The 16-time Grand Slam champion remains adamant that the rigors of the muscular, athletic game have made the upper levels of tennis an unachievable area for new players.
Federer, who is known to keep an eye on tennis trends, observed that there are no teenagers in the ATP’s Top 100 players list. He added that there are few players less than 22 years who are able to maintain a double digit ranking. Like his accurate serves
and flawless game, this observation was also spot-on. One has to scroll all the way down to World Number 114 to find the first teenager, Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov.
In the days when Federer began playing tennis, he reached the top 100 at the age of 18. Current top player Rafael Nadal achieved the same feat at the age of 17. Current British Number 1 made a run into the World’s Top 20 players before his 20th
birthday. Therefore it’s not difficult to understand why Federer feels there are not many younger tennis players with potential.
When asked about who he thinks the next generation of Grand Slam champions will be, he replied, “Promising newcomers? Not a whole lot really. It’s quite surprising for me because when I was coming up there was Hewitt and Safin and Roddick and Ferrero and
Haas. They were all in the top 100 as teenagers.” He also added that Boris Becker, one of the legends of tennis, had already won Wimbledon at the age of 17, as Michael Chang had won the French Open.
However rather than blaming it on a lack of talent, Roger Federer has an interesting take on the reasons for decreasing numbers of teenage players. He believes that Rafael Nadal (winner of 11 titles as a teenager), with his rugged athleticism and stamina,
is a bit of an exception. Most young players do not develop the stamina required to excel at tennis until they are past their teens. Federer commented, “It’s become more physical and more mental and maybe they need longer to break through now. It can be a
good or bad thing depending on where you look at it from.”
Swede Robin Soderling agreed with Federer’s analysis. It took him several years to convert his teenage potential into titles, and he is now World Number 4 at the age of 26. He says, “The sport has become a bit tougher, it’s much more physical than say 10
years ago. It takes a couple years to build up your body to be able to compete with the style of tennis now.”
American Number 1 Andy Roddick also agrees with the two players, saying, “I think I was coming up when the conditions were a little faster and you could rely less on your body.” He added that it was tough for any 18 or 19 year old player to participate in
top level tournaments for forty weeks a year and play the kind of tennis required to beat an upper level player.
Another side effect of this trend is that players ranked at the bottom of the charts are still, sometimes, able to defeat top players. Roddick says, “When I first started this whole thing if you played somebody ranked 70 or 80 you felt pretty comfortable.
Now it’s anybody’s game on a given day.”
Tags: