Roger Federer, Mardy Fish and the Aging of the Game: A Good or a Bad Thing?

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: November 18, 2011

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The average age of the eight players who qualified for the ATP World Tour Finals in London is 26.6.

The average age of the eight players who qualified for the WTA Championships in Istanbul was 24.1.

The top 20 male players in the world have been in this world for an average of 26.2 years.

The top 20 girls in the WTA ranking average 24.9 years of age.

Among the top 100 male players in the world there are only two teenagers: Bernard Tomic and Ryan Harrison, both 19 years old.

By putting all this data in perspective, one can only assume that the odds of what players like Bjorn Borg, Boris Becker, Pete Sampras, Tracy Austin, Martina Hingis and Serena Williams did is very unlikely to be repeated. They all won major titles as teenagers.

The last two players to win a major under the age of 20 were Maria Sharapova, who won Wimbledon in 2004 at the age of 17, and Rafael Nadal, who won the French Open at the age of 18, in 2005.

There are two interesting angles to approach this subject: the first would be to try and understand why this is happening; secondly, there is the need to evaluate whether or not this is good for the game of tennis.

The most important reason for the aging in the game is how physical it has become in recent years. The way matches are played these days is unbelievably demanding on the players’ bodies, which like their minds, need time to mature.



It is very tough, if not nearly impossible, for a young man or woman who hasn’t reached the age of 20 yet to support the long physical battles in which the rule is to pound the ball as hard as possible and cover parts of the court that were once considered impossible.

Regardless how many hours of gym work are put in, the body will not be ready. It is a battle lost against nature.

The professionalism with which the players face their job is another issue. The rou...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Tennis

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