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ROLFMAO average age is almost 30 years old. Where are the early-mid 20 years old. Should be a players peak years. Sure it would be more plausible to say 2009 it would be tougher to break in since a lot of the all time greats were at their peak and a lot of the top Guys were playing well during that year. But 2017, a ton of early 20 somethings should have won slams and big titles outside of the freaking WTF. Fed/Nadal aren't anything special anymore and very much beatable now, Nole barely played and very much beatable. Murray barely played, etc.
 
Let's be real - Sock and Busta will be out of there, so if a youngster doesn't make strides in the slams, the average age will be more like 30, since all the current guys will be one year older. And there are only a few youngsters that can plausibly get in there, like Pouille, Kyrgios...and I guess that's it? I also think Thiem will leave the top 10, since he's just not that good outside of clay (but maybe he will learn, we'll see).

My prediction for the 2018 top 10 is this (not in order):

Djokovic (31)
Nadal (32)
Murray (31)
Federer (37)
Goffin (27)
Dimitrov (27)
Raonic (27)
Nishikori (28)
Zverev (21)
Del Potro (30)

That's assuming they are all healthy, which is pretty unlikely, I guess. Anyway, the average age of this top 10 would be 29.1.
You can’t assume Thiem would drop out of top 10 just because he’s bad out of clay, he’s in a good seeding position and as long as he accumulates the same amount of points on clay next year he would be in top 10 without even playing anywhere’s else. Signs for him are no worse than exactly 1 year ago, it’s reasonable to expect another similar year ahead.
 
Nadal also played prime Hewitt (the one before 2006), while Murray and Djokovic didn't.
And he also played peak roddick .. All the the Hewitt, Roddick , Safin were early boomers who peaked before they were 25, Djokovic and Murray played them mostly after their peak...

Nadal played many players from the old generation that DJokoMurray didnt, for example Jiri novak, Goran Ivanisevic, Agassi, El aynoaui, Srichaphan, Karol Kucera, Albert Costa, Corretja, Magnus Norman,etc
 
Average age of top10 decreased recently but it's only an effect of "old men" injuries (Djokovic, Murray, Wawrinka). Stat for top20 is more realistic this year.
 
Poor youngsters, always getting blamed for not stepping up. I wish people would stop to consider that the trend these days seems to be that players peak later in their careers and have much greater longevity. Continuing advances in technology, sports medicine, and training methods have allowed this to be the case.

The advantages of youth are hunger, fearlessness, and high energy. With everyone seeking to maximize their fitness and training these days, the energy advantage is minimized. Meanwhile, desire to prove oneself is especially strong when young but can often come up short against the mental toughness and experience of a veteran who's seen it all before.

To win big these days, you need more than just a big game. You need to have mental resiliency and consistency, day in and day out. And when you have legends like Federer and Nadal still playing great tennis well into their thirties, it's not easy.

Then you have players like Wawrinka who manage to maximize their potential late in their career and achieve wins that no one would have predicted 10 years ago. So is it really a bad thing that the average age of top players is increasing? The tough part of it is that we have to be a bit more patient as fans - we want to see that talented teenager win huge titles right now, but we might have to wait a few more years until they develop as a person and a player.

It seems like so many people are tired of waiting for the next Nadal, the next young phenom, the next one in a billion...but if the upside is seeing an unsung veteran finally flourish or an old legend dazzle us again, maybe it's not so bad to wait a little longer. :shrug:
 
It's funny that Dimitrov still is considerd as a youngster/newcomer/talent while he is mid twenty. That was an age to think of retirement some decades ago :D

If Murray & Djokovic hadn't been out for most of the second half of the season, the averege age would have been above 30 again :D
 
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