ITF junior/ Pro career ranking comparisions/ co-relation

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kujo
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Re: AITA Fenesta Nationals

Post by kujo »

Atithee wrote:Kujo, I can mail you this list but only for top-10. I am not sure a top-20 junior list is available any where but it may be.
Atithee,
I had already done the l leg work for this (today), and now I have a ITF top 20 list starting from year 1997 with me! There were about 40 duplicate entries in it. :)

ITF top 20 lists are available. for example, see: http://www.collegeandjuniortennis.com/itfrnk97.html
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Re: AITA Fenesta Nationals

Post by kujo »

We seem to be fixated on Top 100 (ATP) and top 10 (ITF) rankings. So here goes that analysis. 27% of top 100 ATP players were ranked in top-10 ITF junior rankings.

These are the 27 players who are now in top 100 ATP rankings AND who were in the top 10 ITF junior rankings (1997 to 2008):

Andy Murray
Andy Roddick
Bernard Tomic
Daniel Gimeno-Traver
David Nalbandian
Donald Young
Eric Prodon
Florian Mayer
Frederico Gil
Gael Monfils
Gilles Muller
Grigor Dimitrov
Janko Tipsarevic
Jarkko Nieminen
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
Marcos Baghdatis
Marin Cilic
Martin Klizan
Nicolas Mahut
Richard Gasquet
Robin Haase
Robin Soderling
Roger Federer
Ryan Sweeting
Steve Darcis
Xavier Malisse
Yen-Hsun Lu


Let me know if I have missed any.
Again, 73 of the current top 100 players were NEVER ranked in the top 10 of the ITF junior rankings.
There were 105 unique players in the top 10 ITF ranking list for the years 1997 to 2008 (and NOT 12 years *10 = 120 players)

Even though these are snap shot views (25% of top 200 players are from ITF top 20 lists; 27% of top 100 players are from ITF top 10), I expect the historical view to be only slightly better than these percentages!

cheers
kujo

ps: when I expanded the junior talent pool to include top 20 ITF rankings in those 12 years, I had 36 of the top 100 ATP players from that talent pool. i.e) 9 more junior players are in top 100 even though they were never ranked as top 10 in ITF.
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Re: AITA Fenesta Nationals

Post by jayakris »

Before anybody gets the wrong idea from these stats, let me say that it does NOT mean that only 25% of the top-100 played juniors seriously. It just means that may of them weren't that great in the juniors!

There is probably only 25% of the top-100 who did not play much juniors (that is, at least 3-4 junior grand slams and at least 10-15 junior events). May be less. 2/3rd of those (probably 50% of the top-100) took the junior circuit seriously, or were good enough to anything serious then. A lot of them probably only got to the 20 to 50 range then, like Somdev and Sania.

Just making sure that nobody uses these stats as some proof that juniors should be skipped. We are only talking about how to view the junior rankings, not that one would do well by NOT playing juniors.

Jay
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Re: AITA Fenesta Nationals

Post by sameerph »

Thanks, Kujo & Atithee for some fantastic work on this.

Kujo, about your list . Just yesterday, I saw that Kee Nishikori has a career high junior ranking of 7 . I am not sure how he is not in the lists above. Am I missing something.

Atithee - Intresting titbit but about Asian players. It is clear that Asians have much lower ratio of replicating their junior success at senior level. I suppose Lu from Taiwan is the only Asian from that list to eventually make ATP top 100 ( although couple others like Yuki & Yang from Taiwan are still in their early years in senior circuit.)
I remember couple of Koreans whom you mentioned being at the top of the junior rankings & sort of success that Yuki had in juniors. But, they have never even entered top 200 on ATP tour. That makes me worried about Yuki as the eary signals in seniors are not as good compared to his peers in the junior days.
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Re: AITA Fenesta Nationals

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sameer,

For the purposes of my analysis, I only looked at the year end rankings of the juniors.

In 2006, end of the year, ITF junior rankings list:
39. Kei Nishikori, Japan 12/29/1989

however in the July 2006 ranking list:
7. Kei Nishikori, Japan 12/29/1989
8. Sanam Singh, India 1/11/1988


I am adding Sanam, for comparison sake... July rankings do not hold much weight in my books (because it is skewed due to the exit of prior year talents AND because we are yet to gone through the full Junior schedule as of July).
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Re: AITA Fenesta Nationals

Post by jayakris »

I am not sure I agree with that (or did you mean Jan rakings and mistyped?) .. July or more correctly the August rankings are probably the best indicator. Right after US Open juniors. After that many will start leaving and the ones with eligibility left for another year are the ones who go to Orange Bowl etc (who then shoot up to the top in January when the 18 year olds leave, before falling to their deserved anking byt around July). I would use the August rankings as the better measure. That is if I understood what you are doing :) .... Jay
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Re: AITA Fenesta Nationals

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To Jay's post, I am quoting my previous post:
kujo wrote:Out of curiosity, I did the same calculations for the bars grouped under "ITF top 100" in slide 16.
64.3% of 98 = 63
49.6% of 57 = 28
44.0% of 166 = 73
44.3% of 345 = 153

total = 317 / 666 = 47.6%
i.e) 47.6% of top 200 ATP players were ranked in top-100 ITF junior rankings

to put it the other way, more than half of the top 200 ATP players were never ranked in ITF top 100 junior rankings!!
Statement
If you are good enough to be a top 200 player in ATP (your best ranking) AND if you had played with some seriousness in junior circuit (3 GS, 12 junior events); you would have reached top 100 in ITF junior ranking.

Since, 52% of the top 200 players were never ranked in top 100 ITF rankings; I believe that 1 in every 2 players (who reached top 200 in ATP) never played in the junior circuit with any seriousness.
Last edited by kujo on Fri Oct 14, 2011 5:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: AITA Fenesta Nationals

Post by kujo »

jayakris wrote:I am not sure I agree with that (or did you mean Jan rakings and mistyped?) .. July or more correctly the August rankings are probably the best indicator. Right after US Open juniors. After that many will start leaving and the ones with eligibility left for another year are the ones who go to Orange Bowl etc (who then shoot up to the top in January when the 18 year olds leave, before falling to their deserved anking byt around July). I would use the August rankings as the better measure. That is if I understood what you are doing :) .... Jay
yes, I agree with the logic behind using August rankings. Still, I don't think it would have a significant effect on the overall percentages I had quoted earlier. For every Kei Nishikori you pick up, you would probably lose some other top 100 (ATP) ranked person who didn't make the August cutoff for being in top 10 ITF rankings. Moreover, I do not have data for August rankings, for all of those years. Monthly data is only available since 2000.
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Re: AITA Fenesta Nationals

Post by sameerph »

kujo wrote:To Jay's post, I am quoting my previous post:
kujo wrote:Out of curiosity, I did the same calculations for the bars grouped under "ITF top 100" in slide 16.
64.3% of 98 = 63
49.6% of 57 = 28
44.0% of 166 = 73
44.3% of 345 = 153

total = 317 / 666 = 47.6%
i.e) 47.6% of top 200 ATP players were ranked in top-100 ITF junior rankings

to put it the other way, more than half of the top 200 ATP players were never ranked in ITF top 100 junior rankings!!
Statement
If you are good enough to be a top 200 player in ATP (your best ranking) AND if you had played with some seriousness in junior circuit (3 GS, 12 junior events); you would have reached top 100 in ITF junior ranking.

Since, 52% of the top 200 players were never ranked in top 100 ITF rankings; I believe that 1 in every 2 players (who reached top 200 in ATP) never played in the junior circuit with any seriousness.
Kujo, but that is based on the data in the presentation posted by Atithee . Isn't it ? As Athithe said that data is probably only about European players & we are not as sure about the findings as something which you youself have done.
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Re: AITA Fenesta Nationals

Post by kujo »

sameer,

1. their percentage actually matches exactly what I got for "25% of top 200 ATP players were ranked in top-20 of ITF junior rankings"
2. their data set implies that they included all ITF juniors in their study - not just the Europeans.
ITF Rankings (-18y) (Int. Tennis-federation)
ITF Top 100 players - Since 1988 until 2008
n =1422
So, I am fine with using their data to make some valid conclusions like: "1 in 2 players (from top 200 ATP rankings) never played junior circuit seriously"
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Re: AITA Fenesta Nationals

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kujo wrote:So, I am fine with using their data to make some valid conclusions like: "1 in 2 players (from top 200 ATP rankings) never played junior circuit seriously"
I was not convinced about this conclustion & so , decided to some work myself on current top 100 players & this is the result -
Atp ranking Name ITF junior high rankings
1 Djokovic, Novak (SRB) 24
2 Nadal, Rafael (ESP) 145
3 Federer, Roger (SUI) 1
4 Murray, Andy (GBR) 2
5 Ferrer, David (ESP) None
6 Soderling, Robin (SWE) 2
7 Berdych, Tomas (CZE) 6
8 Tsonga, Jo-Wilfried (FRA) 2
9 Fish, Mardy (USA) 14
10 Monfils, Gael (FRA) 1
11 Almagro, Nicolas (ESP) 18
12 Simon, Gilles (FRA) 242
13 Tipsarevic, Janko (SRB) 1
14 Del Potro, Juan Martin (ARG) 3
15 Roddick, Andy (USA) 1
16 Troicki, Viktor (SRB) 10
17 Gasquet, Richard (FRA) 1
18 Dolgopolov, Alexandr (UKR) 21
19 Wawrinka, Stanislas (SUI) 7
20 Melzer, Jurgen (AUT) 26
21 Isner, John (USA) 93
22 Cilic, Marin (CRO) 1
23 Mayer, Florian (GER) 8
24 Verdasco, Fernando (ESP) 294
25 Ljubicic, Ivan (CRO) 11
26 Stepanek, Radek (CZE) 42
27 Monaco, Juan (ARG) 61
28 Lopez, Feliciano (ESP) 46
29 Chela, Juan Ignacio (ARG) 34
30 Anderson, Kevin (RSA) 28
31 Raonic, Milos (CAN) 35
32 Dodig, Ivan (CRO) 376
33 Llodra, Michael (FRA) 41
34 Youzhny, Mikhail (RUS) 20
35 Bellucci, Thomaz (BRA) 15
36 Granollers, Marcel (ESP) 302
37 Davydenko, Nikolay (RUS) 510
38 Bogomolov Jr., Alex (USA) 57
39 Fognini, Fabio (ITA) 8
40 Haase, Robin (NED) 3
41 Tursunov, Dmitry (RUS) 246
42 Muller, Gilles (LUX) 1
43 Seppi, Andreas (ITA) 68
44 Young, Donald (USA) 1
45 Andujar, Pablo (ESP) 5
46 Robredo, Tommy (ESP) 8
47 Nishikori, Kei (JPN) 7
48 Giraldo, Santiago (COL) 84
49 Tomic, Bernard (AUS) 2
50 Malisse, Xavier (BEL) 10
51 Gulbis, Ernests (LAT) 525
52 Starace, Potito (ITA) 530
53 Garcia-Lopez, Guillermo (ESP) None
54 Kohlschreiber, Philipp (GER) 24
55 Baghdatis, Marcos (CYP) 1
56 Montanes, Albert (ESP) 530
57 Nalbandian, David (ARG) 3
58 Kubot, Lukasz (POL) 30
59 Kunitsyn, Igor (RUS) 61
60 Machado, Rui (POR) 350
61 Karlovic, Ivo (CRO) 417
62 Istomin, Denis (UZB) 412
63 Kukushkin, Mikhail (KAZ) None
64 Benneteau, Julien (FRA) 17
65 Berlocq, Carlos (ARG) 306
66 Stakhovsky, Sergiy (UKR) 49
67 Petzschner, Philipp (GER) 8
68 Blake, James (USA) 92
69 Ferrero, Juan Carlos (ESP) 17
70 Sweeting, Ryan (USA) 2
71 Nieminen, Jarkko (FIN) 11
72 Dimitrov, Grigor (BUL) 1
73 Volandri, Filippo (ITA) 41
74 Lu, Yen-Hsun (TPE) 3
75 Riba, Pere (ESP) 868
76 Beck, Karol (SVK) 24
77 Ramos, Albert (ESP) 9
78 Rosol, Lukas (CZE) 50
79 Harrison, Ryan (USA) 7
80 Hanescu, Victor (ROU) 96
81 Rochus, Olivier (BEL) 11
82 Mahut, Nicolas (FRA) 3
83 Cipolla, Flavio (ITA) None
84 Devvarman, Somdev (IND) 40
85 Haider-Maurer, Andreas (AUT) 9
86 Falla, Alejandro (COL) 4
87 Bachinger, Matthias (GER) 146
88 Gimeno-Traver, Daniel (ESP) 4
89 Mannarino, Adrian (FRA) 303
90 Prodon, Eric (FRA) 3
91 Klizan, Martin (SVK) 1
92 Kavcic, Blaz (SLO) 68
93 Junqueira, Diego (ARG) None
94 Sela, Dudi (ISR) 9
95 Russell, Michael (USA) 36
96 Kamke, Tobias (GER) 642
97 Capdeville, Paul (CHI) 13
98 Berrer, Michael (GER) None
99 Darcis, Steve (BEL) 8
100 Gil, Frederico (POR) 10
If you take ITF top 100 as the criteria for determining if these players played ITF juniors seriously , than there are 25 players in this list who are outside that limit. So, it seems 1 out 4 players did not take junior circuit seriously among top 100 players. This can be extended further for players ranked between 101-200 but I do not think the % will vary drastically.

If you look at the countries which make up those 25 players, Spain seems to be the dominant one. It has 6 such players out of total 14 top 100 players & the % goes close to 50%. I think this Spanish model is something which out TNTA folks are trying to replicate.

Also the multiplier effect from junior to senior rankings appears mcuh lower with an average of around 8 in these top 100 players.
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Re: AITA Fenesta Nationals

Post by kujo »

sameerph wrote:
kujo wrote:So, I am fine with using their data to make some valid conclusions like: "1 in 2 players (from top 200 ATP rankings) never played junior circuit seriously"
If you take ITF top 100 as the criteria for determining if these players played ITF juniors seriously , than there are 25 players in this list who are outside that limit. So, it seems 1 out 4 players did not take junior circuit seriously among top 100 players.
nice work sameer, couple of items:

1. You are considering the best ever ranking achieved by a player instead of the year end ranking or August ranking. so, the results are different. qualitatively, the year end ranking and the August rankings are a better indicator of a junior's potential (Vs the inflated rankings that one could achieve in early part of each year)

2. Yes, that criteria is okay but top 100 ITF is a very relaxed criteria. For someone to be considered a serious junior level player, he should have played atleast 12 junior events (say 1 per month, approx) and 2 GS in a 12 month span. If you play 4 junior events and win 1 of them, I don't want that person to be considered as a proponent for the strengths and benefits of playing in ITF junior circuit! don't you agree?

For these reasons, someone like Jon Isner - who played 11 junior events and 1 GS in his entire junior career, is not considered a serious junior player. Although, he comes very close to being one. If you look at Stanislas WAWRINKA who played 3 events and 1 GS in his entire junior career (basically a month here and a couple of weeks there), I wouldn't consider him a serious junior player either.
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Re: AITA Fenesta Nationals

Post by sameerph »

Kujo,

1. August end rankings are certainly the best indicator & should be used for calculating any multiplier effect etc. or deciding potential of a junior. However, if we are discussing if the player was a serious junior player than highest junior ranking should be a good enough indicator.

2. I totally agree with you assessment of someone like Wawrinka should not be considered as a serious junior player even though he achieved top 100 junior ranking. (Isner may be a borderline case).
That may move perhaps 5 players or so (out of 100) to those who did not pursue junior career seriously. At the same time, we should consider what were those 25 (or 30) players doing at the time when they were eligible to play junior tennis. Were they pursuing the senior tour or not playing at all. If it is the later than we have to omit them for the purpose of this analysis. I will try to find out & post later.
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ITF junior/ Pro career ranking comparisions/ co-relation

Post by sameerph »

Vishnu had this question in AO thread -
There are a lot of Jr WR#1 who have not even made it beyond ranking 150 as a pro (I wish there were stats around this somewhere or someone with access to that db).
In the relation I am moving some great analysis we had done in 2011 on similar topic to this thread ( instead of an irrelevant thread) so that it can be referred anytime later.
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Re: ITF junior/ Pro career ranking comparisions/ co-relation

Post by sameerph »

Now, will update the analysis top 2 ITF juniors tomorrow to see where Yuki should have been and what should be our realistic expectations from him. :D
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