IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/jqsprt/v10y2014i2p9n8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The older they rise the younger they fall: age and performance trends in men’s professional tennis from 1991 to 2012

Author

Listed:
  • Kovalchik Stephanie Ann

    (RAND Corporation, 1776 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401, USA)

Abstract

In 2012, 3 out of 10 singles players in the top 100 on the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) World Tour were 30 years old or older – nearly a four-fold increase over 20 years ago, suggesting that the “old at 30” view in men’s tennis may be an old reality. In this paper, I investigate aging patterns among top ATP singles players between 1991 and 2012 and consider how surface effects, career length, and age at peak performance have influenced aging trends. Following a decade and a half of little change, the average age of top singles players has increased at a pace of 0.34 years per season since the mid-2000s, reaching an all-time high of 27.9 years in 2012. Underlying this age shift was a coincident rise in the proportion of 30-and-overs (29% in 2012) and the virtual elimination of teenagers from the top 100 (0% in 2012). Because the typical age players begin competing professionally has varied little from 18 years in the past two decades, career length has increased in step with player age. Demographics among top players on each of today’s major surfaces indicate that parallel aging trends have occurred on clay, grass, and hard court from the late 2000s forward. As a result of the changing age demographic over the past decade, the age of tennis’s highest-ranked singles players is now comparable to the age of elite long-distance runners. This evolution likely reflects changes in tennis play that have made endurance and fitness increasingly essential for winning success.

Suggested Citation

  • Kovalchik Stephanie Ann, 2014. "The older they rise the younger they fall: age and performance trends in men’s professional tennis from 1991 to 2012," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 99-107, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:jqsprt:v:10:y:2014:i:2:p:9:n:8
    DOI: 10.1515/jqas-2013-0091
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/jqas-2013-0091
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/jqas-2013-0091?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Julio del Corral, 2009. "Competitive Balance and Match Uncertainty in Grand-Slam Tennis," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 10(6), pages 563-581, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alex Krumer & Mosi Rosenboim & Offer Moshe Shapir, 2016. "Gender, Competitiveness, and Physical Characteristics," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 17(3), pages 234-259, April.
    2. Bakkenbüll, Linn-Brit, 2016. "Does attractiveness win? On the gender-specific impact of attractiveness on athletic performance in tennis," Discussion Papers of the Institute for Organisational Economics 01/2016, University of Münster, Institute for Organisational Economics.
    3. Jeroen Schokkaert & Johan Swinnen, 2016. "Uncertainty of Outcome Is Higher in the Champions League Than in the European Cup," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 17(2), pages 115-147, February.
    4. Tomi Ovaska & Albert J. Sumell, 2014. "Who Has The Advantage? An Economic Exploration of Winning in Men's Professional Tennis," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 59(1), pages 34-51, May.
    5. Lackner, Mario & Weichselbaumer, Michael, 2023. "Can barely winning lead to losing? Gender and past performance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 258-274.
    6. Helmut Dietl & Cornel Nesseler, 2017. "Momentum in tennis: Controlling the match," Working Papers 365, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).
    7. Yixiong Cui & Miguel-Ángel Gómez & Bruno Gonçalves & Jaime Sampaio, 2018. "Performance profiles of professional female tennis players in grand slams," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(7), pages 1-18, July.
    8. Kurt Rotthoff & Danielle Zanzalari & John Jasina, 2011. "What are the odds? A measure of the small sample problems," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(12), pages 1139-1143.
    9. Dominik Schreyer & Benno Torgler, 2018. "On the Role of Race Outcome Uncertainty in the TV Demand for Formula 1 Grands Prix," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(2), pages 211-229, February.
    10. László Csató & Dóra Gréta Petróczy, 2024. "Bibliometric indices as a measure of performance and competitive balance in the knockout stage of the UEFA Champions League," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 32(4), pages 961-988, December.
    11. Bakkenbüll, Linn-Brit & Kiefer, Stephanie, 2014. "Are attractive female tennis players more successful? An empirical analysis," Discussion Papers of the Institute for Organisational Economics 12/2014, University of Münster, Institute for Organisational Economics.
    12. Alexander John Bond & Francesco Addesa, 2020. "Competitive Intensity, Fans’ Expectations, and Match-Day Tickets Sold in the Italian Football Serie A, 2012-2015," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(1), pages 20-43, January.
    13. Oliver Budzinski & Arne Feddersen, 2020. "Measuring competitive balance in Formula One racing," Chapters, in: Plácido Rodríguez & Stefan Kesenne & Brad R. Humphreys (ed.), Outcome Uncertainty in Sporting Events, chapter 1, pages 5-26, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Linn-Brit Bakkenbüll & Stephanie Kiefer, 2015. "Are Attractive Female Tennis Players More Successful? An Empirical Analysis," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(4), pages 443-458, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:jqsprt:v:10:y:2014:i:2:p:9:n:8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.