By Emilio Sanchez Vicario
The following article was posted with permission by Emilio Sanchez Vicario, the CEO and Founder of the Sanchez-Casal Tennis Academy (www.asc-florida.com) He was ranked No. 7 in the world in singles and No. 1 in doubles. Follow him on Twitter at @EmilioSVicario and his Sanchez-Casal Academies at @ASCFlorida and @SanchezCasal
NAPLES, Florida – This past January, I prepared a chart for the International Coaches Institute, comparing U.S. and Spanish tennis. Over the last 20 years, Spain has been the world’s leading country in tennis, not just in the number of top players but also the prospective players to reach the top.
While I was working on the report I realized that something was changing. I was in San Francisco, sharing my views with a group of coaches, and they were quite skeptical about my explanation. The topic of my speech was the headline of this article – Why American Players Will Dominate The World Tennis Rankings.
Six months later my theory is proving correct, which is why I would like to share the figures found.
The U.S. has nine very talented 17-22 year old players, with rankings from 70 to 300; Spain has none.
The U.S. has nine 23-25 year old players in the top 300; Spain has five.
The U.S. has 36 players in the top 500, and so does Spain (36)
The U.S. has 10 players between 26-29 years old in the top 300; Spain has only five.
In one category, Spain beats the U.S. – It has 13 players over 30 years old, compared to two from the U.S.
These facts lead us to the following conclusion: While at the moment Spain is still ahead in tennis, with an aging population of players, in three to four years or maybe less, the U.S. will surpass in all categories and become the top country in the world once again after more than 20 years.
The trend of the last ten years shows that talented players excel and make the top 100 at age 22-23, and reach their highest levels of performance at age 27-28. The present generation of American players is so powerful that with their rivalries, role models and motivation, they could break the current trend and reach the top in just one or two years. Taylor Fritz, who is already No. 70 in the world, is leading the group, while Jared Donaldson, Frances Tiafoe, Reilly Opelka and Noah Rubin are not far behind him. Most of these players come from the USTA. However, there is also a great generation of college players like McKenzie McDonald. The future is promising for American tennis. Will this entire group emulate the years of Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Michael Chang or Jim Courier? We’ll have an answer soon.
To me, this is the best generation of the last ten years.
On the other side of the pond, Spain will have to work hard with the few candidates it has for players aged 22-24. As for the junior players, we need progress. Three of them have just reached the top 500. Will they follow in the footsteps of our great players? It’s a big challenge.
