Why we have a Federer fail
Lots of press this morning about the ‘shock’ exit of Roger Federer in the US Open. But, as I have posted before, Federer is definitely in the twilight of his career. As a middle aged man, much as I hate to admit it, 32 is old in sporting terms. In Tennis, players turn pro at an average age of 18 and retire at 32, Federer is 32.
I love analysing all sorts of things to spot, and more importantly, anticipate things. So on my PC I have the career stats of all the top players on tour. The aim is pretty simple and that is to see when they peak. On the up its difficult to know what they are capable of, but it’s easy to spot the peak. When the pass that, I’ll start to view them as lay opportunities.
The interesting thing about Federer is that he had a much higher peak that most, so he really is one of the all time greats; but it’s quite easy to rebase all activity to match the general cycle of a players career. In the graph you can see we have plotted Federers progression alongside the normal career path and we get a pretty good fit. This path indicated that his peak years would be 2004 to 2007 before the decline started to set in. In fact he has hung on for a little bit more than most, but you can see that the rot has definitely set it. So I’ve been surprised, to see the ‘surprise’ at his decline.
If you are interested in Murray, his career tracks the average almost perfectly at the moment and that means he is in his peak year. He should be able to carry this for another year, possibly two, before he starts to get vulnerable. Because of the track he is on it was always very likely his best chance to win a grand slam would occur 2012-2014 and that is exactly what has happened. I was asked a few years ago if he would win Wimbledon and I said that he best chance would be in 2013, ta da!
I always have my eye on ‘up and comers’ as well, so when Murray sails into the sunset we should be able to look forward to Laura Robson peaking in 2017. Her best years should be either side of that. Something to look forward to!
Category: Tennis
