The Perfect Size for a 10sPlayer

[don_budge]

Let's look into this a bit...lobndropshot if you would be so kind. In separate posts starting with the smallest height list in chronological order the player, the year and the championship. Then we will have a clearer picture perhaps how size, racquet size, court engineering are related to each other.

It is not enough to say tennis players are getting taller. We must take into consideration all of the factors that we can in order to understand the ramifications. The list of heights is around 200, so maybe fifty years of Slams. This will include 20 years of classic tennis and 30 years of post 1984 tennis...the culmination point of classic to "modern" tennis.

klacr has made some rather interesting statements that demand clarification.

[gzhpcu]

The game used to be slower. Equipment, balls all resulted in a slower game. I find this favors the smaller, more mobile players, pushers like Bitsy Grant, Beppe Merlo, Harold Salomon, Tiriac, Brad Gilbert. The serves were much slower.

Now everything is faster, and so the power players dominate: these are taller. They still need mobility, so that the very tall players like Isner, etc. are out of the optimal bandwidth for overall good play...

[lobndropshot]

I would love to dig into this a little further. I play to make a plot and line graph height by year. Give me until Wednesday. The question is should I do the grand slams separately?

[don_budge]

Digging...Size, who, how many and when...

I would love to dig into this a little further. I play to make a plot and line graph height by year. Give me until Wednesday. The question is should I do the grand slams separately?

You got me curious with your post about the heights of Grand Slam champions...

Grand Slam Titles by height
5'7" 8
5'8" 5
5'9" 7
5'10" 9
5'11" 35
6'0" 24
6'1" 57
6'2" 25
6'3" 15
6'4" 9
6'5" 1
6'6" 1

...so I dug out the heights of the champions for the past 50 years. There were no heights available for Manuel Santana, who captured 4 championships during the period of my dig, or for the 1968 Australian Open champion Bill Bowrey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Grand_Slam_men's_singles_champions

Here's a bit of a breakdown of who, how many and when...

5' 8"- (8) Laver (5) 1968-1969, Kodes (3) 1970-1973

5' 9"-(8) Rosewall (4) 1968-1972, Kriek (2) 1981-1982, Chang (1) 1989, Gaudio (1) 2004

5' 10"-(10) Roche (1) 1966, Connors (8) 1974-1983, Orantes (1) 1975

5' 11"-(35) Borg (11) 1974 -1981, Vilas (4) 1977-1979, McEnroe (7) 1979-1984, Agassi (8) 1992-2003, Muster (1) 1995, Hewitt (2) 2001-2002, Johansson (1) 2002, Costa (1) 2002

6' 0"-(29) Emerson (8) 1964-1967, Newcombe (7) 1967-1975, Nastase (2) 1972-1973, Panatta (1) 1976, Tanner (1) 1977, Gerulaitis (1) 1977, Wilander (7) 1982-1988, Cash (1) 1987, Ferrero (1) 2003

6' 1"-(54) Ashe (2) 1968-1975, Gimeno (1) 1972, Edmonson (1) 1976, Sampras (14) 1990-2002, Courier (4) 1991-1993, Rafter (2) 1997-1998, Federer (17) 2003-2012, Nadal (13) 2005-2013

6' 2"-(23) Lendl (8) 1984-1990, Edberg (6) 1985-1992, Bruguera (2) 1993-1994, Roddick (1) 2003, Djokovic (6) 2008-2013

6' 3"-(15) Stolle (2) 1965-1966, Becker (6) 1985-1996, Kafelnikov (2) 1996-1999, Kuerten (3) 1997-2001, Moya (1) 1998, Murray (2) 2012-2013

6' 4"-(8) Smith (2) 1971-1972, Noah (1) 1983, Gomez (1) 1990, Stich (1) 1991, Safin (2) 2000-2005, Ivanisevic (1) 2001

6' 5"-(1) Krajicek (1) 1996

6' 6"-(1) Del Potro(2) 2009

The U. S. Open has been played on hard courts since 1978. Previous to that it was a grass court tournament...except for the three years it was played on Har-Tru. John McEnroe debuted at the U. S. Open on the Har-Tru in 1975 at the qualifying...he lost in the finals of the qualifying in an infamous match against one Zan Guerry. The Australian Open was played on grass originally and changed to hard courts in 1988.

Digging out this information led to some very interesting information. I went from the list of Grand Slam champions then to the ATP website to get the heights of the players. Retrieving the heights by using two players at a time in the head to head option I got a great idea how these guys were doing head to head through the ages. Some surprises.

At any rate...there are some interesting conclusions that you can read into this considering the changes in the game and the equipment.

[stotty]

Retrieving the heights by using two players at a time in the head to head option I got a great idea how these guys were doing head to head through the ages. Some surprises.

Such as...?

[don_budge]

Richard Gonzales...

By the way the ATP website has Richard Gonzales listed at 6' 2". The model of my coaching paradigm. I think Don Budge must have been 6' 1" or so.

[lobndropshot]

I found ken rosewall at 5'7"

[don_budge]

Give or take...an inch

I found ken rosewall at 5'7"

From the ATP website...where did you get your heights?

http://www.atpworldtour.com/Players/Head-To-Head.aspx?pId=R075&oId=L058

He was shorter than normal...comparatively speaking.

[lobndropshot]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Rosewall

[lobndropshot]

I went to the ATP website and looked at all top 10 ATP players from 1974-2013. I found out average height for a top 10 player is 6'2/3". The min was 5'6" Harold Solomon and the max was 6'9" John Isner. Give me more time and I will do more analysis.

[tennis_chiro]

check eras

I went to the ATP website and looked at all top 10 ATP players from 1974-2013. I found out average height for a top 10 player is 6'2/3". The min was 5'6" Harold Solomon and the max was 6'9" John Isner. Give me more time and I will do more analysis.

If you are going to do that work, then you should consider showing the averages for 3 or 4 eras since 1968 when it went open or 1973 when the ATP was founded. From '74 it's 40 years. I'd like to see the change in those 4 different decades: '74 to '83, '84 to '93, '94 to '03 and '04 to '13.

The trend will show you the real changes. I think there is a big one the last 10 years.

don

[lobndropshot]

I will only be able to do 70s 80s 90s and 2000s. I actually think the game has gotten shorter since the 90s but we will see after I crunch the numbers.

[gzhpcu]

Pancho Gonzales was 6'2". Donald Budge was 6'1". Jack Kramer was 6'2". Bill Tilden was 6'2".

[lobndropshot]

In doing my number I used a somewhat arbitrary measure. I used the year a player first showed up in the top 10.

Averages by era
73-82 5.968 feet tall
83-92 6.067 feet tall
93-02 6.111 feet tall
03-12 6.111 feet tall

[lobndropshot]

Does anyone have any information on Alex METREVELI?

I can't find much

Thanks