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Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Best Professional Ranking for all ITF Boys World Junior Champions


I've had time to do some research the past couple of weeks and one project that I have always been interested in was the top ranking of all the ITF World Junior Champions, which began being named in 1978. Thanks to Wikipedia, it didn't take as long as I thought it might to chase down the rankings, but if I've gotten any wrong, please let me know. Many of the former ITF World Junior Champions are still active, so their highest ranking may change, but since rankings are frozen for a while, this seemed like a good time to research this. I'm sure others have done this, and a similar spreadsheet might be available elsewhere, but I wanted to methodically consider each champion for my own education.

Five of the 42 boys who have been ITF Junior World Champions reached No. 1 in the ATP rankings: Ivan Lendl, Stefan Edberg (who remains the only junior to win all four junior slams in the same year), Marcelo Rios, Roger Federer and Andy Roddick. Just 10 have so far failed to make the ATP Top 100, and only three have not cracked the ATP Top 500, with two of those just a few years removed from junior competition. The third, Sweden's Daniel Berta, who won the 2009 French Open boys title, played professionally until 2013, mostly at the Futures level, but he never won a title, with his ranking stalling out at 637.

For me, one of the most puzzling of the 10 who have not reached the Top 100 is Canada's Filip Peliwo, who reached all four junior slam finals in 2012, winning Wimbledon and the US Open. Although he did not display the firepower of some juniors, his quickness, consistency and competitive zeal seemed as if it was enough to overcome some of his physical limitations. Peliwo is still just 26, so it would be a mistake to make a judgment on his career now, but there was no reason to think he would not make the Top 50, as the next five ITF World Junior Champions after him have already done.

A direct link to the Google Drive document is here. I'll post the girls list later this week.


2 comments:

Dennis H said...

Sorry, the ranking table/chart didn't appear in the Chrome browser. Must be some formatting issue with your blog application. The ranking sure sounds interesting!

Colette Lewis said...

I use Chrome and it is definitely there, so could be related to ad blocker. I will post it another way for those who can't see it.