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Which of the following will reach top 10 in the world?

Future Top 10 Predictions

10K views 74 replies 46 participants last post by  RU90 
#1 · (Edited)
To see how hard it is to predict the career-highs of tennis players, here is a group of young WTA players who have little to no experience at the tour level. You pick which ones you believe will reach the top 10 in the world rankings at some point in their careers and discuss why. Most of these names should be familiar. Here is the kicker: none of them have been ranked in the top 100.

Feel free to add your own "wild cards," as long as they've never been ranked in the top 100 and are currently under the age of 21.

It will be neat to re-visit this in some years' time to see how right or wrong we are. :cool:
 
#2 ·
Muguruza - She has the power game and a decent enough serve to boot, and I think she can develop into a capable volleyer. What's missing now is belief. She actually competes very well, but if she believed in her ability to close out matches more she'd be a real force. I think she'll get to the top 10 and contend for slams by the time she's in her mid-20s.

Keys - Has a monster game and, most encouraging, a great serve. Just needs consistency and maturity. It'll come.

I think Robson has loads of talent as well. If she can stay healthy she could make a run to the top as well.
 
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#7 ·
If Franckie can get her mental game together she could be in the top 10, Townsend has potential too, but she has to get fitter or else she won't be able to play consistently at a high level, which is required to be top 10. The other girls seem unimpressive or way too early to judge.
 
#8 ·
I think Townsend has the most talent out of all these girls (well, some I've never seen play). I do agree she will have to get fitter to sustain a top 10 level of play, but that is most girls.
 
#10 ·
Including Lottner, Kontaveit, Kovinic over Konjuh? :lol:
I only picked players who have never been ranked in the top 100 to make this more difficult. ;)

Kəv.;52087513 said:
Kovinic should not be on the list with those girls :spit:
Why not? She is the oldest here, but still meets the criteria. :p
 
#24 ·
Taylor would be top-100 by now had she not quit ITF tournaments after winning the French Open ITF contest in Miami. Her desperate attempt to rejoin ITF at the end of the year was bad. She was in no swing to win matches. Taylor needs better coaching and better scheduling. Otherwise, she'll never make it.
 
#13 ·
No way Townsend will ever make the top 10. :lol:

Also :unsure: at Kontaveit, Lottner, Kovinic, Osaka, and Dodin being up there.

Abanda has too many technical deficiencies, Kulichkova's game doesn't seem to have anything special in it to bring her to the next level. But I get a good feeling from both of them.

Bellis and Xu are still quite young. I have already been more impressed watching Bellis and her professionalism than a lot of the other girls on this list. Call me biased but I can definitely see her in the top 10 at some point. Xu is good as well, but haven't seen enough of her in the pros to form an opinion.
 
#15 ·
No way Townsend will ever make the top 10. :lol:
Can you expand on this? IMO, this girl has pretty much all the shots. Great serve, good groundstrokes, volleys are great, movement is pretty damn good (considering what people say about her "fitness"...). Most of all, I'm impressed by her mentality--she's always looking to move forward and in to the net to finish points (and often does). You can't teach that level of all around court sense and smart aggressiveness, IMO.
 
#14 · (Edited)
For CiCi and Shilin it's too early to rate them in the context of their future it but I see big potential in them, for sure (Look at the ranking of CiCi) :worship:
The same goes for Aiava, Schmiedlova, Ostapenko or also Zhuk and Alibalic
In my opinion Lottner, Kontaveit, Kovinic and Kulichkova aren't contenders for the Top 10 or 20 at all - they just have a basic game without any big weapons but of course I would like to see them thrive :yeah:
And looking at Townsend, Abanda and Osaka I am very positive ;) But all of them have to improve their fitness and no comment on Franckie's footwork and suppleness :eek:
Océane Dodin: Just haven't saw a lot from her so far but seems to be kind of talented with her powerful strokes
 
#32 · (Edited)
Hmmm, the never been in the Top 100 part is what makes it really difficult. Even famous coaches with their own academies get it wrong a lot of the time for whatever reason.

If we look at how many Junior Grand Slam Winners between 1995 and 2010 have gone on to become significant players, which i'm defining as a Top 10 peak singles ranking OR at least one Grand Slam Singles Semi-Final, the result is that only 13/52 (25%) have gone on to become significant players. This includes 5/12 (41.66%) with multiple Grand Slam Junior Titles and 8/40 (20%) with only 1 Junior Grand Slam Title.

Furthermore, 7 of the 11 multi-Grand Slam Champions of the 21st century so far never won a Junior Singles Slam.

If we look at the first player born in each calendar year to be ranked in the Top 100 since 1982 and whether they have gone on to become a significant player/ the most significant player born in that year you see the following:

1982: Mirjana Lucic Baroni
1983: Jelena Dokic / Kim Clijsters
1984: Lina Krasnotoutskaya
1985: Myriam Casanova
1986: Dinara Safina
1987: Maria Sharapova
1988: Tatiana Golovin
1989: Nicole Vaidisova
1990: Tamira Paszek
1991: Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
1992: Christina McHale
1993: Michelle Larcher De Brito
1994: Laura Robson
1995: Madison Keys*
1996: Donna Vekic*
1997: Belinda Bencic*

Key:
Most successful player born that year
Significant but not most successful player born that year
No significant player born that year (to date)
Not significant player, other significant players born that year
* denotes, where the color is orange, that the player would be considered by most to be the most significant player born that year (to date).

Note: I'm using the same criteria for defining a significant player

The above data shows that predicting before a player has even reached top 100 can be so difficult it verges on becoming a crap shoot.

But just for the hell of it i'm going to participate and say Xu Shilin :lol:
 
#39 ·
Mynx would be closest if she wasn't MonoNett until Wimbledon :inlove: She was even injured after 1 week in Asia and she is still almost Top 50 on the race to Olympics.

Townsend will never reach the top unless she improves her fitness. Her BBBing isn't good enough for her to win every point in less than 5 shots.
 
#42 ·
lmfao @ townsend leading this poll. 99% of TF is so clueless.
 
#46 ·
only 37, mostly Americans i'm sure.
 
#44 ·
Fitness is only the start of Townsend's problems. She has no idea about constructing points, which nullifies her touch skills, and she's too easy to figure out for other players. Every time I saw her this year, her opponent would just hit behind her and win the point every time, even the high schooler Oosterhout knew what to do. In any case, she's barely clinging on to the top 300 these days.

I didn't expect Abanda to have such a bad year. Thought she'd be able to stick around in Slam qualy range at the bare minimum yet she's sunk to the 300-400 territory and can't even win matches against ITF players.

Bellis has had ill-timed injuries but when she's played she's mostly confirmed her promise (won another 25K, R3 in Miami, Q3 at the USO). A year out of the spotlight might be good for her development, anyway.

Dodin had an odd year, strange scheduling and bad losses but made good use of her Slam WCs...but then flopped indoors. She and Kulichkova did a lot to convince me they'll be top 30 players eventually but still too one-dimensional to call potential top tenners.

Osaka will make a big move next year, I feel. Might be interesting to do this poll for this year's teenagers outside the top 100 - Chirico, Osaka, Soylu, Kalinina, Stewart, Fridman, Xu, Galfi...
 
#45 ·
Osaka will make a big move next year, I feel.
I agree. Doi, Hibino, and Osaka are all rising at the moment. There's also Nara, but I don't know what level form she's in.

These Japanese girls remind me of the Italian group just starting out. I don't think they are as friendly with each other as the Italians were though. But the competition and rivalry will motivate them to work harder. I feel the same with Bencic and Bacsinszky.
 
#49 ·
They have some limits like, body structure, height, even lack of drive and talent compared with Europeans.

Just look how many chinese are for a few years now between top 100-250.
Tennis is not a characteristic sport for Asiatics even if aroused more interest in recent years due to accelerated economic growth of the area..........
 
#50 ·
Asians have lack of drive and talent compared to Europeans? :bolt:

Not sure if you mean to sound as racist as you are coming off, but wow. And sorry to tell you, Tennis has a deep history with Japan, the Tokyo tournament has been around since the 70's. And there have been several Japanese players in the top ten. You are acting as if Asia=China.
 
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