Article examines the players with potential who will still be below the age of 23 come January 1st, 2011.
The ATP Tour would look better in 2011 if a fresh young player burst onto the scene and started threatening the already established stars. I'm not predicting that it will happen as I think that 2011, if it does not have a healthy Juan Martin Del Potro, will simply be a race between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
However tennis youngsters are a surprising bunch and we've seen young guns sucker punch veterans before so the ones with talent are worth lookinging at.
Here's a look at the talent in the top 50 who were born after December 31st, 1987.
Marin Cilic: Croatia, 22 years of age, ranked 14th (all rankings November 29th, 2010 unless stated)
Born: September 28th, 1988
After making the quarterfinals of the 2009 US Open with a win over Andy Murray in the 4th round, Cilic was starting to look like a major force on the ATP Tour. In his first event of 2010, Cilic ran the tables at ATP Chennai to take down a 250 level title.
Shortly thereafter Cilic tossed in the best Slam result of his career as he made the Australian Open semis, beating a blighted Juan Martin Del Potro along the way as well as the dangerous hard courter Andy Roddick.
Then in Zagreb, another 250 level event, Cilic took another title and appeared destined to have a huge impact on the tour from then on out.
But in a lot of ways Cilic has not really been heard from since those early 2010 events with the small exception of a finals appearance at ATP Munich.
Since Zagreb, Cilic has not beaten a player ranked higher than Thomaz Bellucci, the young Brazilian clay courter and a player who was only ranked 27th at the time of their October match in Beijing.
If Cilic does not open 2011 strong then he will fail to defend tons of ranking points and he might find himself out of the top 30 early in 2011.
In looking to watch Cilic play at ATP Toronto in August, I made a point to watch his first round match and it's a good thing I did as Viktor Troiki eliminated the Croat in the opening round. On the cart back to the player's trailers, Cilic looked downtrodden, confused, and soul searching (see photo).
Cilic has a long way to go before he can be considered a major Grand Slam threat but it's my opinion that there are multiple Slam titles in his future although not likely any in 2011 unless he gets back to the form he had in late 2009 and early 2010 - and then improves on it.
He stands 6'6" and there is nobody ranked higher than him right now who is also younger and that is generally a good predictor of success as he approaches his athletic prime while many older than him start to trail off.
Ernests Gulbis: Latvia, 22 years of age, ranked 24th
Born: August 30th, 1988
Ernests Gulbis is below the radar in many ways on the ATP Tour. He rarely garners much consideration in talk about the future of tennis but the bottom line is that only Cilic is younger than Gulbis in terms of top 20 players.
Gulbis took down his maiden ATP title in 2010 as he won at Delray Beach in the USA (250 level).
Gulbis also defeated Roger Federer, ranked #1 at the time, in a clay court match from the Rome Masters enroute to making the semifinals. Importantly the Latvian was one of the only players on tour to take a set off of Rafael Nadal during the clay court swing and that made Gulbis one of the top 10 favorites to win Roland Garros 2010 (l. to Benneteau in the first round; retirement).
Gulbis made the French Open quarters in 2008 so he has been on a big stage before.
In 2010, besides knocking off Fed, Gulbis had wins over Mikhail Youzhny (two wins), Radek Stepanek, and Tomas Berdych. If the Latvian remains healthy he could surprise many with a top 10 appearance in 2011 however ascending to about 15th to 17th may be more realistic.
He is a clay court talent that might be able to win an event like Barcelona provided that Nadal does not contest that draw as he did not in 2010. Gulbis would do well to enter the South American clay court events in Acapulco and Buenos Aires as they may be a source of easy ranking points for the rising star.
Importantly, Gulbis was ranked 89th in the November 30th, 2009 rankings so he is clearly heading in the right direction but he still remains a very peripheral threat to win a Grand Slam for 2011.
Thiemo de Bakker: Netherlands, 22 years of age, ranked 43rd
Born: September 19th, 1988
Thiemo De Bakker is a noteworthy player on tour right now as well and only Marin Cilic is both younger than him and ranked higher.
Like Gulbis, De Bakker is a clay courter who showed some promise during the 2010 clay court season. 'Debakkhander' had cleaned up on clay court challengers in 2009 and in 2010 he confirmed his position as a bonified Tour player when he made the semifinals of ATP Barcelona (l. to Soderling).
Very poor results on the hard court surface however promise to make ascending into the top 20 in 2011 very difficult for De Bakker. As a case in point, he failed to advance past the second round of any hard court event post-US Open this past season.
De Bakker, however, is heading in the right direction as he was ranked 93rd on November 30th, 2009. A fortunate draw might seen the Dutch player make the semis of Roland Garros in 2011 as he's capable of beating someone like Andy Murray on the dirt.
Alexandr Dolgopolov: Ukraine, 22 years of age, ranked 48th
Born: November 7th, 1988
Alexandr Dolgopolov (formerly Oleksandr Dolgopolov) is a second generation tennis player who went 21-23 on tour in 2010 and he has ascended in the last year from a November 30th, 2009 ranking of 132nd. He did not do much to garner big headlines in 2010 however he did take out an off-form Fernando Gonzalez in the second round of the French Open (just a year after 'Forehando' had made the semis of the event).
In the context of Gonzalez's injuries however, the win cannot be taken at face value as a genuine win over a top 15 player.
But Dolgopolov did have wins over Mikhail Youzhny, Marcos Baghdatis, and Nicolas Almagro in 2010 and those imply that he may ascend into the top 20 in 2011. The flip side of those wins however is that the Ukrainian had many losses to players outside of the 30.
While improvement can be expected from Dolgopolov he looks limited by height as he stands at just 6' tall. He attempts to compensate for the lack of height with a high reach on his serve but the fact remains that he had just a 55% first serve percentage in 2010 and that should keep his tournament results lacking in 2011.
Look for Dolgopolov to make the top 30 in the 2011.
Other young notables that did not make my chosen criteria
Thomaz Bellucci did not quite make the birthday cutoff point I chose for this article (missed by 1 day) but he can be expected to make clay court semifinal appearances in 2010. His hard court results are sporadic however and that might keep the Brazilian from making a huge impact in 2011.
Juan Martin Del Potro is better than all of the players looked at in this article in terms of pure talent with the possible exception of one listed below. However injury has lead to the 2009 US Open champion's ranking dropping down to 259th in the world and due to that he did not make my ranking criteria for this article.
Kei Nishikori is just 20 years old and he is currently ranked 100th in the world. He appears to be a better pure talent than many of the players looked at in this article and he's already made the 4th round of a Grand Slam. Injury has blighted Japan's top player at times but 2011 may be a promising year although he is limited by height at just 5'10".
Grigor Dimitrov appears to be the chosen one in terms of up-and-comers as the 19 year old is ranked 106th in the ATP rankings. In 2010 he wrecked the challenger draws and displayed the kind of form at that level that we've come to expect from future world number 1s.
Dimitrov is the player who will likely stop players like Dolgopolov, Bellucci, De Bakker, and Gulbis time and time again in the years to come much like Federer almost invariably stops players like Fernando Gonzalez, Robin Soderling, Andy Roddick, and Nikolay Davydenko.
American Ryan Harrison is still just 18 years old and he is ranked 173rd with a match-win from the US Open (d. Ljubicic). Harrison is one of the youngest players to ever win a match on tour and like Del Potro and Dimitrov, Harrison is a potential phenom.
