Shane Lambert looks at three aging veterans on tour and explains why he doesn't think they'll make a big match in their careers again.
Every year new the ATP Tour sees rising young players start to make a bigger and bigger impact on tour events and Grand Slam draws. In 2009, Juan Martin Del Potro made his dent on tour by making the Roland Garros semis and by winning the US Open title.
In 2010, Ernests Gulbis started to show a lot of promise as he ascended from being a fringe top 100 player on tour to being a player that looks like he will be seeded in next month's Australian Open.
But for every young player that rises, there has to be a flip side and looking ahead to 2011 you have to wonder which aging stars will slide deeper down the rankings, having already played in their last big match (a big match being a Masters semifinal/final or Grand Slam quarter/semi/final or an ATP World Tour Finals matches).
Nikolay Davydenko does not appear likely to make it into a big match again as he has not played effective tennis since returning from his wrist injury in 2010. Davydenko will turn 30 in June of 2011 and his ranking is already down to 22nd on tour.
The last big match that Davydenko played in was almost a year ago now as he fell to Roger Federer in the quarterfinals of the 2010 Australian Open. He was on top form heading into that match as he had won Shanghai and the ATP World Tour Finals not long beforehand.
However with the loss to Federer, Davydenko lost all momentum and his play, when he played, in the remainder of 2010 was lackluster, no doubt partly due to his wrist problems blighting him.
At Wimbledon 2010 the Russian fell to fringe top 100 player Daniel Brands although a second round loss on the grass court Slam is what we've come to expect from Davydenko. However a sign of things to come may have been delivered in Shanghai as Davydenko lost to Mischa Zverev, another young German, in the second round.
Even if Davydenko had an injury free season in 2011 he's not likely to make another Slam quarterfinal in my view and if he doesn't defend his ranking points in Melbourne next month, he might not even be seeded when the 2011 French Open comes around. And once he loses his seeding in Slams, it's just a downward spiral as the risk of drawing a force like Federer, Rafael Nadal, or Robin Soderling in an early round match becomes real.
Former world number 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero is currently ranked 29th in the world and he is another aging star that could be dropping soon. Ferrero will be turning 31 in February and despite winning three titles in 2010, the Spaniard has not made it into a big match since his impressive run to the Wimbledon 2009 quarterfinals.
All three of the titles Ferrero won in 2010 were at clay court events at the 250 level and while those results are keeping his ranking buoyed high enough to compete for Grand Slam seeding you have to wonder how long he can keep it up.
Ferrero has not contested a match in a tour recognized event since his third round loss at the US Open and late in the 2011 ATP season knee problems bothered the former French Open champion.
The good news with Ferrero is that he has virtually no ranking points to defend in January but unless he's 100% by February he could slide way out of the top 50 on tour as he won Costa Do Sauipe and Buenos Aires in Febuary 2010 while also making the Acapulco final - three results that netted him 800 ranking points of his current 1415 total.
Fernando Gonzalez is another player who could be Gonzo by the end of 2011.
Fernando Gonzalez's ranking began plummeting after the 2010 French Open as he failed to get past the second round. In 2009 he made a substantial run to the semis of Roland Garros and he looked good to make the finals as he held a 4-1 lead in the 5th set. However Robin Soderling came back in the set and in doing so he prevented Forehando from making his second career Grand Slam final.
Gonzalez did make the US Open 2009 quarters and that was the last time we saw his blistering forehands in a big match. He almost made the quarters in Melbourne in 2010 but he faltered against Andy Roddick in the round of 16 in what was a competitive match.
Gonzalez has hip problems, he's already ranked down at 68th, and the road back to the top 40 looks like it will be full of roadblocks for the former Australian Open finalist. Gonzalez turns 31 later this season and you can't feel too optimistic about his chances of getting back to Slam quarterfinal or a Masters semi.
The ATP Tour has seen aging players resurge and in a way, Ferrero's 2009 season is an example. Surely some veterans who are approaching 30 years of age or already past that age will prove their critics wrong. However there isn't enough room for all of them in the middle to late rounds of the big tournaments and it's tough to picture Davydenko, Ferrero or Gonzalez making the scene again.
They are all injury plagued players who can expect to face younger players in nearly all of their matches from here on out.
