Making it in professional tennis is usually discussed in the terms of making it inside the Top 100 in either the ATP or WTA rankings. This is a lofty goal and most professional tennis players do not actually make it inside the Top 100. Although many very good tennis players never make this ranking milestone, (and it is certainly a very high bar) it is somewhat similar to a player who makes the NBA G-League but never makes the NBA or a minor league baseball player who never makes the Majors. These athletes are some of the best in the world, but never reached the highest pinnacles of their respective sports.
For purposes of discussion, we will focus on individuals that do reach the Top 100 in the ATP and WTA rankings as it is usually the ranking that is used as a definition of success in pro tennis. The main reason is that this is the approximate cutoff for direct entry into the four Grand Slam (main draw) tournaments and also provides direct acceptance into many of the higher level professional tournaments. If an athlete can keep the ranking inside the Top 100 that usually means they can earn a good living playing tennis.
Over the past decade I have directed a number of research studies looking at what it takes for players to make the Top 100 ranking both from a qualitative and quantitative perspective. These studies have included data collection and analysis of thousands of hours of information with over one million data points. The original quantitative analysis was performed back in 2014 and it had very specific goals of determining what the best players did to achieve a Top 10, Top 25, Top 50 and Top 100 ranking. This included analysis all tournament results, matches played, rankings earned in junior tournaments, ITF events and pro events. This included looking at which athletes were on certain pathways and which players were not on certain pathways. Predictive analytics was used to help explain which athletes were tracking to certain ranking goals. This information has been used for many different purposes whether from a federation, coaching, agent, or player perspective when determining whether to go straight to professional tennis or to attend and compete at the collegiate level.
Although many variables exist in determining whether a player will achieve a certain tennis ranking, the data obtained from these studies highlight the rather consistent pathway that most players take to a Top 10 ranking. The Top 100 ranking has more variability, but it also provides a very consistent range that players fit in during their junior careers. Although every player has a different path to the Top, the data consistently shows that we really do not have major outliers in our sport. It requires a long journey and hitting a series of measurable benchmarks throughout the junior career, transition pro career and professional career.
Below are some of the major highlights of this data. This is a very small example of some of the data and provides a nice summary of certain aspects for both male and female tennis players.
If you click on either image below it will take you to the full published study on the topic that you can read if you are looking for more of the science behind the studies.
ATP and ITF BOYS DATA
WTA and ITF GIRLS DATA
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