Ivan Lendl had it rough.  When he started, he was the new kid on the block.  There was Connors.  There was Borg.  And although he and McEnroe were quite close in age, McEnroe matured earlier, so there was McEnroe.

Lendl played well starting about 1981 when he reached the French Open final.  He would make his mark by reaching the finals of the US Open in 1982 and 1983.  He won numerous tournaments during this period, and yet, those ahead of him made it tough, even when Borg retired.  At the end of his career, Agassi, Sampras, and to some extent, Becker and Edberg, who were just a little younger than Lendl, started to win.  Lendl’s best years were between 1985 and 1987 before other players began to get better than him.

Many of these stars broke out young.  Mats Wilander won the French at the age of 17.  Boris Becker won Wimbledon at the same age.  Indeed, Wilander went to win something like 7 titles the year after he had his breakthrough in 1982.  Despite all that success, Wilander didn’t reach number 1 until much later.  Edberg was good when he was young.

Federer showed some promise when he was young, especially beating Sampras at Wimbledon, but didn’t start to pile up the records until he was about 22 or 23.  Meanwhile, Nadal won the French Open at the age of 19.  Djokovic reached his first Slam final around the age of 20.  Murray reached it around the age of 21.

Since the group of Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray came up, only del Potro seems like he might be able win another Slam with Tsonga, Berdych, and Ferrer being solid maybes.  If Soderling hadn’t gotten sick and taken over a year off the tour, maybe he’d be next.

But there’s been no really good young player lately.  The ones you think of all have some issues.  Milos Raonic has a great serve, aggressive shots, but it’s not clear he can use groundstrokes to get out of problems.  His footspeed is also an issue.  The same can be said of Querrey and Isner, though both are hardly young.  Ryan Harrison still struggles to keep even with any top player.  Grigor DiMitrov has improved, but the same can be said for him.  Bernard Tomic appears to have slipped since doing a decent job at the Australian Open.  Players seem to have figured out how to play him.  Kei Nishikori struggles against the big servers.  Of the bunch, there isn’t anyone who is like a human backboard, a la Ferrer or Nadal.  If they’re successful, they seem to do it with power, and that off the serve.  The power on the groundies is rolling the dice.  Maybe it goes in.  Maybe it doesn’t.

The question is whether the next great star will come out of this bunch or whether it will come from someone even younger.

There is another possible trend.  It might come from someone that is learning to tame their game.

In particular, a player like Tomas Berdych has had to learn to play better when pulled out wide, as well as keep his emotions in check (no pun intended–OK, maybe a little).  He was seen as talented many years ago, but has only recently had nice spurts of very productive play.  Mardy Fish started his career well, but not threatening Slams.  He had an excellent 2011, but has struggled a bit in 2012.  Isner and Tipsarevic are late bloomers as is Juan Monaco.

The last guy to really surprise the tennis world was Juan Martin del Potro who appeared to come out of nowhere in 2008 and win four titles in a row and make a reasonably deep US Open run.  2009 was a breakthrough year for Robin Soderling.  2008 was also very good for Andy Murray, though he was already around 10 in the world at the start of the year.  2007 was the year of Djokovic.

2010-2012 has not produced anyone really interesting.  We were thrilled when Milos Raonic won a title, but San Jose is tiny for a title, not like Mats Wilander or Michael Chang winning the French at 17.

Is the trend towards players getting more mature?  They used to say serve and volleyers–when they were common–took some time to mature.

Meanwhile, players like Federer, Djokovic, Nadal, and Murray can continue to dominate because no one seems ready to step up and take charge.  That’s good for their career, but it means that they can continue to win titles even as they age.