The 2015 boys’ singles final sees the Swede Mikael Ymer take on the American Reilly Opelka.
You might think that the abbreviations (SWE) and (USA) next to the top youngsters indicates that little has changed down the years in the provenance of the world’s top junior talent. Bjorn Borg, Stefan Edberg, Mats Wilander, Thomas Enqvist and Andy Roddick were famously all Grand Slam junior champions.
But, looking back 40 years – to a year we’ve randomly picked as a potentially significant gap of two generations and another nod to commemorate the milestone anniversary of Arthur Ashe’s Championship victory – it's fascinating to see that the 1975 boys’ final was contested between Chris Lewis and Ricardo Ycaza from New Zealand and Ecuador respectively. Neither country is represented this year in either the boys’ or girls’ singles draws.
So how has the landscape of junior tennis ambition changed in that period?
This is a subject that probably requires the scope of a book to investigate fully – plus a thorough knowledge of global socio-political change in the last 40 years – but close scrutiny of the boys’ and girls’ draws in the 1975 and 2015 Championship programmes does throw up some intriguing facts. (Great Britain is not included in this overview due to the complicating factor of wild card entries.)
In 1975, the draws at Wimbledon for boys and girls comprised a total of 80 players drawn from 39 countries. Belgium was the nation best represented with six players followed by Nigeria, Mexico, Israel, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States who could all claim three competitors apiece.
Other countries which boasted more than one player of emerging talent included Egypt, Bulgaria, Pakistan, Ireland, Brazil, France, South Africa, Sweden, the USSR, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Argentina, Spain, Canada and Denmark.
Countries that had a striking presence in 1975 but no representative in 2015 amount to quite a swathe of the global map – and include Sudan, Iran, Sri Lanka, Ecuador, Uruguay, Mexico, Nigeria, Egypt, Israel, Ireland and Bulgaria.
In 2015, the 128 junior singles competitors originate from 42 countries. The United States is by some margin the most notable conveyor belt with 18 entrants across both draws, followed by Australia with nine, Russia with eight, Japan with six and Canada with five.
Other countries with multiple appearances include Argentina, Korea, Switzerland, Slovakia, Italy and France – all with four; Hungary, China and the Czech Republic hover just below in the chart with three; and the tennis fans in Poland, Norway, Portugal, India, Denmark, Romania and Brazil all have a brace of hopefuls to support.
It's among the list of countries with a sole representative here that most tellingly suggests the way tennis talent is now emerging from nations without a strong tradition in the game: Vietnam, Tunisia, Algeria, Indonesia, Peru, Greece, Estonia, Uzbekistan, the Philippines, Chile, Belarus and Colombia.
Surprisingly, Germany, Belgium, Slovakia, Ukraine, Serbia and Spain also had a player each competing at junior level in SW19, but, given their strong tradition, we might ask, why not more?
