Finding the Average Age of a First Time Grand Slam Champion
Taking a closer look at the average age of men's and women's first time champions, and examining if those averages have changed over the decades
How rare is it that we see someone aged 29 years or older (ie: Madison Keys in Australia) win their first Grand Slam title? Hint: Quite rare.
In the history of the Open Era (1968-present) there have been 57 different first time women’s champions, and 55 first time men’s champions, giving us 112 total first time champions combined.
On the women’s side, just 6/57 (10.5%) have been aged 29 or older at the time of their first Grand Slam title.
On the men’s side, just 4/55 (7%) have been aged 29 or older at the time of their first Grand Slam title.
Perform some basic addition and you will find that 10/112 (9%) first time Grand Slam champions were age 29 or older at the time of their first title.
In summary: what Madison Keys did is not common.
Finding The Average
Now that we have established that winning a first time Grand Slam title as someone aged 29+ years old is an uncommon occurrence, the question that must be asked next is what is the average age of a first time Slam winner.
In order to figure this question out I dug back in the archives to find the age of Grand Slam winners at the time of their first Grand Slam title. Here is what I found for both the men and the women:
(Note: ALL stats below are pulled from the Open Era only)
The average age of a first time Grand Slam champion in men’s tennis is 23.05 years old.
The average age of a first time Grand Slam champion in women’s tennis is 22.07 years old.
(List of men’s and women’s players are below. The number in parenthesis next to their name is the year they won their first title)
As we all know, Grand Slam winners vary greatly in the types of careers they go on to have after winning their first title. Some win just that one, others win a second, and some go on to win 5+. So, my next question was does the average age of a one time Grand Slam champ differ greatly from the age of a champion that goes on to win multiple Slams?
The table below highlights my findings:
A quick check of the data shows, if you want to win multiple Grand Slams you need to start young.
There have been 11 women in the history of the Open Era that have won 5+ Grand Slam titles, and 8/11 of them won their first as a teenager. No woman that was over the age of 21 at the time of their first Grand Slam title has gone on to win 5+ Slams.
It’s only fair that I should note here that Aryna Sabalenka is making a run at changing this stat. She won her first title at age 24, and currently sits at 3 Grand Slam wins and counting.
On the men’s side, there have been 12 men that have won 5+ Grand Slams over the course of their careers. 6/12 won their first as a teenager, and 10/12 won their first while age 21 or younger. Just 2 men (Agassi and Lendl) won their first majors over the age of 21 - Agassi was 22 and Lendl was 24. Interestingly, both of these men went on to win 8 Slam titles apiece.
It seems worth noting that both Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner currently appear on track to win 5+ Grand Slams over the course of their careers. Carlos was 19 at the time of his first title, while Jannik was 22 when he won his first. If Jannik manages to win more than 8 Slam titles, he will be the first man to do so after not having won his first title until age 22.
The Average Over The Decades
One last question I was curious about is if the average age of a Grand Slam champion has been trending upwards over time? As both science and medicine improve, we are seeing athletes perform at higher levels for longer periods of time.
To more closely examine this, I decided to find the average age by decades (I combined 1968 and 1969 with the 1970’s). In parenthesis next to each age I put the total number of first time winners that particular decade. The point of doing so is to illustrate how strong that average number is. For instance: there were just 3 first time winners on the men’s side through the 2010’s due to the dominance of the Big 3, so while that average age is higher, it’s also a smaller sample size (the women of the 1980’s had the same issue, just 3 first time winners due to the dominance of Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, and Steffi Graf).
I must say I was surprised by the findings. The men’s game has seen little movement relative to age, while the women’s game has seen a noticeable shift to older first time champions. I mean, look at the average age of a first time winner for the women in the 2010’s! We have a huge sample size from that decade, and the average age is 3.5 years older than the closest preceding decade. I additionally noticed while digging into data for the women’s game in the 2010’s that 10 of the 13 women in the history of the Open Era that won a first Grand Slam at 25 years or older did so from the year 2010 on.
Also interesting is the data for the men, but for the opposite reason of the women: there hasn’t been a particularly noticeable shift in age. Obviously the Big 3 have skewed more recent data (only 7 new champions in the last 15 years), but even so, the numbers haven’t moved a whole lot. The men’s game has had 3 players aged 30 or older become first time Slam champs and all 3 did it before the year 2000. With that said, there is some data we can cherry pick to make an argument that the men’s game could be shifting to a small degree more recently. For instance, Stan Wawrinka became the oldest first time champ (28) to go on to win 3 titles in his career during the 2010’s, and both Andy Murray and Stan are just 2 of 3 men’s players in the Open Era to go on to win 3 or more titles after winning their first at 25 years or older (the third player being the great Arthur Ashe).
The Takeaways
One of the consistent themes of these statistics is that if you want to go down in history as one of the all time greats in tennis (ie: win 5+ Grand Slams), you best get started at a young age. While the women’s game has seen a shift towards older players winning first time Grand Slams more recently, the most successful first time champ of the last 15 years on the women’s side, Iga Swiatek, still won her first Slam title at just 19 years old.
With that said, it’s important to remember that this data is just that, data. Data does not equal hard and fast rules. One of the best parts of sports is that what is possible is constantly being redefined. I fully expect that over the next 20+ years of tennis we will see old records (relative to age) broken, and new benchmarks set, and I, for one, can’t wait to watch it all unfold.
Thanks for reading,
The Tennis Guy