Women's tennis continues to look for its superstar

Hindustan Times

a day ago

New Delhi: For the first time since 1984, both the men's and women's Roland Garros singles finals featured the world No.1 and No.2. One of the big takeaways from this statistic was that the world's best players got through the draw as expected, and in the cruel Majors world the chances of that happening are very rare.
Still, seedings and rankings count for something. There are indicators of form, mindset and match-ups. That is usually true, but in the women's game you need to come prepared for everything and anything. Upsets have often been the order of the day and world No.361 Lois Boisson's run to the semi-final on Grand Slam debut while taking down seeds Elise Mertens, Jessica Pegula and Mirra Andreeva was an indication of that.
Coco Gauff really took to clay this year, winning in Paris after reaching the finals at Madrid and Rome. Her 18 match wins on the surface are a tour high. But what won her the Roland Garros final was heart. More than the game or the tactics, it was her spirit that prevailed.
But it doesn't always happen that way. Gauff, 22, is one of the undisputed stars of the women's game and her marketing potential is great too. But her game is still evolving. She can find a way past volatile players such as Aryna Sabalenka and Madison Keys, but can struggle against the more patient opponents.
The same is perhaps true of Sabalenka too. She no longer struggles with the mental side of the game as much as she once did but as the final showed us all, she hasn't quite managed to put that behind her completely. She is the world No.1 but she got that position after Iga Swiatek was hit with a reduction in ranking points for non-participation in mandatory tournaments. And sometimes, it looks like she lacks belief, this despite already winning three titles and reaching seven finals this year.
The third piece of the top group in women's tennis is Swiatek — a player who once looked set to rule the game. But the one-month doping ban she served early this year seems to have taken her off-track. She was the reigning queen of Roland Garros, but this year she seemed tentative.
And that perhaps is one way to describe how things are. Marketa Vondrousova, Gauff, Sabalenka, Swiatek, Barbora Krejcikova, Madison Keys — these are the names of the winners of the last eight Grand Slams in women's tennis. Six different winners. Three you'd recognise and three unpredictable talents.
It's chaotic on most days. And, some might argue, fun too. But many yearn for the days when Serena Williams ruled the roost. You'd have a Maria Sharapova to challenge her. And Justine Henin or Kim Clijsters or Venus Williams. There was a proper rivalry there and that is one thing that the women's game lacks currently.
The rivalry is what makes the superstar. And the superstar is who draws people to the stands.
Renowned tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou was asked to weigh in on why there were no women's matches scheduled at French Open during the night section this year. Not everyone would have liked his reply but he did make a point.
'Most of the people who go to stadiums are not core fans of tennis — they want to come back home and say 'I saw Djokovic' or 'I saw Alcaraz'. If they come back and they say 'I saw Swiatek', it's not the same,' said Mouratoglou.
He added: 'It's not only about leading players like Iga Swiatek, who is a four-time winner, and a three-time (reigning) winner at the moment. She's not a superstar like Serena when she was playing or Sharapova when she was playing.
'In 2021, I was coaching Serena and they scheduled her at night, it was the only women's match scheduled at night. She's a superstar. Even if it lasted one hour, people would come home and say: 'Wow, I have seen Serena Williams'.'
There is a lot of talk about how you shouldn't compare players across eras but that is exactly how the fans operate. They see a young player and then run that player against someone they used to root for in the past. It is a mental comparison – not always accurate but everyone does it.
The challenge for the current group of the players is to raise the level of their game to a point where the comparisons don't seem like a stretch anymore. And if someone can rise above the rest in doing that and stay there, that's when things will really start to get interesting.