By Art Jimenez
Caution. This column is about professional tennis and addressed to tennis players, enthusiasts, and fans. Or to anyone who wants to know some champion lady players and their kind of sport.
Recent events in professional tennis prompted me to look closer into the sport and formulated a theory that should have manifested itself as early as 2016. Or if we want to be more evident, just the last two years. My theory is this: That the professional ladies’ tennis baton has passed… no, the baton was snatched by youngsters!
“Move over, older sisters,” seems to be the silent message now to the professional veterans of so many a Grand Slam battle although they are just at the threshold of turning 30 or a bit older. Tennis is a very rigorous, exacting, demanding, and exhausting sport that is naturally age-driven, like competitive basketball but unlike golf.
That the youngsters have taken over is seen from the ages of recent past winners and the seeming inability of ageless Serena Williams to capture a record-setting 24 grand slam victories since her last win at the Australian Open in 2017. Born on September 26, 1981, Serena is now 39 years old.
Another solid proof is seven of the last eight Grand Slam in ladies single events were won by only five players under 23 years of age. These were Japanese Naomi Osaka who won three tournaments, Ashleigh Barty of Australia, Bianca Andreescu of Canada, Sofia Kenin of the United States, and Iga Swiatek of Poland.
Simona Halep of Romania took the eighth event, the 2019 Wimbledon, at 28 years of age. She won her first slam at the 2018 French Open.
Too, four of the five players won their Open trophies at the expense of previous grand slam winners.
Osaka, then 21, had a slam in each year from 2018-2020, namely two US Open and one Australian Open. All of her opponents in the Finals own grand slam trophies: 23 for Serena Williams of the US and two each for Petra Kvitova of Czechoslovakia, and Belorussian Victoria Azarenka.
Nineteen year old Bianca Andreescu shocked Serena Williams in two straight sets in the 2019 US Open.
Kenin, 21, defeated two-time slam winner Garbiñe Muguruza of Spain. That victory made Kenin the youngest Australian Open champion since Maria Sharapova of Russia won in 2008 at age 20.
In turn, teenager Iga Swiatek steamrolled Kenin in two straight sets at the ensuing French Open in just one hour and 24 minutes. The French Open was also her first slam win. And at 19, she is the youngest French Open women’s titlist since 18-year old Monica Seles in 1992.
Barty, 23, won the 2019 French Open at the expense of upcoming teenage sensation Marketa Vondrousova of Czechoslovakia.
Btw,Wimbledon 2020 was cancelled due to public health concerns linked to COVID-19.
Other tennis stars below 25 years old and who garnered grand slam victories in 2016 and 2917 were the following: Muguruza was 23 when she won the French Open in 2016 and 24 when she won at Wimbledon the following year. Jelena Ostapenko was only20 when she snared the French Open in 2017 while Sloan Stephens was 24 when she was awarded the 2017 US Open trophy.
Tennisters above 25 years of age have shown their mettle by capturing two slam wins in 2016-2017. These were Angelique Kerber of Germany who was 28 years old when she captured the Australian Open in 2016 and US Open also in the same year. And second was Serena Williams who, at 35, got the Wimbledon championship in 2016 and the following Australian in January 2017. Serena’s 23 wins is a record that could not be arguably bettered in the current “Open” era.
“Open” era refers to the time (starting 1968) when the heretofore amateur grand slams “opened” the four tournaments to professional tennis players.
Grand Slam 101
For the uninitiated, the Grand Slam refers to the four annual tennis tournaments I have been mentioning above. They are called such for a number of reasons: prestige, prize money, ranking points, public attraction and attendance, number and strength of competition, and long best of five-set matches for men. Grand slams are also known as “majors.”
Also, a player who wins all four tennis tournaments in the same calendar year is said to accomplish a calendar Grand Slam.
Only two achieved the feat in the sport’s “Open” era and both were ladies, namely Margaret Court of Australia in 1970 and Steffi Graf of West Germany in 1988.
Each major lasts a fortnight or two weeks and is scheduled chronologically. This 2020 season however has a different sequence due most probably to the Wimbledon cancellation. Its 2020 calendar started with the Australian Open played at the acrylic-topped hard courts of Melbourne Park from January 20-February 2. Next is the French Open held at the clay courts of Stade Roland-Garros in Paris. The stadium is named after the French hero fighter pilot of World War I.
Third is Wimbledon held on the grass courts of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in London and slated in July, except this year when it was cancelled due to the pandemic.
The fourth and final venue is the US Open Tennis Championships contested on acrylic hard courts of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, NY.
The 2021 Grand Slam season starts with the Australian Open in late January. We shall widen our eagle eye scope to cover not only the semi-finalists but the quarter finalists and see what their ages are or if they belong to the grand slam winners from 2019 to 2020.
The results will either reinforce my theory or weaken it.
That, surely, will be worth the wait.
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