By Bill Simons
It wasn’t a miracle or a matter of immaculate conception. But for years, American tennis fans became used to young girls emerging, seemingly out of nowhere, and soaring to the heights of the game.
It seemed automatic, a brainless cinch—no problemo. It was easy to take it all for granted. There, from a Flordia public court, was America’s sweetheart, Chris Evert. Right on her heels, in her homemade pinafore dresses, was the elfin but tenacious Tracy Austin. Then came Jennifer Capriati, giggling but powerful, and Lindsay Davenport, with her imposing “Big Babe” groundies. Last but not least, two wonders from one hood: lanky Venus Williams and her little sister, Serena. Who knew the sport’s future would arrive straight outta Compton?
The girl-goodness seemed endless. But things took a distinctly Biblical turn. After far more then seven years of bounty, there descended more than seven years of WTA drought. Yes, Serena and the aging Venus (to widely varying degrees) still did their dramatic thing. Nonetheless, fans asked: where are the bright new faces?
Well, meet the new guard, a group of eager American wannabes peppering the top 100. After a lengthy dry spell, American tennis has a cadre of emerging female prospects: Sloane Stephens, Madison Keys, Jamie Hampton, Taylor Townsend, Lauren Davis, Mallory Burdette, Shelby Rogers, and a resurgent Bethanie Mattke-Sands.
Incredibly, America has more players—12—in the top 100 than any other country, not to mention developing talents such as former junior No. 1 Taylor Townsend, 17. Some of the US dozen are young, such as 18-year-old Madison Keys and 19-year-old Lauren Davis. Some are veterans: Varvara Lepchenko is 26, and Bethanie Mattek-Sands, currently rocketing up the rankings, is 28. Some, like Stanford whiz Mallory Burdette, 22, did college. Most did not. Many have athletic parents: 20-year-old Sloane Stephens’ dad was an NFL running back, and her mom was an All-American swimmer. Some have scored huge breakthroughs: now 21, Melanie Oudin crafted one high-profile upset after another at the ’09 US Open, downing Maria Sharapova, Elena Dementieva, and Nadia Petrova. Many have intriguing bios that involve adversity: Lepchenko left the grinding poverty of her native Uzbekestan for the US; Stephens has overcome the deaths of her dad and stepdad.
American women’s tennis is now alive and well, with talk of a new generation—the Sloane generation, if you will. Skeptics have cautioned patriotic zealots to cool it. “Not so fast,” comes the sensible warning. Still, throughout the American quarters of Roland Garros, one feels a surge of heady optimism. When IT asked Jamie Hampton whether the new generation could actually produce a Grand Slam champion, she barely hesitated, saying: “I think so, for sure.”
To break down the players’ prospects, I sat down in the French Open press room with IT Senior Editor Matt Cronin:
Bill Simons/Inside Tennis: Sloane Stephens had a wonder year last season, then she beat Serena to reach the Australian Open semis. She’s ranked No. 17 and is the youngest player in the top 20, but she had a rugged spring on and off the court. What does she need to do now?
Matt Cronin: She’s got to mentally settle, get control of where she is emotionally, and decide what type of person she wants to be off-court, because I think that transfers on-court. She’s got tremendous potential: great forehand, great speed, good serve, and she’s a big fighter with a pretty good understanding of the game. She’s already top 20. Clearly, she’s got top 10 potential. The question is, does she have top 5 potential, and can she really compete for Grand Slam titles? I would say yes, if she continues to compete hard and listens well. But there’s always a possibility she could fall back in the rankings if she finds out she actually doesn’t like all the attention. And with her provocative personality, she’s going to be getting plenty of it.
IT: Bottom line, she’s the best of our young prospects?
MC: I would say she’s the best of the young prospects now, but Madison Keys is right there in terms of potential, she’s just younger than Sloane. She hasn’t quite physically developed.
IT: But Madison has big strokes, great strokes.
MC: She has the best first serve of any young player, period, that I’ve seen on tour right now. She’s got a Venus-and-Serena type of serve, massive power off the ground, and a good return. She has to work on her movement, she needs to be a little bit fitter, and she needs to learn how to construct points. She’s got a huge, huge upside.
IT: In terms of upside and potential, who would you put next: Jamie Hampton, Taylor Townsend, or Varvara Lepchenko?
MC: Jamie had Victoria Azarenka on the ropes at the Australian Open and she should have put her away. But her nerves got to her and she started to cramp up. I like her game when she is under control. At 23, she’s not the youngest player out there, and it’s taken her awhile to meet her potential. But she hits very hard, she competes well, she has pretty good variety. You can tell she likes to fight. She is all tennis all the time, with not a lot of other stuff going on. The big question, aside from her back problem, is whether she can close out matches against the other elite players. She did a good job of it today against the Czech Lucie Safarova [who she beat 7-6 (5), 3-6, 9-7 in the first round]. Lucie is not an elite player, but she is very good. So now the question is, will Jamie be able to do that consistently? She bottles a lot of things up inside. You can see that with her personality. She’s not outspoken, but stroke-wise and speed-wise she’s good. Clearly, she has top 20 potential.
Varvara Lepchenko is 26, so you have to kind of push her aside. She’s been a top-20 player, and maybe she could do damage at the French Open—quarters or semis—but I don’t know if she can go further than that. You can say that if Christina McHale gets healthy she can possibly be a top-20 player. Lauren Davis [currently No. 65] is tiny, but I wouldn’t count her out of the top 40. She’s extremely scrappy. The same thing with Grace Min, and I wouldn’t count out Melanie [Oudin, who once was No. 31] from getting back into the top 35, possibly the top 30, because she has the game to do it. It’s whether she can get into shape mentally. She’s going to be playing a lot of Challengers and going through the grind, which I think is a big test for all of them.
Let’s not forget one player we haven’t mentioned, Mallory Burdette, who I have been extremely impressed with, and I am almost never impressed with players coming out of college. She’s big, she’s strong, she’s got great weapons, she’s made incredible progress over the past year, cracking the top 80. If she continues like that, I wouldn’t count her out of the top 20 either.
IT: What about Coco Vandeweghe and Shelby Rogers?
MC: If Coco doesn’t finish this year in the top 60, and if she doesn’t get some good wins … Look, as much as I like her as a person … I like her serve, I like her forehand, but her game is a bit of a mess. She’s got technical problems, her movement can be questionable. She just doesn’t seem to be making progress. I would say she is a big question mark, and Rogers has a lot of work to do. She has made good progress this year and it was good to win the wildcard [in the tournament among Americans] to get into the French Open. She won a match at Roland Garros, but again it’s a big “wait and see” with her.
IT: Overall, it’s fabulous that there is this whole group of players. But you can view it a couple of different ways. You can argue that with all of them coming up together, they take the pressure off of each other. Or you can say, with all of their talent, that they put more pressure on each other, that they push each other to get better. In any case, it’s a great cadre of talent, even if there isn’t a singular shining super talent—although you could say Sloane—
MC: I mean, Serena and Venus are once-every-ten-or-15-years type of breakthrough players.
IT: Except the whole paradigm has shifted. For years, American women’s tennis produced one phenom after another: Chrissie [Evert], Tracy [Austin], Jennifer [Capriati], [Lindsay] Davenport, Venus, Serena: such a surge. It was a bounty. Then came, in terms of new talent, many a lean year. It’s a cycle.
MC: It is, but the best thing for the young players is that you still have Serena as the best player in the world. She will probably end this year and maybe next year as the best, so our Americans still have some time to develop, just like Andy Roddick did in the wake of Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi.
IT: Plus, players develop a lot later these days. The big picture is that the tour has Maria Sharapova in mid-career and Vika, of course, is rising and has real strengths. There are the Radwanskas of the world, too. There’s quality talent out there, but let’s face it, it’s not exactly overwhelming.
MC: No, it’s not. There’s room for a breakthrough. Petra Kvitova is a very good player, but she is erratic and a little bit out of shape. And Vika is probably the cream of the crop right now, but she is definitely not a Serena-type world beater, it’s not that no one can beat her. There are openings there. I mean, 15 US women in the main draw of Roland Garros—which is far more then any other country—is super work.
IT: A lot of credit has to go to the USTA Player Development Program.
MC: Oh, a lot. You know I do a lot of work for them, so I am not unbiased. But look at how many players are working with them: Madison, Sloane, Melanie, Lepchenko, and Rogers. McHale has worked with them. You can go on and on. Hopefully it will work for the guys, too. But, you have to give a massive bow to Patrick McEnroe, Jose Higueras, Marc Lucero, and the whole group, because they have done great work.
After all, in a year or two, we could have five players in the top 20 who are not the Williams sisters.
