‘La Belle Époque’ of tennis
Men’s game recaptures a golden age while women’s tour finds new age in Rogers Cup
In Woody Allen’s 2011 film Midnight in Paris, the lead character played by Owen Wilson imagines and “lives” the time in history when he believes he would have been more comfortable and happier. In his case, it’s Paris of the 1920s alongside literary greats Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
These days, tennis fans, particularly those of the men’s game, might be forgiven if they feel they’ve fallen back into “La Belle Époque” of their own.
Between the spring of 2005 and the summer of 2009, the game was dominated by two players, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Between them, they won 17 of 18 Grand Slam titles in that period.
Today, Federer at 35 years old missed the last half of 2016, and Nadal is a wellworn, oft-injured 31. Yet suddenly the two are again atop the men’s game, as though the ATP Tour has engaged in a little time travel.
The surprising struggles of former world No. 1 Novak Djokovic, who by the spring of last year had won four consecutive majors and seemed virtually unbeatable, has created an opening, and Federer and Nadal have barged right on through like party guests who have said their goodbyes then decided not to call it a night after all.
Federer won Australia, Nadal was sublime on the dirt at Roland Garros and Federer won another Wimbledon title last month. Now, with Djokovic gone for the rest of 2017 with elbow issues and Andy Murray going a bit sideways these days, the Swiss master and his longtime Spanish rival appear to be in control of the tennis world as the Rogers Cup rolls around this month.
It all feels a little surreal, but it’s made for some glorious entertainment so far this tennis season.
Interestingly, the women’s game has encountered similar conditions, but produced contrasting results.
Serena Williams captured another Australian Open title in January and soon after announced she was taking a pregnancy leave to have her first child. The 35-year-old superstar insists she’s coming back in 2018.
While she’s gone, however, there’s all kinds of opportunity for others. But instead of seeing veterans such as, say, Caroline Wozniacki, Agnieszka Radwanska or Maria Sharapova take advantage and grab a Grand Slam title as Federer and Nadal have done, it’s the younger set of the WTA tour that has seized the moment.
In the spring, 20-year-old Latvian Jelena Ostapenko won the French Open. Last month, 23-year-old Garbine Muguruza of Spain won the Wimbledon women’s final over 37-year-old Venus Williams.
A pair of 25-year-olds, Karolina Pliskova and Simone Halep, have charged to the top of the women’s rankings.
In the final weekend of July, meanwhile, 21-year-old Katerina Siniakova demonstrated once more that the youngsters on the WTA tour are getting the better of their elders, upsetting Wozniacki in the final of an event in Sweden.
So while the men have, at least temporarily, recaptured a golden age, the women’s tour has found a new age, seemingly identifying not just good young players, but players capable of winning Grand Slam titles.
The young men are threatening. The younger women are winning.
In the midst of this, two Canadian players, Milos Raonic and Eugenie Bouchard, continue to pen their own career stories. At times, both have both been viewed as potential Grand Slam winners, but both have yet to get there as Raonic gets set to headline the men’s Rogers Cup in Montreal and Bouchard the women’s competition in Toronto.
Raonic is part of a group alongside Kei Nishikori of Japan and Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov who are now entering their prime (although Federer may be redefining that) but have yet to capture a major and may soon find themselves usurped as the “next in line” by an even younger collection of players that includes Dominic Thiem of Austria, Alexander Zverev of Germany and the mercurial Aussie, Nick Kyrgios.
Bouchard, meanwhile, will be competing in the Rogers Cup for the 10th time, but at a time when her world ranking has plummeted and she is no longer considered a Grand Slam title threat by anyone outside of Genie’s Army and her publicists. The tour would have loved her to become what Ostapenko, Muguruza and others seem to be becoming, but that hasn’t happened.
The contrasting overall results of the men’s and women’s tours so far in ’17, meanwhile, has further blurred the lines as to when the best years of atennis player’s career should be and when promise needs be converted into results for it to be anything more than promise. That Federer, Nadal and Serena Williams, even in her absence, remain the biggest stars of the sport at ages when some of their former rivals are already retired is truly amazing. They’ve set the bar incredibly high, particularly with their Grand Slam results, and the generations that are following are finding it challenging to meet that standard.
Djokovic looked to be in hot pursuit of Federer’s records, but now his career is in limbo. On the women’s side, Muguruza is the only current member of the top 10 other than Venus Williams to have won more than one Grand Slam title, and she has two.
All in all, 2017 has, so far, been a bit of confusing one in terms of understanding exactly what we’re seeing. Can Federer and Nadal really be back at the level they once were, or is the rest of the tour showing evidence of an inability to find ways to win the big ones?
On the women’s side, are Muguruza et al. really signifying the dawn of a terrific new era, or are they just the latest example of a scattershot, onehit-wonder tour that just isn’t as deep as it was a decade ago?
We’ll get the final emphatic evidence for ’17 next month at the U.S. Open. Before that, however, Toronto and Montreal will demonstrate exactly where the top players are on the hard court as the final punishing weeks of the tennis season are played out.
Last year, the Rio Olympics pushed the Rogers Cup two weeks earlier and further away from the U.S. Open, and the results weren’t as meaningful because of that. This year, the Canadian tournaments are back where they want to be, and the results will mean that much more.
All in all, 2017 has, so far, been a bit of a confusing one in terms of understanding exactly what we’re seeing