Deep field delivers without Serena
Serena Williams is nesting at home, mere weeks away from her baby due date.
And rocking a medicine ball — as revealed by recently posted Snapchat exercise photos — before she starts to rock a cradle.
There’s little doubt the greatest tennis player ever — no gender qualifier here — will return to competitive tennis, unless she gets a sudden urge to be a stay-at-home mama about to turn 36. But her absence from the circuit since defeating sister Venus in January at the Australian Open, claiming a 23rd Grand Slam title, has infused the women’s game with an appealing sense of possibilities.
There is no overwhelming favourite on the distaff side of tennis but a whole bunch of compelling personalities as the sport segues towards a new generation — marquee players with a grab bag of strengths and nuanced techniques, although raw power a la Serena often separates the women from the girls.
All of the top 10 will be showing off their stuff this week at the Rogers Cup in Toronto. The only big names missing are Maria Sharapova, recovering from her second injury since returning from a15-month doping ban — the Russian had been handed a wild card — and two-time Aussie Open winner Victoria Azarenka, playing a limited scheduled after giving birth to her first child late last year.
Male players like Roger Federer, father to two sets of young twins, never have to slot in spawning timeouts.
At the apex of the women’s pile is Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic, the 25-year-old serve-pounder who usurped Germany’s Angelique Kerber as world No. 1 a couple of weeks ago, despite never having won a major. Yet her record over the past year is formidable: three tour titles in 2017 (nine career), five wins over top-10 opponents, racking up 299 aces, 37-10 in matches.
Toronto marks Pliskova’s debut as No. 1 and her first competition since a stunning round-of-64 loss to Magdalena Rybarikova (ousted in qualifiers Sunday) at Wimbledon. It will be interesting to see how she handles the distinction.
While generally consistent and composed, that early All England bounce showed Pliskova can be just as susceptible to the unexpected challenger having a good day.
That’s an affliction — nerves untamed — which has repeatedly brought elite ladies to grief. Few seem to have that killer instinct that Serena Williams embodies and the sinew to recover from a deep hole. Best-of-three-sets can get away in a hurry. Germany’s Kerber — Australian and U.S. Open winner in ’16 — encountered nothing but misery from her No. 1 perch, on nine straight occasions failing to beat a top-20 opponent, losing a thrilling fourth-round match to Garbine Muguruza at Wimbledon.
Maybe nobody has struggled from expectation stress more than defending Rogers Cup champion (and 2015 finalist) Simona Halep, seeded second in Toronto behind Pliskova.
Long touted as a someday No. 1 — in the top 10 since 2014 — the scrambly Romanian’s vulnerability was most in evidence at the French Open, losing in the final to unseeded upstart Latvian Jelena Ostapenko, who didn’t have even one WTA tour title to her name, despite being up a set and 3-0 break.
At Wimbledon, where she lost a three-setter to Britain’s Johanna Konta in the quarter-finals, a gracious Halep said of Pliskova assuming No. 1 status: “I feel she deserves to be there. She has the best serve, I think, after Serena. So, well done for her. She played really well this year. I think she’s happy now.”
Halep is coming off a debilitating outing at the Washington Open last week, retiring in the quarters with a heat-related illness. At York University’s Aviva Centre, the draw would have her possibly crossing racquets with Ostapenko, 20, in the quarter-finals.
Muguruza, triumphant at Wimbledon last month to go along with a 2016 French Open trophy, has nicely manoeuvered herself into tennis mastery and possible heiress to Serena’s superstardom status.
Long limbed, with a potent serve and muscular groundstrokes, the Venezuelan-born Spaniard has brought together all the pieces of her multi-faceted game and carries herself like a confident champion. She wobbled after defeating Serena at Roland Garros — her ranking tumbling from No. 2 and failing to win a tour title in the subsequent 12 months — but she’s rebounding brilliantly this season, now at No. 4 globally. She’s also the only woman to have beaten both Serena and Venus Williams in a major final, disposing of the elder sibling with eye-popping ease at Wimbledon.
While Serena has been Rogers Cup dominant, a three-time champion, Venus hasn’t enjoyed much success north of the border, just one final appearance in 2014. But this year has witnessed an inspirational resurgence from the older sibling, winning 26 matches and a finalist at two Grand Slams. The 37-year-old headlines play Monday evening.
Others to watch include Konta, Wimbledon finalist and rising steadily up the rankings board, now seventh; two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, just seven months removed from a ghastly knife attack by an intruder at her home in the Czech Republic — five fingers on her playing (left) hand deeply slashed; and hard-charging 22-year-old Elina Svitolina of Ukraine, world ranked fifth.
Canada’s Genie Bouchard opens Tuesday against a qualifier. Well past her ingénue sensation days but still a crowd magnet.