All eyes on big three of women’s tennis as Paris serves up a treat
All of those questions about who would step to the fore once Serena Williams walked away from the tennis tour — joining more recent No. 1 Ash Barty in retirement — seem to be getting answered with three names: Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina.
As the start of the French Open approaches on Sunday, defending champion Swiatek is ranked No. 1, Sabalenka is No. 2 and Rybakina is No. 4.
More to the point, perhaps, with a major trophy up for grabs on the red clay of Roland Garros: This group divvied up the past four Grand Slam titles, the prizes that help define greatness in their sport.
They are showing signs of forming a sort of “Big Three,” and while they're not yet close, of course, to the level of dominance seen across decades from the so-called “Big Three” of the men's game — Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic each won more than 20 Slam championships.
“They've kind of separated themselves a little bit from the rest of the pack,” said Jessica Pegula, a 29-year-old American who is ranked number three and is a fivetime Grand Slam quarterfinalist, losing to Swiatek at that stage last year at the French Open and U.S. Open.
“It just comes with the confidence of having a lot of big results and breaking through.”
Swiatek, a 21-year-old from Poland, is the reigning champion at Roland Garros and the U.S. Open; Sabalenka, a 25-year-old from Belarus, won the Australian Open this January by beating Rybakina in the final; Rybakina, a 23-year-old from Kazakhstan, won Wimbledon last July.
There's more: At the two key U.S. hard-court tournaments this spring, Rybakina defeated Sabalenka in the final at Indian Wells, California, then was the runner-up in Miami.
When the women's circuit moved to the European clay courts, Swiatek got past Sabalenka in the final at Stuttgart, Germany, a result that was reversed when they met for the trophy again two weeks later in Madrid, Spain.
And at the last big clay tune-up for Roland Garros, Rybakina took the title in Rome after advancing when Swiatek stopped early in the third set of their quarterfinal with a right thigh injury (“Luckily, nothing serious happened,” Swiatek said Friday).
“It's good for tennis to see the top players consistently doing well. I think it's pushing everybody to a next level and pushing everybody to do better and to play better. That's how I was pushed by Iga last season,” Sabalenka said.
Meanwhile, on the men's side Daniil Medvedev, fresh from his maiden claycourt title at the Rome Masters is taking nothing for granted before starting his French Open campaign at Roland Garros.
The world number two, who has only recently improved on the slowest surface, has been finding his range on the red dirt to the point that he is now cited as one of the favourites to lift the Musketeers' cup on June 11.
“It's an amazing feeling, and I for sure have more expectations than I usually had at Roland Garros,” he said.
“But I know that it's also tricky. You have to use this confidence, but not get cocky, if we can say, because that's where the danger is.
“Sometimes you think, oh, well, I played so well, now it's going to be easy. Then the first round you have problems. You can get angry and maybe lose the match.”
The key for Medvedev will be to put his recent success behind him without putting too much pressure on himself when he starts his tournament against a qualifier.
“Tennis is such a mental sport sometimes that you talk to your friends on tour and many times you start to have, let's call it, superstitions that sometimes the better you play before the tournament, the worse it's going to be,” he explained.
“Sometimes the worse you play before the tournament, it happened to me also, where you can even break a racquet on practice or something, get completely crazy and you cannot put one ball in the court, and then you win it. Just like that.” — agencies