Auditing the game and predictions for roaring ’20s
At the beginning of a new tennis season, Simon Briggs audits the state of world tennis — and makes a prediction or two
Starpower
The retirement of Roger Federer is a moment tennis has been dreading for a decade. It still hasn’t arrived, and there’s no real reason to believe this sporting tragedy might befall us in
2020 either, even though Federer will turn 39 in August.
“I see no reason to stop,” he told reporters in Buenos Aires in November. “I expected to play until 35 to 36 and here I am, in a new dimension.”
Admittedly, not everyone is delighted by the recent domination of Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic — who have mopped up the last 12 slams between them. Among broadcasters and former players, the closed circle has created a sense of ennui.
“We should question the quality and the attitude of everybody under
28,” said a frustrated Boris Becker during the French Open. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
But these are the people who watch every tournament, and are thus most affected by the repetitious nature of the storylines.
For floating sport fans, recognisability is a goldplated currency, boosting viewing figures as well as sponsorship dollars. And the men’s tour has it in spades.
On the women’s side, by contrast, instability continues to reign. Over the same time frame of the last three years, there have been 11 slam winners, with Naomi Osaka the only champion to double up. This has made for some fantastic storylines, and a far higher level of intrigue than the men can muster.
But the downside is that world No 1 Ashleigh Barty could probably wander into your local without anyone noticing.
At least Serena Williams is still ambitious to equal Margaret Court’s record of 24 Grand Slam titles, after a series of near-misses in major finals.
Overall, the women’s game feels like it’s in ruder health than at any time in the last decade.
Strength in depth
Behind the marquee names, we can find plenty of wannabes, definitelywill-bes and already-made-its who have been working their way up the ladder.
At just 15, Coco Gauff is already such a massive draw that Washington’s Citi Open — which doesn’t even start until August — announced her as a participant a month ago. Nineteen-yearold Bianca Andreescu is tennis’ newest slam champion as well as a charismatic extrovert with every shot in the book. On the men’s side, a new clutch of twenty-something talents include the recent ATP Finals champion Stefanos Tsitsipas, double French Open runner-up Dominic Thiem and US Open runner-up Daniil Medvedev. It’s true the 40 majors played during the 2010s were shared between just six players, which is comfortably the lowest figure for any decade in history. But even if the old guard continue to defy Father Time, there are enough young Turks around to keep things interesting.
Biggest off-court headache
So many to choose from in tennis, the world’s most atomised sport. We used to have seven ruling factions. Now there are arguably nine, if you count Gerard Pique’s Kosmos group (who launched the new-look Davis Cup finals in November) and Federer’s management agency Team8 (who run September’s Laver Cup in partnership with Tennis Australia).
The most obvious issue is this logjam of new team competitions. Three years ago, none of them even existed.
On the upside, team events add texture to the tour, which is far too samey as things stand.
The difficulty lies in weeding out existing tournaments.
A week on the ATP calendar is worth at least US$3 million, and no one wants to surrender theirs. So we just end up — as in every major sport bar the big American leagues — with the workload expanding, and the offseason shrinking to the point of invisibility.
One prediction for 2020
Could this be Johanna Konta’s year to reach a slam final? She has stood only one step short on three occasions — in Australia in 2016, at Wimbledon the following year, and at Roland Garros in June. Perhaps 2020 will carry her to the biggest stage of all? The great thing about Konta’s recent resurgence is that she is once again bossing her opponents around. In terms of firepower, few can compete.
It all started at her Fed Cup showdown with Kazakhstan — and the fiery Yulia Putintseva — in April. where she escaped a 4-1 deciding-set deficit with the help of the best shot of her career: an almost impossible forehand winner up the line.
From there, she started to rediscover herself. A strong coaching relationship is vital to Konta.
The 2018 season was a write-off because she never gelled with Michael Joyce. Now that her management agency has teamed her up with Dimitri Zavialoff — a charmingly understated Frenchman — everything is flowing again. She has even added a convinc- ing drop-shot to her once predictable repertoire.
The one box that still needs to be ticked is steadiness in the spotlight, because her loss to 19-year-old Marketa Vondrousova at Roland Garros this northern summer felt a little like a horse refusing to jump Becher’s Brook.
But after all the experience she has built up this season, appearing in a career-high tally of 14 Grand Slam matches, the moment of truth could soon be upon us.