CHALLENGING THE ELITES IN TENNIS
Winning an event gives the championship’s title to the player but it is the aggregate in performance over a period of time that will place the player in the world ranking. Then, is it possible to be in the top ten of the world ranking without even winning any event? The answer is theoretically, yes it is possible. That is by reaching the final round of events most of the time, however, the position of the ‘Top-Guns’, that is the top three, cannot be achieved without winning a few majors and some others of significance. The current women’s ‘Top Guns’ Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova and Simona Halep and men’s Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Andy Murray have this record to their credit.
Winning the 2015 Wimbledon title at 34, Serena Williams became the oldest Grand-Slam winner breaking Martina Navratilova’s record. Another interesting occurrence in Tennis is, time and again many unknown players perform one-off ‘giant killing’ wins in both genders and kindle great interest. This year too in Wimbledon we had Germany’s Dustin Brown with Caribbean flavour beating the much fancied Rafael Nadal in the second round in men’s and among women Slovakian Jana Cepelova beat much favoured world’s number three Romania’s Simona Halep in the very first round. Both these ‘giant killers’ couldn’t keep up the momentum and lost in the very next round.WTA’s promising names
In the light of the history of player development and their performances, prediction is a dangerous game to get into. All the same, results of events do create an opinion in us and name players as probable contenders to replace the ‘Top Guns’ in the ranking.
In this Wimbledon Garbine Mugurusa seeded 20 reached the finals beating players with higher seeding. She played some great matches but what impressed me the most was her performance in the finals’ of 2015 Wimbledon. No player has broken the opening serve of Serena Williams twice to my memory. Mugurusa did just that. It naturally rattled world’s number one Serena and immediately Mugurusa became the crowd’s favourite with much expectation. Till 4-2 in the first set Mugurusa showed that she has all the mechanics of the game including the ability to handle Serena’s power and deliver power with equal terms. It is a potential which I believe will grow in the near future very much to dominate the world.
Power in Tennis is only good when it has the support of a high success rate. The art of sustaining high percentage with power is a highly developed skill. Sustaining such skills need the support of the mind. At twenty one Mugurusa is thirteen years younger than Serena and this showed in her effort to sustain her power game. This in turn Wimbledon women’s finals this year looked more of a Mugurusa beating Mugurusa. This is common among ‘up and coming’ young players. I may be wrong in saying this because even Serena Williams coach Patric Mouratoglou indicated Serena to have this issue at 34. He said the worst enemy of Serena is Serena. If she can control herself there is nothing she cannot do. If Mugurusa can master these mental skills she could replace the players in the top three soon.
New challengers
In women’s Tennis, three names come to my mind and these are three that have appeared in GrandSlam Finals in the last two years. They are Romania’s Simona Halep currently ranked three, Czech Republic’s Lucie Safarova ranked eight and Spain’s Garbine Mugurusa ranked nine. These three will have to consolidate their performance from sporadic good performances to consistent ones, if they are to achieve a ranking in the top three. It will not be an easy task in the current level of competition.
After a lapse of time two fresh names appeared from the North