Andreeva an outlier in altering teen tales of girls’s tennis

The takeaways: Andreeva is an excellent expertise. She can also be an outlier in girls’s tennis in the meanwhile.

At world No.14, the Russian is the one teen within the prime 100 of the WTA rankings. On the corresponding males’s aspect, the quantity is thrice as a lot. What’s extra telling is that between 100 and 200 within the WTA charts, there are 11 gamers aged 19 or beneath. It not solely factors to the rising problem for younger feminine professionals to interrupt into the higher echelons but in addition the evolving nature of the ladies’s recreation.

“This space of 100-200 within the WTA,” says 19-year-old Alexandra Ela, the third-highest ranked teen at world No.139, “it’s actually a jungle.”

That jungle would usually be densely populated with recent faces and teenage trailblazers making large breakthroughs. Ladies’s tennis previously was a beehive of younger sensations, thriving on the buzzing presence of the likes of Monica Seles, Jennifer Capriati, Martina Hingis, Steffi Graf, Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams, to call a couple of. Even within the final decade, teenagers Coco Gauff, Bianca Andreescu and Emma Raducanu, other than Jelena Ostapenko who gained the 2017 French Open days after turning 20, made a Slam dunk in taking the leap on the largest stage.

For teen abilities now, that leap is much less sudden and extra strenuous.

“The transition to girls’s tennis might be fairly difficult now,” says Linda Fruhvirtova, 19. “I’m nonetheless at an age the place I’ve many areas to enhance — the velocity of my pictures, physicality, serve.”

Linda, in a means, exemplifies the current teen story. One half of the richly promising Czech siblings — she and her youthful sister Brenda gained back-to-back Les Petits As titles — Linda rocketed from the 300s to world No.77 after pocketing her maiden WTA title in Chennai in 2022. She made the Spherical of 16 of the Australian Open and scaled a career-high rating of 49 in 2023, however is again within the “jungle” as the present world No.195.

Nonetheless “adapting” to the rigours of the professional tour, she singles out the energy of competitors and bodily recreation type as the important thing differentiators within the girls’s recreation now.

“The ladies round 200, the standard of their recreation is means higher than it was once years in the past,” Linda says. “Plus, the sport is changing into extra bodily. The older ladies are extra bodily, perhaps stronger than me. That’s what I’m engaged on. And that comes with time.”

Gauff, the teenaged US Open champion of 2023, alluded so far; of the gulf “bodily between a 15-year-old physique to a 20-25-year-old” being wider within the trendy recreation. It wanted Andreeva “to go for my pictures, to be aggressive” to earn her first win towards Swiatek and Rybakina. Staying in rallies with older and stronger baseline power-hitters is more and more a battle for youthful our bodies. Particularly as courts worldwide are usually getting slower.

“Earlier, the courts had been quicker,” Rebecca Marino, the previous world No.38, says. “Courts and balls are a bit bit slower now. So we’re seeing longer factors.”

Marino, 34, had a comparatively early begin into the elite, breaking into the highest 50 at 21. She returned to the highest 100 in 2022 after a decade-long absence and is on the cusp of getting again there in her mid-thirties. The Canadian believes a part of this altering narrative can also be attributable to extra feminine gamers with the ability to delay their careers and play at a excessive stage. Madison Keys, as an example, grew to become a first-time Slam winner at 29.

“Gamers have much more longevity of their careers. It’s a implausible pattern,” Marino says.

“There are lot of girls approaching the 30s, or previous their 30s, within the prime 100,” Alexandra, 19, says.

It solely reveals the likes of Alexandra that they’ve loads of time and area of their improvement path. Even when, for now and with the lone exception of Andreeva, these teenagers are but to hit the quick lane.

“Us gals are hanging round a bit longer,” Marino says. “We’re not giving them the probabilities. The highest 100 turns into much more tough to crack into.”