16 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | AUGUS T 26 – SEP TEMBER 2, 2019
Can Simona Halep continue to shine
in the shadows?
At 27, Halep is a decade younger than
Serena. She’s not outrageous or inconsistent
or confessional on social media. She plays
with a subtle mix of offense and defense and
moves gracefully but will not blow many
opponents off the court with power. So it is
that the Romanian gets very little attention.
Which is a pity because she’s thoroughly
professional, thoroughly pleasant and, oh,
right, has also been the best WTA player
over the last three years. When Halep won
Wimbledon in July—dismantling Serena
6–2, 6–2 in the final, in less than an hour—
she assured herself entrée into tennis’s Hall
of Fame. She’ll now try to win her second
straight major and her third since June 2018.Can doubles continue its ascent?
When the tennis salon considers its 2019 Comeback Player of
the Year, it might want to focus not on an athlete but on an
entire discipline. For a long time doubles has been the sport’s
great undervalued asset. But lately the format is enjoying a
renaissance. Plenty of stars are realizing the virtue of playing
alongside a partner. For instance, Ashleigh Barty pairs
well with Victoria Azarenka—a former No. 1 singles player.
Tsitsipas and Kyrgios recently played together in Washington,
D.C. The ultimate pairing may have come at Wimbledon when
Serena Williams played mixed doubles with Andy Murray.
Want to work on your volleys or second serve under match
conditions? Here’s a way to do it—while getting paid. And if
the players benefit, so do the fans.Can tennis get out of its own damn way?
Tennis is rather like a swan. Elegant and regal above the
surface; unseemly and ungainly below. As the players execute
their duties on the courts these next two weeks, the sport’s
administrators will be locked in conference rooms at the
Tennis Center and in midtown Manhattan hotels, trying
to chart the future. The ATP is looking for a CEO after its
previous head was the subject of a coup, orchestrated largely
by Djokovic and board member Justin Gimelstob, who was
facing a charge of felony battery at the time. (He since pleaded
no contest and resigned his board spot.) The International
Tennis Federation is holding its presidential election with
ethical questions swirling around the incumbent. The
USTA also seeks a new executive director, pitting outsider
candidates against insider candidates. Tennis’s congenital
dysfunction is as predictable as the excellence of the Big
Three. And neither shows signs of abating. ±of her tennis. Only 15, Gauff is severely
hamstrung by the WTA’s age eligibility rules,
which restrict the number of tournaments
she is allowed to enter. Following one too
many unfortunate collisions, the policy was
created as something of a traffic light, placed
at the four-way intersection of Youth, Fame,
Pressure and Money. (See: Capriati, Jennifer,
et al.) Despite good intentions, the policy has
come under fire for a) restricting a talented
young athlete’s ability to capitalize on said
talent and b) adding pressure to those scant
opportunities when teenagers can play.
Gauff—who won a WTA doubles title on July
29 in Washington, D.C., will be greeted with
great fanfare. We’ll see how she handles
the spotlight at what might be the last pro
tournament she enters in 2019.
What of the other 125 players in the men’s draw?
At Wimbledon, the Big Three, in keeping with ritual, all
reached the latter rounds; meanwhile, the players ranked
four, five and six—Dominic Thiem, Alexander Zverev and
Stefanos Tsitsipas—each lost in the first round. No current
player under 30 has won a major. Why have none of the
young (or, for that matter, middle-aged) guns broken
through? Explanations are manifold and not mutually
exclusive. The best-of-five format favors the Big Three, giving
them more opportunities to summon their superiority. Their
relentless winning has demoralized everyone else. Andy
Murray’s mother, Judy, a savvy tennis observer, has even
gone so far as to suggest that because the Big Three did not
grow up with iPhones, they possess greater powers of focus
and healthier relationships with social media. Whatever,
we’re getting restless for a challenger.
Will Nick Kyrgios come to play?
For all the debate and disagreement in tennis, you can
carve out consensus here: The most talented men’s player
under age 30 is Nick Kyrgios. The problem is that Kyrgios
hasn’t figured out what to do with his talent. Sometimes the
24-year-old appears destined for No. 1—not least when he
defeats one of the Big Three. Other times, he plays with a
complete indifference to the match’s outcome. At last year’s
U.S. Open, fans were treated to the bizarre (and surely
unprecedented) sight of a chair umpire giving Krygios a
mid-match pep talk and encouraging him to try harder.
This year, Kyrgios has incurred fines, including $113,000
for outbursts in Cincinnati on Aug. 14, and pulled out of the
French Open because “clay sucks.” He has also won two
tournaments and played at a can’t-avert-your-eyes level.
SCORECARD
PHILIPPE LO
PEZ/AFP/GETTY IM
AGES (H
ALEP)
“
Halep gets very little
attention, which
is a pit y because
she’s thoroughly
professional ,
thoroughly pleasant
and, oh, right, has
also been the best
WTA pl ayer over the
l ast three years.