The Women's Game - Grass Shoots of Recovery?

I understand that the women's game is in such a dire state that the low level of interest pre-2006 has now dipped even further due to illnesses, retirements, re-retirements, part-timers and Grand Slam-less No.1's.

My question is this: Who believes that the women's game is now showing the the grass roots of recovery following Kvitova's win, Li Na's success and the return of the Williams sisters?

I'm still sceptical but was wondering what everyone else thinks

I have gone for too soon. We saw with the likes of Ivanovic, Safina and Jankovic coming through a few years back and that turned out to be a red herring. I would like to see the likes of Li Na and Kvitova contest more Slams and finals and see where they line up next year in the rankings.

GTG
I think I'd go for 'too soon to say'. Could be Kvitova is another case of a one slam wonder, but hopefully the other players are seeing that a bit of quality on the serve and a more all-court game is paying dividends, rather than being pure baseline ball bashers

Not sure that the return of the Williams sisters is all that important - depends on whether the spend the next couple of years fit and focussing on the game, or if they continue with their sporadic participation.

To be honest, I think it's almost a case of 'the only way is up' for the WTA, although that's been true for about 3 or 4 years of them bumping along the bottom.

Li Na is too old to be in serious contention for long

'To soon to tell'.

The premise that WTA did indeed need recovering is perhaps a debatable topic by itself.

laverfan

I think most of us here would agree that while the ATP has had a long run of good quality (the last transitional period being in the early 00s, when Sampras and Agassi had faded and before Federer and Nadal took the mantle of leading the field), the WTA has struggled to find one or two dominant players at least since the first retirement of Henin - up to then, there was a good cluster of strong players who would challenge for slams, but over the last 4 or 5 years there has been a period where players have briefly risen to the top based on consistency, but have then faded quite rapidly either through a loss of form (Jankovic, Ivanovic) or injury (Safina - probably the most credible recent #1).

At the moment I find it difficult to get too excited about any of the WTA matches - a lack of stand-out players performing regularly or fierce rivalries (heck, even the Williams v Williams matches tend to be poor affairs).

I'm hopeful some of the new breed will come through and establish a new hierarchy, but it still seems a little way off.

There are two sides to domination by a few players.

1. Dominant players slowing down cause a perception of a power vacuum. Stunt development of new talent to some extent. Petkovic, Lisicki, Hantuchova, Cibulkova, Pavlyuchenkova, ... long list of good talent and competition.

2. The current lack of a 'perceived' Queen at the top may cause the coinage of the terms 'Safina' or 'Wozniacki' effect. Perhaps a bit OTT. Woz is a good player in her own right, a lack of a slam notwithstanding. (Edit: There are many ATP non-slammers who have not reached #1, but are close).

There is a quite a bit of new talent already on the Girls side, as I noted in a similar post elsewhere.

I don't think that things will improve before the
"pick and mix" Williams sisters are out of the equation !

LF

Interesting that you incluyde Hantuchova in your list of talented players. She is undoubtedly physically and technically a very good player, but she really has been an underachiever over the last 5 years - would it be harsh to describe her as the female Gasquet? Plenty of ability but not the mental strength.

Agree that Wozniacki is a fairly good player, but she should really be about 3 or 4 in the rankings, on the same sort of level as Murray in the men's game - can get to the later stages of some slams and win lower level tournaments, but has some limitations in her game that prevent her kicking on and becoming a dominant player.

Of course there is one difference between the men's and women's games, and that is that the women can be truly competetive almost immediately out of juniors (because there isn't the same disparity in physical strength between an 18 year old and 25 year old woman as there usually is for a man), so it is possible for someone to really burst through quickly. Let's hope there are a couple coming through.

gtg I actually think a Kvitova/Na Li final if possible at the US would be good.

Kvitova could have possibly beaten Li Na with a little more experience at the French and I happen to think their respective games match up well.

It'll be interesting to see how the Williams sisters and Serena in particular fare assuming Serena gets a wildcard! (100% nailed on cert).

The women's game seems to be slowly incorporating aspects of the men's with less flat left-right ball-bashing and more use of spin and control of depth to exploit angles. Not that Henin wasn't doing that already, but she was the exception.

dummy_half wrote:Interesting that you incluyde Hantuchova in your list of talented players. She is undoubtedly physically and technically a very good player, but she really has been an underachiever over the last 5 years - would it be harsh to describe her as the female Gasquet? Plenty of ability but not the mental strength.

I think it is perhaps an apt comparison. Kvitova is a power version of Hantuchova. Saw Pavluchenkova @Monterrey, pretty good.

dummy_half wrote:Agree that Wozniacki is a fairly good player, but she should really be about 3 or 4 in the rankings, on the same sort of level as Murray in the men's game - can get to the later stages of some slams and win lower level tournaments, but has some limitations in her game that prevent her kicking on and becoming a dominant player.

But she has room to improve. Perhaps a bit more aggression and risk-taking would be helpful. Counterpunching is not going to get her anywhere.

dummy_half wrote:Of course there is one difference between the men's and women's games, and that is that the women can be truly competetive almost immediately out of juniors (because there isn't the same disparity in physical strength between an 18 year old and 25 year old woman as there usually is for a man), so it is possible for someone to really burst through quickly. Let's hope there are a couple coming through.

Carol Garcia, Beatrice Capra are pretty good and a lot of room for improvement and experience.

I very much enjoyed some of the women's matches at Wimbledon this year, but thought the semis and the final were disappointing, although I was glad to see the clean-hitting, refreshing Kvitova win.
Funnily enough, people were saying it would show the poor standard of the women's game if the Williams had done well having been out injured for so long.
Yet, the Willliams' absence from the latter stages rather detracted from the quality. They MUST play regularly to make the WTA tour more meaningful and it would be good to get Kim C back.
Best thing from a British point of view was to see Laura Robson taking it to Sharapova. Laura's got a big serve and huge ground strokes and is a leftie. She should do well.

WTA needs a prodigy. None in sight yet.