Coco Gauff, Belinda Bencic and Sofia Kenin. Photos / AP
It was once again Serena Williams' decade, but the last year of the 2010s was not her year, though she made her presence and power felt by reaching two Grand Slam finals.
In 2019, the biggest moments and most prestigious trophies belonged to players much younger than Williams, who turned 38 in September.
The emergence of charismatic teenage talents like Bianca Andreescu and Coco Gauff was reassuring for the future of the sport, whose relevance to younger, entertainment-saturated audiences remains a question mark. But it was bittersweet for all those who would like to see Williams get the emotional and statistical payoff she has been striving for since she returned to work after becoming a mother.
Instead, the 2019 season belonged to the likes of Naomi Osaka, 22, who started strong, winning the Australian Open in January and rose to No. 1 before losing her mojo and finally rebounding to win two titles in October.
It belonged to Andreescu, a versatile 19-year-old Canadian newcomer who believes in the power of meditation and won the prestigious BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, and later beat Williams to win the U.S. Open in her first main-draw appearance.
It belonged to Simona Halep, 28, who found her form again at just the right time to win her first Wimbledon, routing Williams with a deep-in-the-zone performance in the final.
It belonged, most often it seemed, to Ashleigh Barty, an Australian who is given to talking about tennis in the first-person plural.
"We've played some exceptional tennis this year," she said last week, defying even logic in her desire to recognize her support team, which includes her coach, Craig Tyzzer, and her mental coach, Ben Crowe.
Hitting the shots on her own, she added big-match belief to her formidable and varied tennis skill set and won her first premier-mandatory singles title at the Miami Open and her first Grand Slam singles title at the French Open. She then finished off the WTA season Sunday by claiming the elite WTA Finals and a record $4.42 million in Shenzhen, China.
"Mentally, I think it finally came together for her," said Daniela Hantuchova, the former top-five player turned tennis analyst. "We've all been there. Everyone tells us how good we are, but we have to believe it ourselves. And she does now."
Barty, already an Australian icon, will finish the year at No. 1 — quite an achievement for someone who, burdened by the big expectations, once left the tour to play cricket, and quite a leap from Barty's No. 15 ranking at the end of 2018.
But then it was a year of big jumps and drops. Some stars fell back: Sloane Stephens, Garbiñe Muguruza, Angelique Kerber, Caroline Wozniacki, Venus Williams and Jelena Ostapenko.
But new ones emerged or re-emerged. Andreescu went from No. 173 to No. 5 and became the first Canadian to win a Grand Slam singles title.
Teenager Marketa Vondrousova, a remarkable returner and the latest talented Czech left-hander, went from No. 67 to No. 16, losing to Barty in the French Open final.
Belinda Bencic, a smooth Swiss counterpuncher, came back from injury with her father, Ivan, back as her primary coach and rose from No. 37 to No. 8.
Alison Riske, an American veteran, soared 45 spots with an upgraded game and a new emphasis on analytics to finish at No. 18.
But precocity remains a powerful attention magnet, and younger Americans were difficult to ignore.
Sofia Kenin, 20, won three titles with her competitive fire and fine baseline game, and rose from No. 52 to No. 14.
Amanda Anisimova, 18, won her first tour title in Bogotá, Colombia, and reached the French Open semifinals by defeating Halep, the defending champion. She missed the U.S. Open because of the sudden death of her father and longtime coach, Konstantin, before returning to the tour in October.
Kenin and Anisimova made waves inside tennis, but Gauff, a powerful 15-year-old from Florida possessed of exceptional court coverage and court sense, became a breakout star by reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon as a qualifier. She later reached the third round at the U.S. Open and won her first tour singles title, in Linz, Austria, in October, as a lucky loser.
Gauff, Anisimova and Kenin should add up to an incandescent future for American tennis if they can remain focused and, above all, healthy.
The game remains a gantlet.
CiCi Bellis, an American who broke into the top 40 at age 18 in 2017, has not played a tour-level match in nearly two years because of wrist and elbow injuries. Ana Konjuh, a Croatian who was in the top 20 at age 18 in 2017, has missed two seasons because of right elbow problems. Vondrousova, who turned 20 in June, missed the second half of the season because of a left wrist injury that required surgery.
There are others, too many others, and it was sobering that Andreescu, despite her brilliant results in 2019, missed big chunks of the season because of a torn rotator cuff in her right shoulder. She then withdrew from the WTA Finals after two matches because of a torn meniscus in her knee. Osaka, Bencic and Kiki Bertens also withdrew or retired with injuries, which gave the Chinese government and other sponsors quite a bit less star power for their record $14 million purse than they had anticipated.
Underscoring the precariousness of it all, Kim Clijsters, the former No. 1 trying to make a comeback at age 36 after seven years off tour, announced that she was unable to return in January because of a knee injury, reportedly sustained while playing a different racket sport: padel.
But Clijsters is still intent on resuming her career, just as Williams appears intent on continuing to chase Margaret Court's record of 24 major singles titles in 2020.
Williams won more majors than any woman in the 2000s and the 2010s; only Helen Wills Moody had managed that in two decades, doing it in the 1920s and 1930s.
But the youngsters have clearly arrived. The average age of singles title winners on the tour in 2019 was 23 years 4 months, the youngest average since 2008.
Of the new wave, Barty, Osaka, Andreescu, Gauff and Anisimova seem best equipped to carry the game forward. There are also other candidates, including Bencic, Kenin, Karolina Muchova, Aryna Sabalenka and Dayana Yastremska.
But Williams, despite winning no titles since her return in 2018, has also reached four Grand Slam finals since her return. Against the odds and the current, can she strike one more blow for old time's sake, for her times' sake?
"I do hope it happens for her, as a reward for the champion she is," said Hantuchova, 1-9 versus Williams and now retired at age 36. "But I do believe she should play a few extra tournaments to be able to handle those finals better and so things can come automatically in the big moments."
Written by: Christopher Clarey
© 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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