Mumbai: From the 2023 season in Grand Slams performed on onerous and clay courts, the ladies’s singles champion has had a well-known ring to it. Except for Madison Keys on this 12 months’s season-opening Slam, the Australian Open, French Open and US Open have been received by both Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek or Coco Gauff.
You’d must be an especially devoted tennis follower to recall the 2 Wimbledon champions of the interval. Troublesome, proper? So right here they go — Barbora Krejcikova and Marketa Vondrousova.
On this fairly regular part of the ladies’s recreation the place three of its most distinguished stars have dominated the majors, Wimbledon is an outlier. And it has been so for almost a decade now.
Since 2016 when Serena Williams received the final of her seven titles on the greens of the All England Membership, Wimbledon has not seen a two-time champion from the ladies’s draw. It’s the one Slam with this pattern. The Australian Open has had two-time winners in Naomi Osaka and Sabalenka by way of the identical interval, French Open has had a four-time champion Swiatek, whereas Osaka can be a twice US Open champion.
The Rosewater Dish has modified arms from Garbine Muguruza (2017) to Angelique Kerber (2018), Simona Halep (2019), Ash Barty (2021), Elena Rybakina (2022), Vondrousova (2023) to Krejcikova, the defending champion of the event beginning Monday.
None of those girls have managed to go all the best way once more on the Massive W. Just one girl on this decade to date has managed so as to add one other grass-court title to the Wimbledon triumph, and it wanted an epic Vondrousova comeback to bag one other trophy in Berlin on Sunday after two years of battle since her Wimbledon marvel run.
Grass and its most revered main, evidently, shouldn’t be the present girls stars’ cup of tea, at the very least to this point.
It wasn’t all the time the case. The ladies’s recreation did have the highest faces acing even the grass check (between 2000 and 2016, Serena and her sister Venus Williams captured 12 titles amongst them). It additionally had its share of grass-court specialists (suppose Petra Kvitova, the left-handed Czech who received Wimbledon in 2011 and 2014 however didn’t advance past the semi-finals in some other Slam).
Over the previous decade, these specialists have more and more light. Barty, the previous world No.1 from Australia flaunting a chopping and slicing recreation, was maybe among the many most up-to-date and well-known of these.
The 2 world No.1s to observe her have but to fully discover their ft on grass. Sabalenka, top-ranked at present, has made two semi-finals at Wimbledon however Swiatek, who had a blazing and unrivalled reign on the high from 2023 to 2024, solely has one quarter-final look to indicate.
The commonality in each their video games, which additionally applies to Gauff, is their baseline-heavy strategy. It really works on the more true onerous courts and slower clay courts however not fairly on the faster and extra inconsistent nature of grass. Sabalenka bludgeons groundstrokes from the again of the courtroom, Gauff depends extra on defence than offence to win factors, whereas Swiatek is at her greatest ripping these topspin-laden forehands.
“(Swiatek’s) Forehand is sweet sufficient, although it doesn’t repay as a lot on the grass because it does on clay,” Martina Navratilova, a nine-time champion at Wimbledon who received a report 120 matches on these iconic courts, instructed WTA.
That assertion may as nicely apply to the video games and weapons of any of the three. It’s little shock, due to this fact, that none of them characteristic within the high 5 record of WTA’s Grass Index, which calculates grass-court performances over the earlier 5 seasons.
Topping that chart is Krejcikova (2,304 factors), the defending singles champion who additionally has seven doubles Slam titles. Possessing a doubles recreation and feeling at residence on the web is useful on grass. Under her are Vondrousova, Ons Jabeur — the artful Tunisian with a penchant for the drop shot made the Wimbledon remaining in 2022 and 2023 and has essentially the most match wins on grass since 2021 — Donna Vekic and Rybakina.
Eighth on this grass order with 1,240 factors, Sabalenka is the perfect among the many present multiple-Slam successful trio. Wimbledon is the large lacking hyperlink within the particular person and collective CVs of the present girls’s video games most recognisable stars. Wimbledon can be lacking a repeat champion in almost a decade. Will 2025 break that pattern?
