Martina Hingis winning slams at the age of 16, Maria Sharapova, Serena Wililams, Pete Sampras, Michael Chang, Steffi Graf, Boris Becker...the days of the youngsters winning the slams are long gone. The WTA and ATP tour are just not producing the talents anymore, maybe because of the way tennis is going today.
Scheduling is tough, the power, the serve, fitness...so many of these things contribute to winning a slam. When Juan Martin Del Potro won the US Open last year, it looked as though the ATP had a new young star.
That was not meant to be as Del Potro went down with injury. Maria Sharapova rocked the WTA Tour winning Wimbledon but she has not been able to continuously play well and injuries have also taken a toll on her.
While there are so many pretenders on both side of the Tours, they just do not produce the games and talents to go all the way. Andy Murray is suffering from that in slam finals so far, Melanie Oudin plays here and there...things are just not going too great for the youngsters.
The veterans of the games are getting older by the day and while they might win the slams, the reality is they are not what advertisers are looking for. Sharapova might not be having a great time on the courts, but her $70 millions Nike deal say otherwise.
Money talks in sports and sadly, you need to win a slam or two in order to see the money. Sharapova might be a veteran by now, and might not be playing well, but at least she still have beauty on her side.
Roger Federer, Serena and Venus Williams, Justine Henin...sure, beauty is from the heart and the eyes of the beholder, but tell that to the companies shelving out the money. Federer could won 20 or 30 slams, but he would never get that $70 million deal like Sharapova.
The same goes for Serena or Venus or Justine.
It is good to be young and be a slam winner, and when you add beauty to it, you will have yourself a grant deal!
Beside from the money, a new talent on the block mean good business for tennis overall, not to mention a great news headline to publicize the sports. For now, no such headlines exist.
This is the new decade, it is just the beginning so hopefully from now until 2020, there will be a bunch of youngsters coming out of the woods to lift up tennis like the good old days of the 1980s and 1990s.