The future of women's tennis

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Watching Kim Clijsters win her second Grand Slam got me thinking. Where is women’s professional tennis headed? Not to take anything away from Clijster’s fabulous achievement. But did this really happen? A former champion came back from an 18 month sabbatical. Began training to get back on to the tour in January. Played a couple of warm-up tournaments, came to New York, unseeded, and beat players ranked in the top 20 to win the US Open Championship. Has women’s tennis been unable to evolve to a higher level in the last 2 years? Has the competition ceased to get stiffer? Has the level of tennis diminished? The lack of consistency is worrying. Note : These questions are in no way aimed at undermining Clijsters’ victory . To be able to get back to competitive sport after the birth of her daughter has truly been a landmark not only for tennis but for all of sport. Well done! Time for the rest of the pack to pull up their socks.

Vasundhara Nangia
Sport Psychologist
www.nangiaconsultants.com

Tags: , kim clijsters, motherhood, tennis, us open 2009, women\'s tennis, wta

Posted September 14, 2009 at 11:37 AM by Vasundhara | Permalink | Comments(4)

Comments

It's interesting. There have been a few examples of mothers who have come back as strong or stronger (I'm struggling with names though), and I've wondered in the past whether childbirth itself is a factor in this, or whether there is something more psychological involved (e.g. gaining perspective).

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Rob Robson
Co-founder, iStadia.com

Posted by robrobson | September 15, 2009 at 12:31 AM

I think Carl Maes (Clijster's ex-coach) summed it up well by saying that no-one in women's professional tennis at the moment had Clijsters total game and to a great extent she proved that by beating both the Williams sisters. So I guess perhaps the game hasn't moved on that much but Clijsters also had several months to prepare for the US Open which the others had not and psychologically she only entered to get the feel for a 'slam' again so she was totally relaxed and had no expectations. More importantly there was not external pressure on her either.
With reference to her comeback after pregnancy, there does seem to be some empirical evidence that athletes can within reason come back stronger eg. Catriona Matthew (British Open golf champion 2009, Liz McColgan, Paula Radcliffe and I'm sure there's a few examples from US and Jamaica regarding sprint athletes?

Keith

Keith Irving
iStadia

Posted by keithirving | September 16, 2009 at 3:54 AM

I couldn't agree with you more Keith. I was going through one of her post match interviews and it seems that she got back into tennis purely for the love of the sport. The injuries and pressure had burned her out and so she walked away. She reported being pushed into trainings in between matches when she was younger. Whereas, I think, this time around, it was a more back to basics approach of playing to have fun, to feel good and to see how far one can take this. In New York, as there were no ranking points to defend, less pressure, she only practiced when she felt like practicing and spent time with her daughter when she didn’t. She was able to switch off and switch on at the right moments. Countless past champions have repeatedly stated that in order to win a Grand Slam, a player has to keep his/her eye on the ball. Two weeks is a long time. One has to stay focused for 14 days, which is a tough task. How a tennis player spends his/her off days is important (McEnroe’s comment of Murray over training comes to mind). Perhaps Clijsters has Jada to thank for the victory.

Vasundhara Nangia
Sport Psychologist
www.nangiaconsultants.com

Posted by Vasundhara | September 16, 2009 at 6:47 AM

Yep you could be right. Kids have a funny way of putting everything into perspective, playing down the be all and end all approach of ranking points and 'slam' wins. Perhaps having work/life balance as a fundamental goal is really important?

Keith

Keith Irving
iStadia

Posted by keithirving | September 16, 2009 at 8:28 AM