Petra Kvitova and the next generation of WTA

[Doctor MJ]

With Kvitova beating Stosur in the WTA championships today, it seems pretty clear to me that she has to be the Player of the Year for 2011.

-As many major wins as anyone else.
-As many match wins at majors as any other major winners.
-Best performance of major winners at tour championship.
-Leader in Prize Money for the year.

To go along with that, she's the first of the new generation to truly arrive along with acclaim from the tennis-erati that she has potential for all-time greatness.

So what do you think of her?

What do you think of others in the next generation? Azeranka? Woz? Sabine? Who else is on your mind?

[NeverGoingToWin]

I have not been paying much attention to tennis because I am Williams fan. The thing with the top players are they either to do not play a power game or are not consistent. I would LOVE if she turns into a dominant player so the Women's field would have a true #1.

[Dr Positivity]

She should be #1 already based on the prize money gap between her and Woz in 2011 and the majors points

I didn't know her potential had that much respect from the tennis insiders, Azarenka always seemed like the 'potential star if she gets it together' just based on my more limited impression of seeing her power/errors game - good to see two young players with offensive games and the potential for a rivalry, though

[Doctor MJ]

She should be #1 already based on the prize money gap between her and Woz in 2011 and the majors points

I tell you what, that's the discrepancy that really bothers me. It's all well and good that the rankings tend to focus on consistent players more than we fans do simply because we're more focused on the majors than the tour is. If you're going to try to create a standard other than prestige though, you're really in rough shape if you're not going to use money.

For Kvitova to have the money edge basically $5 mill to $3 mill, and still not rank #1 is absolutely ridiculous. By contrast, Woz is the #2 money leader this year and I have absolutely no problem with her being ranked ahead of the 3 major winners not named Kvitova.

[NeverGoingToWin]

More than 40% is from the Wimbledon win. Money should not be factor in rankings because some tournaments offer insane amounts of money that skew the results. The US Open in golf offered double what any other tournament did at one point.

I think it is troubling that they both have 6 wins and she has a major and yet she is still behind Woz. She would be #1 if she had won 2 rounds in the US Open.

[Doctor MJ]

More than 40% is from the Wimbledon win. Money should not be factor in rankings because some tournaments offer insane amounts of money that skew the results. The US Open in golf offered double what any other tournament did at one point.

I think it is troubling that they both have 6 wins and she has a major and yet she is still behind Woz. She would be #1 if she had won 2 rounds in the US Open.

Well see this is where I come back to 1) prestige, 2) money, 3) other. In the end, tennis players are basically only interested in money and prestige. No one is going to sacrifice both of those things in order to maximize ranking, so what's the point of developing a ranking system that doesn't reflect something the players strive for?

I should clarify: I know full well WHY they make the ranking system like they do - it's to try to encourage the players to take non-serious tournaments seriously. I just roll my eyes at the attempt.

Not saying that the rankings have to lineup exactly with money (or somewhere in between money and prestige), but when one person earns more than 50% above another player, and the rankings have them in the opposite order that's a serious problem.

Bottom line is that if it's a serious problem with the players' not taking non-majors seriously enough, the only real solution is to raise the prize money for those tournaments. If the tourney can't afford to pay more, and the ATP/WTA isn't willing to inject money in, then no ranking system is going to change things, and having such a warped ranking system only leads to weird resentment toward the players it favors.

Incidentally, I can't tell you how much I respect Wimbledon for using their own seeding system independent of tour rankings. Seedings are there to try to insure the best possible tournament not to reward what players did on entirely different surfaces. Every time the French Open seeded Andy Roddick they were reducing the quality of their tournament, to say nothing of the negative press Roddick got for once again being "upset" by someone who is simply better than him on clay.

[NeverGoingToWin]

Wimbledon does not do that as much anymore. Biggest reason reason being that most players are good at all surfaces now and you do not have these clay court specialists dominating the French Open anymore.

That's the point though. Players don't worry about the rankings, or they say they don't at least, so why do fans care so much? They should leave it the way it is for no other reason than it brings attention to their sport because the non-hardcore fans use it to insult tennis. I personally do not care who is #1 because it will always work itself out. The tour needs a dominant player. Kvitova could be that player and then this argument will go away because the general public does not care who is #2.

The rankings are to reward players for their performance year-round. I don't understand why people want players to be over-compensated for winning majors when it comes to the rankings. Tennis is about more then 4 tournaments a year.

[Doctor MJ]

Wimbledon does not do that as much anymore. Biggest reason reason being that most players are good at all surfaces now and you do not have these clay court specialists dominating the French Open anymore.

That's the point though. Players don't worry about the rankings, or they say they don't at least, so why do fans care so much? They should leave it the way it is for no other reason than it brings attention to their sport because the non-hardcore fans use it to insult tennis. I personally do not care who is #1 because it will always work itself out. The tour needs a dominant player. Kvitova could be that player and then this argument will go away because the general public does not care who is #2.

The rankings are to reward players for their performance year-round. I don't understand why people want players to be over-compensated for winning majors when it comes to the rankings. Tennis is about more then 4 tournaments a year.

Some good points, and as someone who regularly goes to Indian Wells but not the majors, I certainly want the players to at least care about the master tournaments.

That said: "The players don't care, so why should the fans?"

To me that just brings me back to the tour management. If neither the players nor the fans cared about the rankings, and all they're doing is inflating the seeding of lesser player in greater tournaments, why have them at all? To me you need to start with a goal, and not let yourself get fixated on a strategy to get to that goal. If you want to co-opt "best player in the world" rankings to try to promote the year-round tour that's fine, but never lose site of why you think doing so will succeed with minimal negative effects.

I also think that courting controversy through incompetence is never the right move. Using ambiguity like college football does might in fact be smart, but what we have now is something that results in a system that 100% of people think got the wrong answer this year. People aren't championing their favorite players, they're just mocking the tour management, and worse, they're mocking Wozniacki who has extreme marketing potential so long as her game is respected.

[Captain_Obvious]

What do you think of others in the next generation? Azeranka? Woz? Sabine? Who else is on your mind?

Lisicki is on my mind

Kvitova was dominating at the tour championship which I watched. Wozniacki was mostly disappointing due to injury though (at least that's what we heard). Still, she hasn't won anything major in her whole career yet is constantly number one. I agree they have to do something about the ranking.

Kvitova is the most talented player of the bunch IMO. She has to show now she can become more consistent (she struggled a lot after Wimbledon). She also seems to have mental breakdowns from time to time during matches. Can she overcome that over time?
Wozniacki is basically the best return player but lacks the winners. Together with Azarenka these three will probably fill in the first 3 spots. Wonder what the Williams sisters, Sharapova, and of course Clijsters will do next year.

Here in Germany media mostly talks about Petkovic. I think this is going to change mid term when Lisicki breaks out (hopefully).

[Myth111]

http://espn.go.com/tennis/aus12/story/_ ... p-momentum

[MikeIsGood]

She's a "generation" away, but Laura Robson is who I would keep an eye on. "The next great British hope" - god knows that they need another.

[morgeen]

All these veterans have enjoyed stellar careers and while they will continue to progress deep into major tournaments, it will be a surprise to see them go all the way...