Sum up of a luckluster WTA season

You know who I kind of feel bad for this holiday season? Anne Worcester, the inimitable Pilot Pen Tennis tournament director.

Why, you ask? Well, less than a decade ago, Worcester was defying all sorts of logic with the success she and everyone else at the Pilot Pen were achieving with their women's tennis tournament. They were landing big-name players year after year, even though they were a Tier II tournament wedged between a Tier I event (Canada) and a Grand Slam (U.S. Open).

Venus Williams, Lindsay Davenport, Justine Henin, Martina Hingis, Jennifer Capriati, Elena Dementieva. The semifinal matches were legitimate, final-weekend-of-a-major type of matchups. But it's just not the same anymore. And it's not their fault.

Sure, the Olympics are a major problem every four years, including this past August, luring top players overseas the same month that the U.S. Open begins. Top players aren't going to kill themselves by playing in China, New York and possibly Canada, and still squeeze in a week of tennis in New Haven. No chance. It's even less likely than a New York football player shooting himself in the leg. What are the odds?

But that's not the main problem for Worcester and the Pilot Pen. See, probably the biggest reason the Pilot Pen isn't attracting as many big-name women's players anymore is, well, who in the heck are the big-name women's players? Honestly. Ten years ago, women's tennis was arguably more interesting than men's tennis. Now it's at best in a transitional phase, and at worst a disaster. Let's examine.

The 2002 Pilot Pen field included the following players: Venus Williams (who was at the top of her game), Henin, Davenport, Hingis, Amelie Mauresmo, Dementieva, Daniela Hantuchova, an unseeded Patty Schnyder, Anastasia Myskina. I mean, are you kidding? I'm not sure you could hand-pick eight players from today's game who would draw more interest than those eight. It's almost hard to believe. And it wasn't the only year in the first half of the decade that the Pilot Pen pulled off an impressive field.

As we head to the 2009 season, the No. 1 player in the world is Jelena Jankovic, she of exactly zero major championships. Aside from second-ranked Serena Williams, the only top-five player with a Grand Slam championship is No. 5 Ana Ivanovic, who at 21 years old has the makings of a big star, even though she absolutely plummeted after winning the French Open this year.

Other top-10 players include No. 3 Dinara Safina, a talented player on the rise; No. 4 Dementieva, a solid-but-never-elite player who's past her prime; No. 7 Vera Zvonereva, a fierce baseliner and tough competitor who probably would exceed expectations if she ever won a major; No. 8 Svetlana Kuznetsova, who has been astoundingly inept in big matches since her unexpected 2004 U.S. Open title; and No. 10 Agnieszka Radwanska, a talented 19-year-old who is already in the top 10 despite never reaching the semifinals of a major.

Right now I can accept Ivanovic as a truly marquee name in women's tennis, despite her putrid 11-9 post-Roland Garros record. Then there are the WTA Tour's three biggest active stars: Venus (ranked sixth) and Serena Williams and No. 9 Maria Sharapova. That's slim pickings. Four superstars.

Now, under normal circumstances, those four players might be enough to captivate casual tennis fans, at least during the four Grand Slam events. But these are not normal circumstances. We simply cannot count on those players to play deep into majors three or four times a year, and with that being the case, where are the rivalries and compelling matchups coming from? Where's Federer-Nadal, or Nadal-Djokovic, or Murray-Federer?

This will be a big year for Ivanovic, who needs to recover from her prolonged French Open hangover, and she probably will. Venus Williams is 28 years old, often hurt and not fond of playing a full schedule, which is understandable since full tennis schedules shorten careers, a fact the governing bodies continue to overlook (another column for another day, perhaps). In the last three years, Venus has played in 10 of 12 majors; she's won two (both at Wimbledon), reached one additional semifinal, and four times has not gotten past the third round. The last time she won a major besides Wimbledon was 2001.

Serena Williams has nine career Grand Slam titles, including the 2008 U.S. Open. She continues to be a threat in every tournament she plays, which, like her sister, is not too many. Since mid-2003, she's missed five majors and has reached the semifinals in less than one-third of the Grand Slams in which she's appeared. By no means is she dominant.

Sharapova has to be the most interesting case. She burst onto the scene in 2004 when she won Wimbledon (and immediately after did a promotional event in New Haven for the Pilot Pen, a major coup for Worcester), and at 6-foot-2 with a booming serve and unshakable determination and competitiveness, she seemed destined to take over the game. It simply has not happened.

Sharapova, who missed much of 2008 with an injury, will turn 22 years old early next season, so her best tennis is almost certainly ahead of her. But she struggles on clay, and despite having a game that appears to be tailored to grass, she's not reached a Wimbledon final since her 2004 triumph. No one really knows what to expect from her right now.

A best-case scenario for women's tennis is this: The Williams sisters are focused and competitive for the next couple of years while Ivanovic and Sharapova begin to fulfill their potential and build a rivalry, leading to some interesting matchups between the Williamses and the new stars. Safina must continue her development. Perhaps 29-year-old Mauresmo has one more run in her. In the meantime, young players like Radwanska, Caroline Wozniacki and others not yet even on the radar (as well as Anna Chakvetadze and Nicole Vaidisova, who seemed to forget how to play tennis in 2008 after showing so much promise) need to become the next wave of stars. Not just top-five tennis players, but stars. If that all happens, Worcester and other tournament directors will have better chances to build quality fields. If I were them, however, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Source

Yep, the WTA has been a real suck-fest this year, no wonder I haven't been watching it. And unless things drastically improve I will continue to do so.