Wimbledon 2022: a post-mortem | thearticle

One striking feature of this year’s Wimbledon went almost unnoticed. Where were the Americans? One American man, Taylor Fritz, made the Singles Quarter-Finals and was promptly dispatched by

Rafael Nadal. One American woman made the Round of 16 in the Singles, Ana Anisimova, and both her parents are Russian immigrants. One American, R. Ram, made the Semi-Finals of the Men’s

Doubles and three made the Quarter-Finals of the Women’s Doubles. Not one is a household name. When I first started watching Wimbledon in the 1970s Americans dominated the tournament. It was

the end of the Australian era: Rod Laver, Tony Roche, John Newcombe, Ken Rosewall, Roy Emerson. Australians won the Men’s Singles ten times between 1960-71. Then came the Americans: Stan

Smith (1972), Jimmy Connors (1974, 1982), Arthur Ashe (1975), John McEnroe (1981, 1983, 1984), André Agassi (1992), Pete Sampras (1993-5, 1997-2000). Fifteen American winners between

1972-2000. And that was it. No American has won the Men’s Singles since Sampras. Since then, three great Europeans — Roger Federer from Switzerland, Nadal from Spain and Novak Djokovic from

Serbia — have won it sixteen times between them in less than twenty years (and have been defeated finalists another eight times between them). There has only been one non-European winner

during that period, Leyton Hewitt in 2002. There wasn’t an American seed in the top ten and only two in the top twenty (and one of those, Jon Isner) was seeded twentieth. It’s the same story

with the Ladies Singles. There was a Australian ascendancy in the 1960s and early 1970s (Margaret Smith, later Margaret Court, and Evonne Goolagong, later Cawley). Otherwise it was a

procession of extraordinary American champions: Billie Jean King (1966-68, 1972-3, 1975), Chris Evert (1974, 1976, 1981), Martina Navratilova (1978-9, 1982-7, 1990), Lindsay Davenport

(1999), Venus Williams (2000-1, 2006, 2007-8) and her sister Serena (2002-3, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2015-6). But nothing since then. Seven European winners between 2011 and 2022 and seven

European losing finalists since 2010. There was only one American woman seed in the top ten. There is one curious difference between the Men’s Champions and the Women’s Champions in these

years. The three European men have dominated every major tournament, winning twenty or more titles each, and are the most famous male tennis players since Sampras and Agassi, though British

fans would add Andy Murray (champion in 2013 and 2016) and the luckless Tim Henman. The European women, by contrast, are barely known except to real enthusiasts, certainly not comparable to

household names like Billie Jean King, Navratilova and Venus and Serena Williams, the most famous women players of their time. The defeat of Serena Williams in the First Round (by a European

player) symbolised the end of an era. Serena Williams is now forty and her older sister Venus is forty-two. It is unlikely we will ever see them at Wimbledon again. The other key question

which emerged from Wimbledon this year is: who will succeed the Big Three — Djokovic, Nadal and Federer? The obvious contenders are Nick Kyrgios (subject to the verdict in his forthcoming

trial) and four Europeans, Casper Ruud (the defeated finalist at Paris), Daniil Medvedev (defeated finalist in Australia and winner of the US Open in 2021), Stefanos Tsitsipas (defeated

finalist in the 2021 French Open), Matteo Berrettini (defeated finalist at Wimbledon in 2021) and Alexander Zverev (a recent semi-finalist in France and Australia and currently the world’s

number 2), all in their mid-20s. British fans would perhaps add Cameron Norrie, also in his mid-20s, a defeated semi-finalist at Wimbledon. These players know the Big Three will not be

around for much longer, and all except Norrie have reached the final rounds of major championships in the past year, but none has yet achieved the legendary status of Federer, Nadal and

Djokovic. Only a brave person would bet on any of them doing so. With Nadal’s injuries, Djokovic banned from the next US and Australian Opens and Federer, at almost forty-one, unlikely to be

a leading contender again, there is clearly an opening for the younger players. But TV networks must be fretting about the near future of tennis. Coco Gauff and Emma Raducanu have star

quality, at least in the English-speaking world, but otherwise sponsors and commentators must be fretting. Perhaps that’s the biggest lesson of Wimbledon 2022.   A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE

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