The age of Iga: the best of women’s tennis in 2022

Les Roopanarine — Sat, 31 Dec 2022 21:12:27 +0000

It was a year rich in plotlines on the WTA Tour.

Ashleigh Barty won the Australian Open and looked ready to dominate the women’s game for years to come. Within two months she had retired, giving way to another all-conquering No 1 in Iga Swiatek, who would go on compile a season for the ages. Not at Wimbledon, though, where Elena Rybakina, representing Kazakhstan but born in Moscow, came out of left field to lift the title and confound the All England Club’s ban on Russian and Belarusian players.

The players we expected to shine at the beginning of the year were not the same ones we were talking about by the end of it. Garbiñe Muguruza, unable to sustain the resurgent form that carried her to victory at the 2021 WTA Finals, won just a dozen matches. Anett Kontaveit, the finalist in Guadalajara, rose to second in the world but barely made a ripple at the majors. Injuries were rife among the previous year’s grand slam finalists, with Jennifer Brady, Barbora Krejcikova, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Karolina Pliskova all missing large chunks of the season, while Emma Raducanu, the defending US Open champion, was afflicted by a string of physical problems.

Others started the year promisingly only to fall away. Danielle Collins made her first major final at the Australian Open but, hampered by a lingering neck injury, was unable to build on her outstanding early form. Paula Badosa, a title winner in Sydney, reached a career-high ranking of second but suffered disappointment at the majors and finished the year at 13th.

Exciting new players emerged. Czech teenager Linda Fruhvirtova won in Chennai. Diane Parry, a former junior world No 1, dethroned Krejcikova in Paris – where China’s Qinwen Zheng likewise announced herself to the wider world with a brilliant run to the last 16.

Meanwhile, Ons Jabeur and Jessica Pegula were among the more established performers who made major strides – not forgetting Alizé Cornet, whose Indian summer included a first grand slam quarter-final at Melbourne Park, and Wimbledon semi-finalist Tatjana Maria – while Caroline Garcia rediscovered the exhilarating form that once moved Andy Murray to tip her as a future No 1.

With Pegula and Collins leading the way, the US also enjoyed an encouraging year. Madison Keys, a surprise semi-finalist at Melbourne Park, looked more her old self. Amanda Anisimova beat defending champion Naomi Osaka at the Australian Open and went on to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals. And, at the absurdly precocious age of 18, Coco Gauff reached the singles and doubles finals at Roland Garros. But as one American star waxed, another waned, Serena Williams bidding farewell to the game (for now, at least) in unforgettable style at the US Open.

No consideration of the past year would be complete without special mention of Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska, a finalist in Lyon only a week after fleeing Odessa with her younger sister Ivanna in the face of Russian bombing, and her wonderfully unorthodox compatriot Daria Snigur, whose first-round upset of Simona Halep was among the highlights of the US Open.

As Yastremska, Snigur and others reminded us, there were more important things than tennis going on in the world in 2022. With that in mind, here are our picks for the year’s best moments.

Best player: Iga Swiatek

There are many ways to quantify the brilliance of Swiatek in 2022. Most are glaringly obvious. The French and US Open triumphs that made Swiatek the first player to win two majors in a season since Angelique Kerber in 2016. The 37-match winning streak that ran from late February to early July – the longest such run since 1990 – and brought titles in Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, Stuttgart, Rome and Paris. The manner in which, having arrived at No 1 by default following Barty’s retirement, Swiatek cemented the position through sheer dominance, winning all but nine of her 76 matches to finish the season 6,030 points ahead of her nearest rival.

Yet Swiatek’s emergence as the world’s best player was about more than just numbers. On and off the court, the 21-year-old flourished in every way a player can flourish. After the emotional ups and downs of the previous season, when she suffered tearful defeats at the Tokyo Olympics and the WTA Finals, Swiatek made good on her stated aims of finding greater mental consistency and expanding her tactical repertoire.

The winds of change were first felt at the Australian Open, where she twice came from a set down to make the semi-finals of a hard-court major for the first time. Asked what she would take from her run, the Pole said she had learned that she didn’t need to perform perfectly to win, even on hard courts, and spoke with enthusiasm of her more aggressive game style and ability to utilise her mental and physical strengths with the same effectiveness as her gyrating topspin forehands.

The lessons would stick. Under the shrewd stewardship of Tomasz Wiktorowski, the fellow Pole to whom she turned during the off-season after taking the difficult decision to part ways with Piotr Sierzputowski, her coach of the previous six years, the greater mental resilience and adaptability she had craved became ever more apparent. Only at Wimbledon, where she seemed to talk herself out of contention long before falling to a third-round defeat against Cornet, did Swiatek’s self-belief falter.

If grass remains an unsolved mystery for now, elsewhere the Pole established herself as a supreme problem solver. That point was underlined by her response to that historic Centre Court defeat and the inevitable lull that followed. Little about Swiatek’s post-Wimbledon form suggested she would go on to triumph at Flushing Meadows, yet the way she bounced back from unexpected losses to Garcia in Warsaw, Beatriz Haddad Maia in Toronto and Keys in Cincinnati said everything about her evolution as a competitor, particularly given her discontent over the lighter balls in use over the US Open series.

Beyond the tactical and technical refinements she brought to her game (a greater willingness to dictate from the baseline and kill off points at the net, a more secure second serve), Swiatek also established herself as the voice and moral conscience of the women’s game. The blue and yellow ribbon she pinned to her cap following the outbreak of the Ukraine war remained in place to the season’s end, a symbol of the solidarity she expressed in both word and deed. The Pole used her French Open winners’ speech to urge Ukraine to “stay strong”, and later staged an exhibition event in Krakow that raised €422,000 for children affected by the war.

Nor did her commitment to social welfare end there. Not for the first time, Swiatek marked World Mental Heath Day in munificent fashion, donating the prize money from her run to the Ostrava Open final to a Polish charity that helps children with mental issues. And when allegations of sexual and physical abuse were levelled against Miroslaw Skrzypczynski, the president of the Polish tennis federation, she was quick to speak out on social media, calling for a full investigation and declaring herself “against violence in sports, in tennis, in every discipline and in everyday life”.

It is easy to forget, from a distance of 12 months, that Swiatek began the year ranked ninth. At that point, Barty was the runaway world No 1, Raducanu and Fernandez had recently contested an all-teenage US Open final, and there was a widely held expectation that Muguruza, the newly crowned WTA Finals champion, would feature as prominently in the season ahead as Kontaveit, the woman she beat in the final. No one was really talking about Swiatek. Now, as we ponder who will claim the big titles in 2023, she is the first name on everyone’s lips.

Most improved player: Ons Jabeur

Like Taylor Fritz on the men’s side, Jabeur might seem a slightly left-field candidate in this category. But consider the evidence. The 28-year-old, who had never previously been beyond the last eight at a major, reached back-to-back grand slam finals at Wimbledon and the US Open. She won the biggest title of her career at the Madrid Open. She qualified for the WTA Finals for the first time. And, like Swiatek, Jabeur climbed the toughest rungs of the professional ladder, rising from 10th in the world to finish the year at a career-high No 2.

As ever, Jabeur did it all while carrying the hopes of a people, a country and a continent. Such has been her trailblazing influence, she could be forgiven for trading in “Ons” for “The First Arab or African Woman to…” – words that almost invariably precede any mention of her name. Speaking of which, did we mention that she became the first African woman to reach a slam final since Sandra Reynolds in 1960?

“I want to go bigger, inspire many more generations,” Jabeur said after losing out to Rybakina in the Wimbledon final.

“Tunisia is connected to the Arab world, is connected to the African continent. That area, we want to see more players, you know, it’s not like Europe. I want to see more players from my country, from the Middle East, from Africa. I think we didn’t believe enough at certain points that we can do it. Now I’m just trying to show that [we can].”

Among several other notable contenders for the title of most improved player, two deserve special mention.

The first is Jessica Pegula, who won the biggest title of her career in Guadalajara and reached the quarter-finals of every major bar Wimbledon. Ranked just outside the top 20 before the Australian Open, the 28-year-old New Yorker was a byword for consistency in 2022, her equanimity and ability to adapt to circumstance making her a fixture at the sharp end of tournaments as she finished the year in third spot.

The second is Haddad Maia, who rose 68 places in the rankings to finish the year at a career-high 15th. The powerful Brazilian has not had the smoothest journey in the professional game – at 26, she already has four surgeries behind her – but, over the course of an outstanding summer, she demonstrated what she can do when fit. A dozen straight grass-court wins earned Haddad Maia her first-tour level titles in Nottingham and Birmingham, while her superb run to the Toronto final included a three-set win over Swiatek.

Respectful nods must also go to a trio of Russians. Veronika Kudermetova made the top 10 for the first time after a season that included final appearances in Melbourne, Dubai and Istanbul and a first grand slam quarter-final at Roland Garros, while Ekaterina Alexandrova and Liudmila Samsonova were both title winners and top-20 debutants.

But did anyone make greater strides in 2022 than Jabeur? It is only 18 months since her maiden title win in Birmingham made her the first Arab woman to win a WTA Tour event; now, she is consistently challenging for the game’s biggest prizes. Jabeur is improvement personified.

Most heart-warming moment: Tatjana Maria

After beating her compatriot Jule Niemeier at Wimbledon to make her first grand slam semi-final at the age of 34, Tatjana Maria was asked if she ever longed to be recognised not simply as a mother of two, but also as a tennis player and an individual. No, came the German’s refreshingly down-to-earth response – motherhood was the most important thing in her life.

“I try to keep normal as much as possible, because what makes me proudest is to be a mom,” said Maria after booking a last-four showdown with close friend Jabeur.

There is nothing normal about reaching the last four at Wimbledon, particularly for a player who had only once previously reached the third round of a slam. Yet somehow the unseeded Maria, with all her talk of creches and Pampers and family life, made the extraordinary feel relatable. On the court, she earned universal admiration with emotional victories against a trio of seeded players: Sorana Cirstea, Maria Sakkari and – from match points down, and to the Latvian’s evident displeasure – Jelena Ostapenko. Off the court, she cemented her place in the affections of the English public with her insistence that she was just an ordinary working parent, juggling professional commitments with the more serious business of childcare.

It was an irresistible combination, and there was barely a dry eye in the house when, after a bewitching contest crammed with all manner of flicks, spins and mind-bending geometry from both women, the victorious Jabeur grabbed Maria by the arm and led her back on court, forgoing any display of triumphalism after reaching the biggest final of her life to orchestrate one final ovation for her “barbecue buddy”.

After a fortnight overshadowed by talk of player bans and points deductions and legal threats, it was the kind of gracious and joyous moment that a beleaguered tournament needed.

Best newcomer: Qinwen Zheng

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A post shared by Zheng Qinwen (@zhengqinwen_tennis)

In the first three rounds of the French Open, Iga Swiatek lost just a dozen games – the same number she conceded from the quarter-finals onwards. Sandwiched between those all-conquering sequences came an intriguing three-set tussle with China’s Qinwen Zheng, a 19-year-old (now 20) with a future that promises to be as big as her thunderous game.

As Zheng showed that day, she has the talent and the temperament to live with the very best. It wasn’t just the way she traded blows with Swiatek, or the resilience she demonstrated in saving five set points to overturn a 5-2 first-set deficit. It was also the self-belief she showed against the world’s best player. Her refusal to throw in the towel even after sustaining a debilitating thigh injury. The candour and confidence she showed afterwards, as she calmly explained to the world’s press the role menstrual cramps had played in her loss. They were qualities that marked Zheng out as a player of genuine substance – an impression she confirmed when she again went the distance with Swiatek five months later in San Diego.

But there was more to Zheng’s season than a couple of eye-catching performances against the world No 1. She also racked up a string of impressive, high-profile victories over former grand slam champions. At Roland Garros, in only the second major of her fledgling career, she felled former champion Simona Halep, avenging a semi-final defeat to the Romanian in a 250 event in Melbourne at the start of the year. Zheng dumped out Sloane Stephens en route to round three of Wimbledon, and reached the same stage at the US Open after accounting for Ostapenko. In between came a three-set victory over Bianca Andreescu in Toronto, where Zheng reached her first WTA 1000 quarter-final.

About the only thing she did not do in 2022 was win a title – unlike the 17-year-old Czech teenager Linda Fruhvirtova, arguably her closest rival for best newcomer, who claimed a maiden tournament victory in Chennai. Zheng did, however, make the final in Tokyo, toppling Badosa and Kudermetova along the way, and her superior record at the slams – and giddying rise from 126 to a career-high 25 in the rankings – make her a worthy winner in this category.

Best match: Caroline Garcia v Iga Swiatek, Poland Open

Swiatek aside, did any woman play better tennis in 2022 than Garcia? The Frenchwoman’s renaissance, after three years pockmarked by injury and dwindling confidence, was among the season’s most uplifting stories. And the catalyst came in Warsaw, where a rampant Garcia rewrote the clay-court playbook with a barnstorming attacking display that at times left Swiatek looking utterly bewildered.

It was a rare indignity for the Pole and one of the finest performances of the season from Garcia, whose blistering returns and unflinching commitment to attack made for the kind of match from which you simply can’t avert your gaze. A humble 250 event in a country where tennis has yet to form deep roots might seem an unlikely setting for such a contest, yet the context and broader ramifications of the match were fraught with significance.

All eyes were on Swiatek as she attempted to bounce back from the shock Wimbledon defeat to Cornet that ended her 135-day winning run. Playing in her hometown, and on her beloved red clay – where she had won 18 straight matches – the world No 1 could hardly have wished for more auspicious circumstances. And when she recovered from a ludicrously strong start by Garcia to level the match at a set all, making just one unforced error in the process, it felt almost inevitable she would prevail. Having produced superhuman tennis in the opener, surely Garcia would be hard pushed to reproduce that level down the stretch against the world’s best player, and before a fiercely partisan crowd?

No, as it turned out. A restorative victory on the grass courts of Bad Homburg, her first title in three years, had reignited something in Garcia – reminding her, perhaps, that she was once ranked fourth in the world for a reason. Infused with renewed belief by her compatriot Bertrand Perret, who took up the coaching reins from her father Louis Paul in the off-season, she stuck to her guns, kept attacking and was rewarded with a 6-1, 1-6, 6-4 triumph that set the stage not only for her title win in Poland but for much of what followed.

And what followed was considerable: victory in Cincinnati, where Garcia completed a perfect set of tournament wins on grass, clay and hard courts and became the first qualifier to win a WTA 1000 event; a first grand slam semi-final at the US Open; the biggest title of her career at the WTA Finals; and a year-end ranking of fourth, only six months after she had fallen to 79th, her lowest position in eight years. Was it all purely down to one result? Of course not. But Garcia went into the second half of the season with the air of a woman who knew that, if she could beat Swiatek, she could beat anyone.

Biggest shock: Ashleigh Barty’s retirement

In a year full of surprises (Garcia’s renaissance, Swiatek’s dominance, the rise of Pegula, Rybakina’s Wimbledon win, Halep’s suspension, to name but a few), none was greater than Barty’s abrupt retirement from the sport.

The Australian has always been something of an outlier – it’s not every player that takes a year off to play professional cricket – but no one beyond her immediate circle expected the reigning world No 1 to walk away from the game at the age of 25.

Every player is wired differently, though, and while it looked from the outside as though the Queenslander was set for a period of era-defining preeminence, especially after ending her country’s 44-year wait for a homegrown Australian Open champion, the reality was very different. As we now know, Barty had already realised her greatest ambition by winning Wimbledon the previous summer. Victory at Melbourne Park was the icing on a cake for which the three-time slam champion no longer had the appetite.

As the watching world grasped for words, the task of explaining the seemingly inexplicable fell to Barty’s coach, Craig Tyyzer. “It was never about the successes,” said Tyyzer. “It was about fulfilling Ash’s dreams, and she basically did that.”

Best occasion: Serena Williams’s farewell

Every great champion must bow out eventually, and enough legends have exited stage left over the years to prove that no player is bigger than the game. But what if the departee is Serena Williams – global icon, winner of 23 grand slam titles, and quite possibly the greatest female athlete of all time? And what if the scene of her departure is the US Open, the rowdiest, most febrile stop on the grand slam merry-go-round?

Why then, all bets are off. Then, we reach the juncture where perspective gives way to pandemonium; where a New York crowd not noted for its reticence at the best of times becomes a clamorous wall of deafening, unashamedly partisan noise; where Queen Latifah hails Williams as “the queen of Queens” in a glitzy big-screen video; where the woman of the hour emerges in the kind of outfit more befitting a black-tie gala than a tennis match, all shimmers and sparkles and swirls, and is followed on to court by Billie Jean King, who delivers a typically eloquent panegyric, one legend to another; where Oprah Winfrey narrates video montages, Spike Lee conducts coin tosses, and Bill Clinton and Hugh Jackman look on from the stands. Welcome to prime time, baby.

And that was just the opening round. A couple of nights later, after Williams had come through her opener against Danka Kovinic to set up a meeting with second seed Kontaveit, we did it all over again. Literally. The video clips, the voiceovers, the dress, the commotion. And you know what? Williams prevailed once more, although only she knew how. “I’m just Serena, you know,” she smiled.

It all came crashing to a halt against Ajla Tomljanovic in round three – although not before another helping of the now-familiar razzmatazz – but it was the wildest of rides, a farewell like no other.

The queen of Queens. pic.twitter.com/WipNUcGL5q
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) August 29, 2022

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Jabeur defeats Maria to reach Wimbledon final

Les Roopanarine — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 18:16:32 +0000

Beautiful tennis, played in a beautiful spirit, with a beautiful ending.

As Ons Jabeur achieved the biggest win of her life, defeating her close friend Tatjana Maria 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 to reach the Wimbledon final, her first thought was for the German mother of two whose progress to the semi-finals has been one of the stories of the past fortnight.

Having shared a warm embrace and a few quiet words of solace with Maria at the net, Jabeur grabbed her “barbecue buddy” by the arm and led her back on to court, pointing to the 34-year-old as she joined in with the applause that rained down from the Centre Court stands.

“I definitely wanted to share the moment with Tatjana at the end, because she is such an inspiration for so many players, including me, coming back after two babies,” Jabeur told the crowd. “I still can’t believe how she did it.”

“She deserves a lot of respect, Tatjana, making the first time semi-final, the way she plays, the way she fights,” the 27-year-old later added in press. “If I didn’t see her two kids, I would say she never had the kids. It’s really amazing how she moves on the court, it’s really inspiring for a lot of women.”

Jabeur, who has inspired a people, a country and a continent, knows whereof she speaks. The Tunisian world No 2 has long been a trailblazer for Arab and African women, establishing a host of historic landmarks. She is the first Arab player, male or female, to break the world’s top 10, and became the first to progress beyond a grand slam quarter-final with her win over Marie Bouzkova.

Now she is the first African woman to reach a major final since Sandra Reynolds, the South African beaten by Maria Bueno in the 1960 final. Jabeur, who will face Elena Rybakina in Saturday’s final after the 17th-seeded Kazakh defeated Simona Halep 6-3, 6-3, has embraced her figurehead status. “An amazing role model,” Maria called her afterwards. That much is indisputable – and she is not done yet.

“I want to go bigger, inspire many more generations,” she said. “Tunisia is connected to the Arab world, is connected to the African continent. That area, we want to see more players, you know, it’s not like Europe. I want to see more players from my country, from the Middle East, from Africa. I think we didn’t believe enough at certain points that we can do it. Now I’m just trying to show that, and hopefully people are getting inspired.”

The Centre Court crowd were certainly galvanised. How richly the pair deserved the standing ovation they received. For an hour and 43 minutes, they produced tennis that was quite literally out of this world, harking back to a bygone age when the game was about artistry and nuance rather than raw, bludgeoning power. It was a joyful exhibition, full of spins, grins and mind-bending geometry that left no angle or area of the court unexplored.

Think of a shot that can be hit on a tennis court, and this match had it. Dinks and drop shots, weighty drives and artful lobs, they were all here – and that was just in the brilliant opening game, a five-deuce feast for the senses finally won by Maria as she held after eight absorbing minutes.

"This shot should be impossible"

A ridiculous winner by @Ons_Jabeur #Wimbledon | #CentreCourt100 pic.twitter.com/3eunp1c2Fx
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 7, 2022

Whatever antics Nick Kyrgios may get up to in the days ahead, the Australian will do nothing that comes close to the outrageousness on display here. At one stage, Jabeur reached back to retrieve a ball that was already past her, pulling off a drop half-volley of such bewitching virtuosity that even she didn’t know where it would end up. As the Tunisian performed an impromptu pirouette, Maria came dashing forward to slice the ball back across the face of the net, finding an angle so acute that even Jabeur was bamboozled into error.

Later, Jabeur punctuated a cat-and-mouse exchange of angles with an audacious flicked forehand off another ball that seemed to have passed her by. On and on they went, Maria angling away an elegant drop volley only for Jabeur to materialise at the last possible instant, skidding and stretching, to conjure an unreachable dink with an audacious flick of the wrist.

Statistics felt redundant in the face of such artistry, and sure enough the numbers were misleading. They showed that Jabeur made 30 unforced errors, Maria three fewer. Crucially, however, only three of the Tunisian’s mistakes came in the final set. By that time, Jabeur had come to terms with the awkward nature of her opponent’s game, which ironically posed her the same kind of difficulties she is used to inflicting on others.

Able to make her greater weight of shot tell in the first set, Jabeur struggled to contain a rampant Maria in the second. As the German’s sliced forehands skidded ever faster through the court, so Jabeur’s feet and racket-head speed slowed. Mishits became frequent, errors – both forced and unforced – even more so. But as the third set began, Jabeur raised her level, sealing a love hold with a trademark flying backhand before breaking in the next game with a flicked forehand pass. She would not be caught.

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