Simona Halep and Genie Bouchard will meet today for a place in the 2014 Wimbledon ladies’ singles final. Halep, the number 3 seed, and Bouchard, the 13th seed, have been here and done that as far as slam semis go, for it is these two young stars who are leading the pack when it comes to the WTA’s next generation.
Bouchard has two slam semi showings to her credit, making the last four at the last two slams in Paris and Melbourne. Each time she has gone down in three to the eventual champs Li Na and Maria Sharapova. Halep has gone one step further than Bouchard in slams, winning her first slam semi against Petkovic last month at Roland Garros. In the final, she produced her very best tennis, getting to 4-4 in the third before Sharapova stepped up a gear as four time slam champs are prone to do in finals against newbies.
The game has waited a while for two young players to step up and compete in the later stages of slams. Young, though, is a relative term in tennis as neither Bouchard or Halep are in their mid-teens like newbies at the business end of slams in women’s tennis used to be. Bouchard, aged 20, and Halep, aged 22, are products of a very different game of tennis than the one that produced 16 year old Capriati and 17 year old Seles fighting to the death in the 1991 US Open semi. Halep and Bouchard are from a different world than the one that saw Steffi Graf complete the golden slam aged 19, the one that saw Seles bag 8 slams at the same age.
This tennis world of 2014 is a more athletic one across the board than that of 1991, played on slower courts, on a circuit which seems to never end. A world both more dangerous with injuries befalling its stars and ending the careers of former no.1s such as Henin and Safina in their mid to late twenties, and more rewarding, with slam winners taking home over a million pounds compared to the hundreds of thousands of a couple of decades ago.
The slower courts allow the older generation to hang around longer if they can stay injury free. Last year’s US Open had 3 players over 30 in Serena, Li Na and Pennetta. Azarenka, at 24, the holder of two slams, was a spring chicken in comparison. It was Azarenka who led the generation of Wozniacki, Radwanska and Kvitova. Between them they have all reached the top 2 and have produced two no.1 players and 3 slams, a generation that produced 3 slamless number 1s, and mostly proved to be something of a letdown.
Now the tennis world waits to see if Halep and Bouchard can step up and produce something more glittering. Behind them, eager to compete for points and prizes are Pavlyuchenkova, Stephens, Muguruza, Svitolona, Giorgi, Nara, Riske, Jovanovski, Garcia, McHale, and Plishkova. All ranked in the top 50 and all under 22. Some have had greater success than others, but all are still fighting for that big breakthrough on a circuit that chews up and spits out its youngsters, one in which only the toughest make it to the top, a circuit where women in their late 20s and early 30s, their bodies broken but their experience rich, immune to the pressures of the tour after already surviving its ills, rule.
Halep and Bouchard have proven to have what it takes to join them. And just how tough they are, and more to the point, just who is tougher than who,who might rule later on, will be decided today as they make a bid for their first Wimbledon final. Neither could ask for a grander scene than the one where the last youngster, and at 17 she was positively a baby, Maria Sharapova, broke out, her generation’s leader, a generation that spawned a total of 6 slams, all won by her and Ana Ivanovic.
Halep and Bouchard have played once before, at this year’s Indian Wells, a battle which Halep won 6-2, 1-6, 6-4. This match should be just as intense as both women are in the kind of form befitting of slam semi-finalists and both women will be hungry to get through to the final. The match could prove to be a fine spectacle as Halep’s range and touch go up against the very 21st century aggressive game of Bouchard. And while it will be a contrast of styles, what will not separate either is guts. Both women go for broke when up or down and while Bouchard’s confidence is more apparent form her off and on-court persona, the sweet, softly spoken, head-down nature of Halep hides a ruthless killer instinct which may be the factor that separates the two later today and sees Halep move into her second consecutive women’ slam final.
There, she or Bouchard, would meet either Kvitova or Safarova, the two Czechs. Kvitova is a proven force on the lawns of SW19 while Safarova has the aggression and devil-may-care attitude of a 27 year old tour veteran peaking on a freak surface that just happens to suit her game down to a tee. Both Bouchard or Halep would fancy their chances against either of them, both Czech women being prone to nerves and erratic natures.
Halep and Bouchard meanwhile have proven to be both mentally tough and calm on the biggest stages. Just who is the toughest and calmest will be seen today in a contest that will determine who is the leader of the pack of the next generation in women’s tennis.
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