Julia Carrot wrote:

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Coup Droit wrote:

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I see that the 17 year-old Czech girl (Linda F) who's been mentionted a fair bit in the juniors, and is one of the leading figures of Rothenberg's #variousCzechteenagers, has won again and is now into the last 16, which is pretty amazing

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That's the one Emma beat in Auckland  first round, or was it her younger sister?

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 Yes, that's the one

I always like the last 16 in a slam - a good snapshot, I feel, of where tennis is at the moment:

Here we have 11 Europeans, 4 non-Europeans (2 x Asia, 2 x north America) and one inter-continental Asia/European country (although, to be honest, it would make more sense to put Kazahstan in Europe here, despite it's main geographic presence, as Rybakina is way more European than Asian, being basically from Moscow):

3 - Czech
2 - Poland
2 - USA
2- China
2 - Belorussia
1 - France
1 - Swiss
1 - Croatia
1 - Latvia
1 - Kazakh

The lack of any players from the Americas outside of the USA is a shame (as is the lack of any Aussie)

The presence of Western Europe is also pretty feeble - only two European players are not from ex-communist countries.


For age range, there are three players aged 30 or over.
With the oldest being 33 (Zhang and Azarenka)

Two teenagers. Three aged 21 or under.

And these are tall women. 12 out of 16 are at least 5ft 9 (175 cm). Four of those are over 180cm. No player is under 170 cm.

Like Indy, I think it's a little early to say there's a new core elite group. Or if there is, it's a very small group and a lot of movement still possible round the sides - lots of other youngsters knocking on the door too.

Well, in our household sweepstakes at the start, I'd gone for Pegula and partner went for Rybakina, so honours even so far.....

JonH comes home wrote:

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paulisi wrote:

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I think we are now starting to see a group of elite players on the women's side plus a few young superstars on the rise that are very marketable. Something that has not happened for a while.

Swiatek, Jabeur, Pegula, Garcia, Sabalenka, Gauff, Bencic and potentially Krejchikova

Obviously Radacanu, Fruhvitova, L Fernández, Andreescu are the new kids on the block

Then you have the old guard still knocking around like Kvitova

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 Pegula and Sabalenka only ones of these 8 to make the last 8. 

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 The only two including the four 'new kids', and the old guard. So that's two out of 13.

Which is not a criticism of paulisi's new elite, just showing that it's still a bit of a cr*p-shoot

 

However, you could say that the last 8 are actually quite 'elite', just not the elite named.

You've got

Previous grand slam winners: Rybakina, Ostapenko, Azarenka (ex.no 1)

Previous grand slam runners-up: Pliskova (ex no 1) 

Pervious grand slam quarter-finalist lots of times: Pegula (ex. no 3)

Previous grand slam doubles winner (and ex-no 2 in singles): Sabalenka 

It's only really Linette and Vekic who are interlopers here - the rest are confirmed 'names'

(And 7 out of 8 are East European - that stranglehold goes on.....)  

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Monday 23rd of January 2023 08:36:06 AM

Amazing run by Linette, who is coached by British pair Mark Gellard and Iain Hughes, according to The Guardian.

She credits them with, in particular, helping her 'grow-up emotionally', which is the key to her new court success.

(Also, her major knee inury which forced her out for 5 months and gave her persepctive)

www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/jan/25/late-bloomer-magda-linette-comes-of-age-to-reach-australian-open-semi-finals

As mentioned in the Guardian article Magda Linette has played in 29 previous Grand Slam singles without getting beyond the 3rd round.

Never would have had Linette down for a Grand Slam semis. Incredible achievement and delighted for her.