We'll see but I'm not very optimistic. Great players usually show signs of greatness early in their careers, that's the reason I have hopes for Ostapenko
She played well at the FO, but saying she shows signs of greatness is rather ridiculous. Early Graf, early Serena, early Billie Jean King (to name just three) were glowing with the sign of things to come. That is in no way Ostapenko, and no one is saying that with a serious face, if not at all.
If you look further you see Kerber who is almost 30 and hasn't won anything outside of one season
Yeah, those two majors mean nothing, right?
By the way, Isner and Simon are
32 and accomplished nothing at the majors. Nishikori and Pospisil are in your "almost 30" group and have won how many majors? Yeah. There's not even a "one season" for any of this unimpressive crew.
Show me the really good promising players at the age of 17-20 (other than Ostapenko) who have the potential to win multiple Slams in the future. I'll tell you more:
There is only 1 player aged 22 or younger who is in the top 20 at the moment - you guessed it, it's Ostapenko. Then there's Konjuh ranked 22nd and the rest is outside the top 30. I'm also NOT being harsh with the "age limit" because women STILL mature younger than men. A 20-year old girl is on average as mature as a 22-23 year old male player.
...and yet the majority of the hyped "next generation" of males over the past several years is at 100% failure rate. A waste of a generation.
Thiem,
Isner,
Nishikori, Kyrgios, Pospisil, Dimitrov, Simon, Tomic, Raonic and others have not lived up to any of the hype and predictions. Nothing. No majors, which means the ATP is living on
the fumes of old players--a couple near average retirement age. That is the state and
fate of the ATP, and there's no sign any of the players mentioned--or any younger generations are going to rise to the challenge and win majors. If any tour is in trouble, its most certainly the ATP, since victories like that of Federer & Nadal is
great for them as older players--its all for
their legacy, but it casts a negative light as bright as the sun as to how much of a colossal failure all the other active ATP generations are.
At least in the past decade, several women of varying ages broke through to win majors. For example:
- Sharapova - FO 2012
- Azarenka - AO 2012 & 2013
- Bartoli - Wimbledon 2013
- Kvitova - Wimbledon 2014
- Li Na - AO 2014
- Sharapova - FO 2014
- Pennetta - USO 2015
- Kerber - AO 2016 & USO 2016
- Muguruza - FO 2016
- Ostapenko - FO 2017
Ten players, twelve majors, all different ages , but two certainly checked the younger box (Note: Vika was 22 when winning her first major--the same as Muguruza). Some were bigger names at the time of their victories, others not. Above all else, several won other than the WTA hater's fallback claim of "It's always Serena. Depth is not a WTA problem, as we see a wide variety of player have won majors in recent years. How diverse is the ATP in this regard (the majors) in the same period of time?