Serena Williams has saved women's tennis without her just a bunch of boring Europeans

[Amelie Mauresmo]

I know Serena Williams is criticized on this board a lot but at the WTA Championships in Istanbul the fans were thrilled to have Serena in the event.

Thank goodness for Serena, because if she wasn't around I wouldn't watch women's tennis.

Women's tennis should savour having Serena around because she won't be around forever. The WTA desperately needs more western players or perhaps some Asian women to rise up in the tennis world.

The WTA needs another Li Na an Asian woman that can win grand slams and be consistent. But the problem with Li Na is she is so inconsistent.

I like Samantha Stosur a western player from Australia but like Li Na she is too inconsistent to take seriously.

So, there is only Serena Williams has basically women's tennis without her the WTA would be in a terrible place.

Serena has such a huge profile in the United States and internationally. Without Serena around I think the WTA would be in dire straits.

Sure, Sharapova is popular but her game is extremely boring and one dimensional and she would not dominate the WTA.

Azarenka, Kvitova, Radwanska, are nice girls but their profile in America is not that big either.

Peter Bodo a writer for Tennis.com wrote that Azarenka isn't that popular with the media due to her attitude. At Wimbledon Azarenka despite being number one hardly had any interview requests.

I think Agnieszka Radwanska and Petra Kvitova are nice girls they seem to have friendly personalities but they don't win the big events enough. If Agnieszka or Petra were more consistent maybe they could help the WTA reach new markets.

But the Sharapova/Azarenka combo is bad for the game their loud shreiking and bad attitudes on and off the court hurts women's tennis.

 

[Gizo]

When Serena and Venus retire women's tennis is in deep trouble.

Casual fans couldn't care less about Azarenka, Kvitova and Radwanska, and even as the WTA world no.1 Azarenka has often given press conferences in front of near empty rooms (one BBC journalist talked about how there were only 2 journalists present for one of her interviews at Indian Wells this year).

Sharapova is a star and a celebrity, but the TV ratings of her slams final against Kvitova, Azarenka and Errani in the past 18 months were very poor. The only big recent final she has been in that scored high TV ratings was her Olympic final against her fellow star Serena. That shows that Sharapova alone is not the huge draw that people think she is.

The fact that Eurosport have massively scaled down their coverage of WTA tennis speaks volumes for how unattractive the product is now compared to in previous years.

The WTA's very poor marketing strategies and management of the tour (such as almost destroying the European indoor season which was usually a high point of each year) haven't helped.

 

[Deleted member 307496]

She's the only one around out of the Davenport era.