Why does womens game have great young talent but not the mens

The womens game had a dearth of young talent for awhile but finally the last 2-3 years great young players like Osaka, Andreescu, and others have emerged. The only old guns hanging in are Serena, Kerber, and Halep.

The mens game still has virtually no up and comers. Thiem who is only good on clay, and isn't young anymore. Medvedev who will probably make the final here is starting to be an up and comer I guess, but still a dire group overall.

Why are the women producing good young players but not the men for so long now.
 

wangs78

Legend
Because Serena has been well off her game for 3+ years now. The Big 3 on the other hand are still playing at a high level, perhaps just a little less consistently. Once they really fade, the "new" talent will emerge.
 
Because Serena has been well off her game for 3+ years now. The Big 3 on the other hand are still playing at a high level, perhaps just a little less consistently. Once they really fade, the "new" talent will emerge.

Right now if the Big 3 were not winning it would be mediocre middle aged to older players winning. Look at the last 7 slams, take out the Big 3 and no young player wins any of them. Thiem wins the last 2 French Opens but he is a middle aged player now.
 

Azure

G.O.A.T.
I don't think the women's game has a higher talent level than the men's game. The random wins and no set of consistent players emerging on the women's side is testament to that. The men's game certainly has talented players - Tsitsipas is one very talented player for example. Unlike the men's game there is no stranglehold on the women's game. That is all. If we had Henin, Clijsters and Serena still competing at a reasonably high level, I don't see an Ostapenko winning a slam. What we have is a woman athlete who is still a force at an advanced age as the only relic of the bygone great era of the women's game. Osaka still needs to prove. She had a good run. Funny they call her 'veteran' now.

Most on men's and women's side play pretty similar and largely one dimensional games. Anyone on fire can beat anyone else. Just that the big three are still around. Otherwise there is no difference.
 
I don't think the women's game has a higher talent level than the men's game. The random wins and no set of consistent players emerging on the women's side is testament to that. The men's game certainly has talented players - Tsitsipas is one very talented player for example. Unlike the men's game there is no stranglehold on the women's game. That is all. If we had Henin, Clijsters and Serena still competing at a reasonably high level, I don't see an Ostapenko winning a slam. What we have is a woman athlete who is still a force at an advanced age as the only relic of the bygone great era of the women's game. Osaka still needs to prove. She had a good run. Funny they call her 'veteran' now.

Most on men's and women's side play pretty similar and largely one dimensional games. Anyone on fire can beat anyone else. Just that the big three are still around. Otherwise there is no difference.

I am not referring to flukes like Ostapenko though. I am referring to people like Osaka, Andreescu, before their recent fall of Muguruza and Stephens.

Tsitsipas is not that good. He had a pretty good Australian Open, but hasnt been able to make a decent showing at a slam since then. It is very rare a young player makes a big slam run to be stopped by a Big 3 member, so even that isn't an excuse, and the Big 3 are all way into their 30s now anyway.
 

AGreatOne

New User
Tennis is one of the few sports, if not the only sport in the world, where women can compete on almost equivalent terms with men as far as money is concerned.

From Forbes, highest paid female athletes of 2019:

"Tennis remains the most surefire way for female athletes to make millions of dollars. Witness the WTA Tour’s announcement last week that the year-end WTA Finals event will pay its winner $4.7 million this year—the largest payout in the history of men’s or women’s tennis. Total prize money on the WTA Tour is $179 million in 2019, and the ten highest-paid female athletes in the world this year are all tennis players (women from golf, soccer and badminton crack the next five).

Female athletes in soccer, basketball and softball earn salaries of pennies on the dollar compared with their male counterparts. The WNBA max salary slot this season is $117,500, compared with $37.4 million in the NBA.

Tennis remains the most surefire way for female athletes to make millions of dollars. Witness the WTA Tour’s announcement last week that the year-end WTA Finals event will pay its winner $4.7 million this year—the largest payout in the history of men’s or women’s tennis. Total prize money on the WTA Tour is $179 million in 2019, and the ten highest-paid female athletes in the world this year are all tennis players (women from golf, soccer and badminton crack the next five).

Female athletes in soccer, basketball and softball earn salaries of pennies on the dollar compared with their male counterparts. The WNBA max salary slot this season is $117,500, compared with $37.4 million in the NBA."

So of course, the best female athletes flock to Tennis. Men have more lucrative avenues than tennis. In team sports they earn a real salary no matter if they win or lose, instead of having to win matches and tournaments to earn the big bucks. Tennis is lucky to get the guys that couldn't make it in team sports. It's rare that tennis gets the best athletes. But guys like Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, could have probably played football if they wanted, but chose tennis. So on the other hand, if a man is one of the most successful in tennis, he can earn a lot in ambassador type contracts with some of the best known companies and make a tremendous amount, like Roger Federer.
 

Azure

G.O.A.T.
I am not referring to flukes like Ostapenko though. I am referring to people like Osaka, Andreescu, before their recent fall of Muguruza and Stephens.

Tsitsipas is not that good. He had a pretty good Australian Open, but hasnt been able to make a decent showing at a slam since then. It is very rare a young player makes a big slam run to be stopped by a Big 3 member, so even that isn't an excuse, and the Big 3 are all way into their 30s now anyway.
When we talk about consistency it's not like someone wins a slam in 2014 and another in 2015 and gone. Have they been dominant over all courts? Have they been at the top of the rankings for a while? Is there a worthy Ying for a Yang? At this stage Osaka is what Muguruza was. That's what makes tennis worth it for most of us.

The big three are in their 30s and so is Kerber. If it were not for Big 3 there would be no difference between WTA and ATP. Thiem and Kvitova would be the obvious favourites on their natural surfaces for example. Cilic would be like Halep. Could sneak another slam here or there. You get the drift...
 

wangs78

Legend
Right now if the Big 3 were not winning it would be mediocre middle aged to older players winning. Look at the last 7 slams, take out the Big 3 and no young player wins any of them. Thiem wins the last 2 French Opens but he is a middle aged player now.
Take out the Big 3 and Tsitispas would likely have won the AO.
 

AGreatOne

New User
To continue on a related path, I believe that the future of tennis does lie in it being changed to primarily a team sport for both players and tournaments to thrive. I don't think investing more in Futures/Challengers is the answer for the players not in the top 100. Of course in the past 50 years, there have been various attempts to have team tennis. But it was almost always as a side tour, not the main tour. I hope that bigwigs in tennis do believe that the answer out of the dilemma, where only the world's top 100-150 players make a profit currently, is to eventually make the main tour consists of mostly team tennis events as a foundation of the tour paying players salaries, maybe combined to still include Grand Slams with individual participation. I think the Laver Cup and ATP Cup (and I guess Davis Cup) are steps in that direction. Eventually, when they can create several teams and place them in different divisions, have drafts and rosters that can include the top 600 players in the world, they might get on even terms with the other big team sports and solve the "individual" problem by having guaranteed salaries. It is a dream of mine. But I haven't been elected commissioner of tennis, yet. :)
 

ibbi

G.O.A.T.
The history of the womens game is filled with people who peaked in their teens and fizzled out by the time they reached actual adulthood. I guess maybe it's an issue of women maturing mentally quicker than men do? Who the hell knows, but it has always been the case.

It's what is happening with the mens game right now that is an anomaly, and has never seen the like in the history of the sport, but the womens game is pretty much going along as normal + Serena.
 
When we talk about consistency it's not like someone wins a slam in 2014 and another in 2015 and gone. Have they been dominant over all courts? Have they been at the top of the rankings for a while? Is there a worthy Ying for a Yang? At this stage Osaka is what Muguruza was. That's what makes tennis worth it for most of us.

The big three are in their 30s and so is Kerber. If it were not for Big 3 there would be no difference between WTA and ATP. Thiem and Kvitova would be the obvious favourites on their natural surfaces for example. Cilic would be like Halep. Could sneak another slam here or there. You get the drift...

Who cares if they are totally consistent, atleast they are doing something. The young mugs in the mens game would not be winning squat even if you removed the Big 3. I did a break down in another thread. Anderson wins 1 or 2 slams, Cilic is a 2 or 3 slam winner today, Berdych is a 5 or 6 (adding some in his 30s), Thiem is dominating clay as much as Nadal did, Dmitrov wins a slam or two, Raonic probably wins a Wimbledon or two, and the young guns are still slamless other than maybe Tsitsipas winning the Australian this year and even there Pouille might have taken it instead. And that is in now what would be the ultimate mug field of all time with the Big 3 out; heck the field is rubbish even with the Big 3 in their grandpa phases currently. They are so pitiful they aren't even winning in that, in fact they are being regularly outperformed by Nishikori, Raonic, and Anderson types.
 

Mitcj

New User
It must be acknowledged from Ostapenko/Muguruza on, we have had women in recent years winning one or two slams, then having trouble sustaining any kind of success. Barty, unaccountably, seems to be the latest example. After she won the grass-court Wimbledon warm-up, she seemed a world-beater. Now she sprays shots like she was on the challenger circuit. Add Osaka and Sloane to the mix and you have a real puzzle (not to mention Kerber's string of lousy performances in years when she's not winning slams). Could Bencic and/or Andrescu break this cycle? We can only hope.
 
Last edited:
Top