Female prospects - 14 Feb 2011

Movement is generally underestimated, imo. It is v difficult to succeed at the top without it - Lindsay Davenport is a notable exception. But the quickness of Serena, Venus, Henin, Clijsters, Hingis, Graf, ASV is more typical of a top player. Even Seles and Sharapova (who are moderate movers in my book) were most successful when they were young and at their quickest.

I think there are 4 main considerations to assess the potency of a player's game (and their future potential!):
1. movement
2. ability to hit winners
3. avoidance of error
4. mental toughness.
Put these all together and you have a champion of Serena-like or Graf-like proportion.
Kim Clijsters, for instance, is pretty strong overall, but just below the top in avoidance of error and, occasionally, mental toughness. But she's good enough to be a top player and win slams, especially when the competition isn't dominated by someone excelling at all 4 categories.

In assessing the Wozniacki/Azarenka/Kvitova/ARadwanska/Wickmayer generation it seems to me that Wozniacki scores the highest in a combination of the 4 categories. She's a good mover, avoids error, and is mentally strong. She's not as good at hitting winners and that is making picking up that first slam so tough - with Serena and Kim questionable in the long term, Wozniacki should rise to a slam title unless someone else comes along excelling at these 4 aspects of the game. Is there anyone on the horizon who will do this?

Azarenka is fantastic at hitting winners. She's an acceptable mover, but can be error-prone and suffer mental lapses - she might be mentally tough on one day and not the next. It's going to be tough for her to rise much higher than where she is now, I think. She might be able to concentrate her way through a slam at some point if she can cut down on errors inspite of the burden of her movement.

Kvitova is kind of in the Lindsay Davenport mold. Given her youth she's probably moving as well as she ever will. She hits winners well and can be mentally tough. If she can avoid error she has a real shot at a short stint at the top or (more likely) a Major title. The difficulty for her will be movement. Like Davenport, she can win a slam title if she can blast winners, avoid error, and move as well as she can - but I don't see her becoming a long-term #1. She's not complete enough in all 4 aspects.

ARadwanska is a decent mover, mentally tough, and avoids error but will always have trouble hitting winners. Because she has less power (winners) than Wozniacki she will always be in her shadow.

Wickmayer struggles on a number of fronts - not a great mover, too many errors, and only sporadically mentally tough.

Nor does the future look great for Maria Sharapova. She's never been a great mover but has overcome it in the past by blasting truck loads of winners and incredible mental toughness. However, her 2.0 version continues to fail because of the enormous number of errors she hits. With more than one weakness (errors and movement) I do not foresee a change in her fortunes unless she can get the errors under control.

Bottom line is that of the young generation, Wozniacki seems to have the greatest amount of the 4 fundamentals in place. But she will continue to be just below the best until she can hit more winners.