The current situation of European tennis
Who will replace the Big Four?
Let’s start this sports category with tennis, which is at the center of European actuality these weeks.
Indeed, it was impossible to miss the Rafael Nadal’s 10th win in the French Open, his Decima. Never a player has been so linked to a ground or even marked a Grand Slam tournament like the Spanish player since 2005, while he was only 19.
The last decade has been dominated by the famous Big Four, European players struggling for the ATP n°1 position: the Swiss Roger Federer; the Spaniard clay court specialist, Rafael Nadal and more recently, in the 2010’s, the Serbian Novak Djokovic and the Briton Andy Murray.
All along the last century, we’ve seen European nations brought forward by players at the top level of world tennis such as Sweden with B. Borg and S. Edberg, Germany with B. Becker, Czech Republic with I. Lendl or as we’ve just seen, Spain, Swiss, Serbia and Great Britain with the world number one since 2016, Andy Murray.
The British player has always been among the first four since 2008 apart from 2014 when he was sixth at the ATP ranking. Though, he succeeded in accessing the second place in 2015. It is during this very season that he improved his clay-game a lot. Indeed, in 2015, he has won his two first clay court tournaments. The first one was in Munich (ATP 250) and then in Madrid (Masters 1000). He explained these two wins by changes in his physical training for a better adaptation to this kind of ground. Such a development enabled him to shoot up the standings, and after his win at the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris, he finished as the N°1 Player on the ATP Tour.
However, one country with an important tennis culture hasn’t been quoted: France which has never had a world number one male player and only one female player, Amélie Mauresmo, at the top in 2004. Yet, France counts currently three players in the top 20, with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Gael Monfils and the young one, Lucas Pouille. The latter has distinguished himself last week by winning his first title on grass court during the Stuttgart tournament. And what if this young northerner French player, barely 23 years old, was the next Yannick Noah (to this day, the only Grand Slam tournament French winner)?
As a matter of fact, he’s not anymore just a French prospect player but he got a world dimension thanks to his achievements on tournaments and also to his wins on some of the top 10 tennis players (at the time) like D. Ferrer, R. Gasquet, D. Thiem and probably one of the most important win of his young career, R. Nadal during the 2016 US Open. This match has really revealed the strong mental of the young player. About his playing style, Pouille is an all-court player with an emphasis on aggressive baseline play. His forehand groundstrokes is consistent, deep and penetrating. Do not get me wrong: Pouille prefers his forehand for rallies, but his backhand is simply unbreakable. It is perfectly sized, fluid and easily repeatable. To be brief, Lucas Pouille executes the fundamentals of every stroke at a ridiculous level.
In the female side, France has also top prospect players like Kristina Mladenovic. She is only 24 and already close to the top 10 thanks to her recent winnings, especially during the last French Open quarter finals against Muguruza, the former title holder.
Born from Serbian parents, the French tennis player is particularly feared for her powerful playing style and a large range of shots which can remind us the A. Mauresmo playing style at her time.
To conclude, it would be interesting to wonder if the new generation will challenge the Big Four in the next month during Wimbledon and the US Open… We are not sure about that!
