Madison Keys came to Paris for the first time last week with a few
simple goals. Like all visitors, she and her friends wanted to hit at
least one tourist destination, maybe the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre. And
because Keys is no normal teenager on a gap-year trip, she wanted to
get through the French Open without falling and getting the famous red
clay on the muted colors of her clothes.
"It's, 'Oh my gosh, I'm
at the French Open,'" Keys said. "I used to watch it on TV and now I'm
here. It's a surreal moment. You want to be here when you're younger;
then when you're actually there, it's, 'Am I dreaming? Because this is a
cool dream.'"
The dream got a little better Monday when Keys,
competing in her first French Open, beat Misaki Doi of Japan, 6-3, 6-2,
in the first round. Keys, a bubbly 18-year-old with the powerful ground
strokes of a midcareer professional, is one of eight American women who
are in the second round, with three more to play Tuesday. American women
went 6-1 Monday, which is particularly surprising because clay has long
been considered a U.S. weakness.
There were 15 American women in
the French Open main draw when play began Sunday, more than from any
other country and the most in a Grand Slam draw outside of the U.S. Open
since the 2005 Wimbledon, which had 17.
But there is a
significant difference from that field. Only four players in the 2005
group were 23 or younger, and seven were 25 or older, portending an
absence of top American prospects for nearly a decade. The 2013 group
skews much younger: just four are 25 or older, including the Williams
sisters, and nine are 23 or younger. Although only top-ranked Serena
Williams is in the top 10, 12 American women are in the top 100.
The
group that alighted on Paris, many of whom constitute Keys' planned
sightseeing group, underscores how disparate the pipeline to tennis
success has become. On Sunday, Shelby Rogers, 20, who decided to forgo
college to turn pro and had struggled in recent months until she earned a
wild card to the French Open, won her first-round match. So did Mallory
Burdette, 22, who is ranked 80th but at this time last year was playing
in the NCAA tennis tournament for Stanford.
"If you had told me that a year ago, I would say you were absolutely crazy," Burdette said.
It
is still a long way from the most successful days of U.S. tennis. In
1983, 56 American women were at the French Open. No country may ever
regain that level of dominance. More countries are producing at least a
few quality players, and the U.S. emphasis on team sports for women has
spread the country's best athletes among many disciplines. Chris Evert
recalled that when she was a teenager, the choices for girls who wanted
to play sports were tennis, golf or an Olympic sport like ice skating or
swimming.
In May 2011, for the first time in the nearly 40 years
since computerized rankings were used, the United States had no man or
woman in the top 10 in singles in the world. The U.S. tennis firmament,
particularly the U.S. Tennis Association, was criticized for failing to
cultivate the future of the game.
"There was a generation that
was missed," said Evert, a seven-time French Open champion who is
working here as an ESPN analyst. "And I think that there was definitely a
gap. There was always that slew I saw of 12- to 16-year-olds. We
skipped the 16- to 21-year-olds when Serena and Venus were coming up,
after they made their mark. But now that 12-to-16-year-old slew of women
has emerged."
Reaching that critical mass of ranked players was
central to Patrick McEnroe's plan when he took over as the USTA's
general manager for player development five years ago. On his first trip
to the USTA training center in Boca Raton, Fla., after taking the job,
McEnroe looked around and saw only two girls training there. He said he
asked a coach where everybody was, and was told that most of the girls
were scattered around the country, training independently.
Before
he took the job, McEnroe said, he believed that talent would rise to
the top, no matter who prepared them. But he looked at successful
programs around the world and changed his mind. Now, he said, he
believes that an organized effort, in which promising players are
brought together more often to train and practice, produces more
contenders. Many of the younger women who are playing in Paris work at
least some of the time with the USTA.
The system has done
everything from help to improve Burdette's fitness to create a strong
peer group that roots for and challenges its members. Before the French
Open, several American women said they were inspired by the success of
54th-ranked Jamie Hampton, who reached the semifinals in a clay-court
tournament in Brussels last week.
"We've seen in the history of
tennis, when you get a good group of players, they tend to steamroll a
little bit," McEnroe said in a telephone interview. "We're starting to
see the beginning of that. Our main goal has always been let's increase
the numbers, and the great one will come. I don't look at Switzerland,
where they have one unbelievable player. I look at Russia on the women's
side, where they have tons of players in the top 100 and a few top
players."
