This article is part of The Next Generation series. As the greats, such as Roger Federer, Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal, become the past and Carlos Alcaraz and Iga Swiatek handle the present, The Athletic explores the next generation: the rising stars who will be tasked with securing tennis’ future.
The WTA Tour is in an exciting position as an established order at the top of the rankings creates a target for the most talented players below them to hit.
The Grand Slam tournaments are largely divided between the top four: world No 1 Iga Swiatek seemingly has the French Open favourite tag sewn up; world No 2 Coco Gauff is defending U.S. Open champion; and world No 3 Aryna Sabalenka has won the last two Australian Opens.
Wimbledon, however, has seen eight different winners in its last eight editions and the U.S. Open has been similarly unpredictable, with nine different winners in the last 10.
The Grand Slams may be out of reach to the game’s rising stars for a little while, but plenty of young players are primed and ready to make a name for themselves.
Players from last year’s WTA next gen survey at The Athletic include Mirra Andreeva, who reached the French Open semifinals and won her first WTA Tour title this year, Paris 2024 Olympic gold medallist Zheng Qinwen and Peyton Stearns, who has just broken into the top 50.
This list is predicated on potential as much as age — hence Grand Slam champions in similar age brackets, such as Gauff, not being included. Here are some of those youngsters hoping to disrupt the established order as part of the next generation of women’s tennis.
What a few months it’s been for Shnaider, who was ranked outside the world’s top 60 at the start of May. After a run of great results, she has reached a career-high of No 20 in the world after getting to the semifinals of the National Bank Open in Toronto.
That run came after Shnaider won the Hungarian Open on clay, having won the Bad Homburg 500 event on grass in Germany a month earlier before reaching the third round at Wimbledon. She also earned an Olympic silver medal in doubles with Mirra Andreeva, representing Individual Neutral Athletes.
Shnaider has taken a slightly circuitous path to reach this point. She dropped from the professional tour to play college tennis at North Carolina State in 2022 to play consistently while Russia was under sanctions following its invasion of Ukraine.
She has made great strides in 2024, using her phenomenal forehand power and huge serve, along with the tactical nous and guile that help the best left-handed players master the angles on a court. She can draw audible gasps from spectators with some of her shotmaking.
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Still, it’s one thing having all those tools but another knowing how to harness them. A recent coaching change-up has been key. Shnaider began working with former world No 18 Igor Andreev at the start of the grass-court season and the partnership has worked exceptionally well.
Shnaider has been more aggressive, coming to the net more, and it looks like she is starting to believe that she belongs at this level.
The chatter around Linda Fruhvirtova ramped up considerably when the Czech won her first WTA title at the Chennai Open as a 17-year-old in September 2022. Fruhvirtova then backed that up by reaching the Australian Open fourth round a few months later and cracked the world’s top 50 in June 2023 having just turned 18. The excitement was heightened since Fruhvirtova had a younger and similarly gifted sister, Brenda.
Both were prodigiously talented juniors and joined super coach Patrick Mouratoglou’s academy in 2017, aged 12 and 10. They have also trained at Chris Evert’s academy in Boca Raton, Florida.
The sisters are extremely close and neither could have imagined joining the Mouratoglou Academy without the other. Both found it tough when they had to be separated as Linda began travelling around the world on the WTA Tour in 2022. It was often the case that one parent would travel with one sister and one with the other, which added another complication.
Since then, Brenda has caught up with her elder sister and is actually now the higher ranked of the two (99 as opposed to 142), helped by reaching the Wimbledon second round last month after a win over Russian sensation and French Open semifinalist Andreeva — another next-gen player tipped for success in her early teens who has already made herself a star.
Brenda said last year that the two are “best friends, who look out for each other… We don’t really compete about who’s better”.
“We want to be the world No 1 and win Grand Slam titles,” Linda added.
When they inevitably meet in a Grand Slam draw, the world may witness a match that heralds a longstanding rivalry. Just how high in the rankings it will go remains to be seen.
When Alex Eala won the U.S. Open girls’ event two years ago, congratulations rolled in from legendary boxer and compatriot Manny Pacquiao, Filipino president Bongbong Marcos, and, more topically, 22-time Grand Slam winner Rafael Nadal.
Eala is well known to fellow leftie Nadal, as she moved to his academy aged 13. She has spoken about how much of an inspiration he has been on regular occasions.
Speaking of inspiration, Eala has been that to pretty much her entire home country as she bids to become the first female Filipino player to reach the main draw of a Grand Slam. Eala so nearly did that at Wimbledon when she reached the final round of qualifiers, only to lose in three sets to New Zealand’s Lulu Sun, who ended up reaching the quarterfinals.
A big shame for Eala, who also lost in the final round of qualifying at the French Open, but her time will come. After winning the 2022 girls’ U.S. Open, she climbed to a career-high ranking of No 143 in July and has won five ITF World Tennis Tour titles, the third rung of the professional circuit. She took 2024 Olympic gold medallist Zheng Qinwen to three sets in the semifinals of the 2023 Asian Games, earning a bronze in the process.
Coming from a country of 114million people that has generally been starved of sporting success, Eala has the potential to explode on and off the court. She has already appeared on the cover of Vogue Philippines and signed deals with major brands. A great mover, Eala cites Maria Sharapova as one of her favourite players growing up.
Yet another extremely talented player off the Czech production line, Samson changed her surname from Samsonova to the gender-neutral form, Samson, to differentiate herself from the Russian Liudmila Samsonova, who also appears on draw sheets as L Samsonova.
The 16-year-old has been doing a good job of setting herself apart on the court, too. She reached the final of the French Open girls’ singles event in June, having won junior Wimbledon doubles in 2023, aged 15. A pair of successes in keeping with the Czech tradition of producing players who can excel on both the singles and doubles court — like the Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova. She lost that girls’ final to, yes, another Czech, Tereza Valentova.
Since making her professional debut last year, Samson had only played World Tennis Tour events — until July, when she was given a wildcard for the clay-court Prague Open. Samson more than justified the tournament’s decision, reaching the semifinals, including a win over compatriot and another multiple doubles Grand Slam champion Katerina Siniakova. She became the youngest player to reach a WTA semifinal since Coco Gauff in 2019. Samson delighted the home crowd with her defensive skills and athleticism, before succumbing to injury and having to retire midway through her semifinal.
Samson will need to add a bit more power to her game to make the step up to the WTA Tour, but the Czechs look to have another promising talent on their hands.
Montgomery is in the best form of her career. She reached the quarterfinals of the Libema Open on grass as a qualifier in June and then qualified for Wimbledon a couple of weeks later and reached the second round — losing to the previous year’s finalist Ons Jabeur. Montgomery then reached the quarterfinals in Washington this month to help her to a career-high ranking of No 107.
Montgomery, who plays mainly from the baseline with a solid game that doesn’t include a major weapon, is a product of the Junior Tennis Champions Center in Maryland. Frances Tiafoe is the centre’s most famous alumnus and the former U.S. Open semifinalist is like an “older brother” to Montgomery.
The teenager, originally from Washington, D.C, is also close with Gauff, who is six months older. Like Gauff, Montgomery regularly played in higher age groups as a youngster, but a knee injury checked her progress (she has also been struck down by hip and wrist problems). The pair are in regular contact and hang out when at the same tournaments.
As Montgomery moves her ranking towards the world’s top 100 and with her injury issues easing, she will hope that their paths cross a lot more in the months ahead.
A very talented leftie considered the most promising Slovakian player in many years, Jamrichova served notice of her potential by winning the girls’ Australian Open in January and then the girls’ Wimbledon in July. Between those two successes, she secured the winning point for Slovakia to seal victory against Slovenia and secure a place at the Billie Jean King Cup finals.
Now it’s about transitioning to the WTA Tour and her coach Jan Matus is conscious that she shouldn’t overtrain — especially after Jamrichova suffered an injury after that Australian Open win that kept her out of competition for about a month.
Growing up, Jamrichova always assumed she would be a professional runner like her dad, but ultimately tennis captured her imagination. Roger Federer and Gael Monfils were her idols and she tried to emulate the latter’s trick shots when practising.
Jamrichova possesses an effective serve and plenty of power from the back of the court and, like her idol Federer, she has found a way to control her emotions better after getting angry with herself during matches as a youngster. She plays the piano to help her relax and listens to Mozart, Beethoven and other classical music before her matches.
Her BJK Cup exploits and Grand Slam successes show she is comfortable on the big stage and that’s exactly where Jamrichova wants to be.
While next-generation focusses on age, turning potential into results and ascension is what unites all these players.
(Top photo: Robert Prange/Getty Images; Design: Ray Orr)
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