Before Australian sports fans get too excited by Luke Saville and Ashleigh Barty winning this year’s boys and girls Wimbledon titles, a collective breath needs to be taken before possible claims that Australian tennis may again be on the up.
No one can begrudge the performances of the two.
The only other glimmer of hope for Australia was Bernard Tomic making the quarter finals of the men’s, where he lost to this year’s eventual Wimbledon champion, Novak Djokovic.
Tomic’s performance made him the youngest quarter-finalist since Boris Becker won the first of his three Wimbledon crowns in 1985.
However, Tennis Australia may be getting ahead of itself describing the possibility of Tomic teaming with Lleyton Hewitt as a “dream Davis Cup singles combination.”
Tennis Australia may be looking through the bottom of a glass which, for some time, has been quite empty when it comes to Australian tennis fortunes.
Tomic getting through to the Wimbledon quarter finals took his ranking up 87 spots to be 71 in the world, making him the highest ranked Australian male.
Ironically, he assumes this mantle from Hewitt, who for the past decade has been Australia’s best performed male.
However, his five-set Wimbledon loss to Robin Soderling hastened his slide, placing him at 173.
So in the immediate term, is there really anything to get excited about, particularly given Australia’s best performed female in recent times, Sam Stosur, again found it difficult on grass?
Should the performances of Saville and Barty really be the basis for some of those in the media to breathlessly report their performances as an indication that things could be better than previously thought?
No doubt their managers will be hoping that this will be the case.
However, possibly the devil’s advocate needs to come in. While this role was originally confined to religion, given Australia’s religious-like obsession with sport, then maybe it is not a bad idea.
The last male to secure the men’s Wimbledon crown having previously won the boys title was Roger Federer. His first major Wimbledon title came in 2003, five years after holding the boys trophy aloft in 1998.
In the women’s, the most recent Wimbledon women’s champion to have also taken out the junior was in 2006 when Amelie Mauresmo was victorious. She had won the girls in 1996.
Overall, since the Open era began in 1968, the records show that only four who took out the junior crown went on to win the men’s. They are Federer, Stefan Edberg, Australia’s Pat Cash and Bjorn Borg.
Success for the women is even sparser. Martina Hingis is the only other female apart from Mauresmo to take both titles. Her junior win was in 1994 before winning the senior crown for the first time in 1997.
Other Australians to boast the junior crown apart from Barty, Saville and Cash are Mark Kratzmann, Todd Reid, who’s highest men’s ranking was 105 and the man who during the last federal election was often described as a tennis great, John Alexander. He won in 1968.
Alexander’s best Grand Slam performance was twice making the semi-final of the Australian Open in 1973 and 1977.
If you go to Wimbledon’s official website and go through the list of junior champions and click on their names, it takes you to Wikipedia with details of their careers.
However, what could be sobering for tennis fans looking to Barty and Saville for salvation, is that there are some names from the junior titleholders list that when clicked upon, once the page is opened it states” Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name.”
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