French Open: Young women leave mark on clay

Paris: Women’s tennis was given a timely shot in the arm at the French Open with a new wave of talent emerging onto the scene.

The singles title might have gone to Maria Sharapova, still only 27, but a fixture on the world stage for the past decade.

But to lift the title for the second time in her career, she needed to pull on all her reserves to see off youthful challenges in her last three games.

In the quarterfinals it was 20-year-old Spaniard Garbine Muguruza who took the Russian to three tight sets, in the semis it was the turn of 20-year-old Canadian Eugenie Bouchard to go the distance with her and in the final, Sharapova was given one of the hardest battles of her career before subduing 22-year-old Romanian stylist Simona Halep.

Conversely, this year’s tournament was unkind to the older group of players who have been dominating women’s tennis for the last year, with Serena Williams and Li Na, both in their 30s, winning three of the last four Grand Slam titles between them in Paris, New York and Melbourne.

The American powerhouse and the Chinese star both lost early at Roland Garros and with third seed Agnieszka Radwanska also going out in the third round, it was the first time in the Open era that none of the top three seeds made it through to the last 16 of a Grand Slam tournament.

“It’s been a mixture of, you know, older generation, newer generation, and some people that are somewhere in the middle probably, like me. There is always the favorites. There is always the underdogs. There’s always the young ones that people are looking towards and believe will be the rising stars,” she said.

The chances of another teenager winning a major any time soon looks unlikely, but the rest of the year will prove if there is about to be a changing of the guard at the top of women’s tennis.