The 2023 women’s tennis season has been marked by the success and prominence of three players. Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina have announced that they aren’t going to let Iga Swiatek feast alone at the table. They’re going to eat, too. Three hungry players have all demonstrated championship-level chops, repeatedly making deep runs in tournaments and creating the possibility that the WTA might develop a new round of rivalries. This is an exciting prospect for a sport which thrives on having familiar heavyweight bouts late in tournaments.
Court versus King.
Chris versus Martina.
Martina versus Steffi.
Steffi versus Monica.
The Williams Sisters versus Davenport or Henin or Clijsters or Capriati.
Serena versus Azarenka in the early 2010s, for an all-too-brief period of time.
The public is rightly riveted to the occasions when elite players return to the end stages of important tournaments. The excellence of the players themselves is a drawing card, but the repeated excellence commands even deeper attention and respect. This is a growth point for the WTA, and so it has to be asked: Is anyone joining the top three in Paris? Are we seeing signs of other formidable players moving toward the top tier inhabited by Sabalenka, Swiatek, and Rybakina?
Barbora Krejcikova and Jelena Ostapenko, both former Roland Garros champions, took a wrong turn this week. They have lost over the past 48 hours, bowing out of Paris and showing that — at least in 2023 — they’re not yet ready to build on their championship credentials.
Lots of seeds in the bottom half of the draw have already been wiped out. As this article is being written — on the late morning of Wednesday, May 31 — only Irina Begu (27), Anastasia Potapova (24), and Daria Kasatkina (9) are alive as seeded players other than the top two seeded players in the bottom half, third-seeded Jessica Pegula and second-seeded Sabalenka.
Seeds 8, 21, 15, 12, 5, 26, 17, 16, 19, and 29 are already gone, and the fourth day of the tournament — the first day of the second round — isn’t yet over.
If Sabalenka and Rybakina are joining Swiatek at the top of women’s tennis, a lot of other pros are falling back instead of making a bold charge toward the front of the sport.
Tennis with an Accent 