The U.S. Open play of Leylah Fernandez, Carlos Alcaraz and Emma Raducanu has been exhilarating. But if the past is prelude, rough seas are ahead.
It has been quite a run for the teenagers at the U.S. Open, especially a bright-eyed and beguiling troika that has managed to turn the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center into its personal playground. Like young stockbrokers who have yet to see a bear market, Emma Raducanu, Leylah Fernandez and Carlos Alcaraz are experiencing the best of tennis life: match after match of effusive crowds that chant their names and ask for selfies, passing shots that nick the back of the line, and the freedom of swinging their rackets on a stage where they cannot lose, because no one was counting on them to win in the first place. And yet they do not have to look far to see how quickly it can all go off the rails. “Buckle up, it’s a long ride,” Shelby Rogers, the veteran American and Raducanu’s latest casualty, said Sunday when asked what advice she could offer the three teenagers for when their U.S. Open runs end. Naomi Osaka had just emerged from her teens three years ago when she upset Serena Williams to win this tournament. Three years, three Grand Slam tournament titles, nearly $20 million in prize money and tens of millions more in sponsorships later, Osaka’s tournament ended this time with a loss to Fernandez followed by a tearful announcement that she would take an indefinite leave from tennis. Iga Swiatek, the Polish star who won the 2020 French Open at 19 without losing a set, spent much of her upset loss Monday against Belinda Bencic of Switzerland screaming at her coach and the sports psychologist who travels with her. By now it is accepted wisdom that tennis has a tendency to eat its young like few other sports. Managing life as a young star on the tennis tour is a physical and mental test that trips up nearly every player at some point, especially those who break through early and then are suddenly expected to compete at the highest level nearly every time they take the court. A ranking and seeding system places a number next to their name, letting them and the world know in the starkest way who should win any given match. Guaranteed payments from sponsors can relieve the burden of playing for your next meal or plane ticket. However, those contracts are often laden with incentive bonuses for winning tournaments and climbing the rankings. There is an implicit understanding that the contract will, at best, be reduced and at worst not be renewed if players don’t maintain a certain level of proficiency. The attention, from millions of fans but also from family, cuts both ways, sports psychologists say, especially in a sport that has so many parent coaches. Fernandez’s mother has had a front-row seat for her daughter’s upsets of Osaka and Angelique Kerber, the former world No.
