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WTA: Why the Age Eligibility Rule Has Been Good for the Tour
Published: January 29, 2011
This is Na Li’s first Grand Slam final and follows an intriguing pattern which we saw in 2010 when the likes of Sam Stosur, Francesca Schiavone and Vera Zvonareva all contested Grand slam finals, names familiar to Tennis fans but not to the general public. Mainly due to the fact that we were not used to seeing those names in Grand Slam finals previously.
For instance, Francesca Schiavone has now reached legend status in Italy, she played a wonderfully artistic French Open final. Schiavone also won the Federation cup for a third time in 2010 and this week participated in the longest Grand slam match of all time against Svetlana Kuznetsova which lasted four hours and 44 minutes. And let’s not forget Francesca is doing these things at the age of 30!
Meanwhile, Na Li turns 29 years of age in February, plus Vera Zvonareva and Sam Stosur are both 26 years of age.
So why are there so many mature players getting to and winning big tournaments in the modern game? In years gone by, many of the top players had won a whole host of tournaments by their 21st birthday—Monica Seles, Martina Hingis, Steffi Graf, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and Gabriela Sabatini all were Grand Slam champions before turning 21.
In the case of Graf, Seles and Hingis, they were No. 1 in the world for literally hundreds of weeks in a stretch. Amelie Mauresmo won Wimbledon in 2006 at the age of 27 and has set a pattern of more mature players succeeding at Grand Slam level. Therefore, it looks like the days of the teenage protégés may be over. And one reason for that is the conscious decision the WTA took to introduce the age eligibility rule.
The age eligibility rule was introduced in 1994 and has been updated and reviewed a few times since then, see some updates ...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Tennis
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