The full version of this piece was first published in Australian Tennis Magazine's April-May 2024 edition, a special “life lessons”-themed issue also including features on Alex de Minaur, Marta Kostyuk and Victoria Azarenka. Visit the online shop to preview and order your copy.
Professional tennis has reached the latter stages of a golden era anchored by all-time greats Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. Naturally, there has been much discussion – and sometimes worry – about how the sport will look beyond their reigns.
Thankfully, an impressive group of young players are emerging at precisely the right moment, poised to take the game to a compelling new place.
Djokovic is certainly not concerned about the health of the sport he has come to dominate. He has openly expressed admiration for two of the newest Grand Slam champions, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, who respectively handed the Serbian with rare losses in the Wimbledon 2023 final and AO 2024 semifinal. The young stars have nevertheless reinvigorated Djokovic’s competitive passion.
He’s also been captivated whenever Alcaraz and Sinner have gone head-to-head themselves. “I think tennis, definitely the future is looking good with Carlos leading that field,” Djokovic said. “It’s great for our sport there are more rivalries happening.”
While his comments pertained to men’s tennis, women’s tennis finds itself in an increasingly healthy place, too.
And it’s not just the captivating level of tennis these players are bringing to show courts around the world. It’s the broad-minded attitudes they hold, well-adjusted perspectives they share and meaningful actions they take, marking them as excellent ambassadors for the sport going forward.
The signs of this were becoming apparent late in the last decade; in 2019, Williams observed the striking maturity of ascendant teenager Bianca Andreescu.
"She’s an old soul,” Williams commented after facing the Canadian in the Toronto final. “She’s only 19. She definitely doesn’t seem like a 19-year-old in her words, on court and her game, her attitude, her actions.”
Andreescu appreciated, and contextualised, Williams’ observations. “I think it’s just because of my lifestyle – I’ve been travelling ever since I was 12, alone. I’m an only child too. So I was figuring out things on my own a lot, especially being away from home without my parents,” she explained. “I’m exposed to different things than the average teenager, I would say.”
One lesson Andreescu did take from her parents, however, was the importance of mental training, after being introduced to the concepts of meditation, visualisation and spirituality by her mother at age 14.
“I read a lot of books, I listen to a lot of podcasts, I do a lot of inner work,” she told ausopen.com. “I really believe that’s the key to really finding true happiness and joy and contentment in life. I’m very interested in how the mind works as well, so I’ll dig deep into, like, the psychology behind it, and it really helps me on the court as well.”
This has helped Andreescu, now 23, navigate an extremely challenging time in her career. Since her first and only major title at the US Open in 2019, the former world No.4 has endured years of injury struggles and even took a six-month mental health break from the tour.
During that time, Iga Swiatek – a year younger than Andreescu – rose to prominence. She was just 17 when the decision was made to incorporate a full-time sports psychologist into her team, an unusual yet savvy move for a player so young.
Just 18 months after Swiatek began working with Daria Abramowicz, she won the Roland Garros 2020 title while still a teenager. “It’s a long process,” Swiatek told CNN Sport about her mental approach, shortly after that breakthrough. “It helped me during the whole tournament, especially after coming back from COVID break. We did great work the last few weeks to lower my expectations and come back to basics and just focus on having fun on court.
“She helped me a lot during that process but also she’s helping me develop as a person and as a player.”
Speaking with Press Association in 2022, Abramowicz said of Swiatek: “I really, really do hope that she will set an example for other young athletes. I can see already generational change but I hope athletes like Iga – and also Bianca Andreescu, Naomi Osaka, Simone Biles – they are so young but they are really, really doing a great job to educate.”
The longer she has reigned at the top, Swiatek – who has won three more major titles and recently achieved 100 total weeks at world No.1 – has also become more comfortable speaking up for what she believes in and supporting causes close to her heart.
Already refreshingly open about working with a psychologist, Swiatek has been vocal about how the tours can improve regulations and conditions for players, and visibly supportive of Ukraine and its athletes, pinning a ribbon of Ukrainian colours to her cap and helping fundraise for war relief efforts.
“She’s a leader that doesn’t yell at the top of a mountain,” said WTA legend Chris Evert, in comments published in TIME. “She’s more soft-spoken. Yet when Iga speaks, people will listen.”
People also listen when Coco Gauff speaks.
Remarkably, she’s even younger than Swiatek and Andreescu, bursting onto the scene at age 15 with her fourth-round run at Wimbledon in 2019. Yet she captured worldwide attention of a different, more impactful kind in 2020 after surprising attendees at a Black Lives Matter protest in Florida with a spontaneous yet impassioned speech.
Gauff has since advocated for gun reform in the United States, and was also supportive of climate protesters at last year’s US Open, despite their activism halting her US Open semifinal for almost an hour while she led Karolina Muchova.
It is often said tennis players “have to be selfish” to succeed. But Gauff’s perspective is refreshingly bigger-picture, stemming from her family’s history and story.
“I think she’s probably ‘the’ sole or one of the main reasons why I use my platform the way that I do and why I feel so comfortable speaking out,” Gauff said of her grandmother, Yvonne Lee Odom, the first black student to attend her high school in Florida in 1961.
“She had to deal with a lot of things, like racial injustice. Her leading the way that she is and being so kind to everyone regardless of their background is something that I take inspiration from. That’s why I always say I like to know everybody’s perspective.
“I think what I do, putting out a tweet or saying a speech, is so easy compared to that, so that’s why I have no problem doing the things that I do.”
Gauff’s comments came en route to last year’s US Open title, after she’d also triumphed in Washington and Cincinnati – a summer surge she attributed to enjoying her tennis more. “Honestly, I wish I embraced the fun parts a little bit sooner,” said Gauff, channelling a wistful veteran more than a then-19- year-old.
Alcaraz, just 10 months older than Gauff, has adopted a similarly joyful approach, notable for how readily he smiles on court.
“Smiling for me, as I said a few times, is the key of everything,” he explained at Wimbledon, before expanding on this concept at Australian Open 2024: "I try to smile all the time on court. Obviously there are some times that it’s really tough to do it. The pressure is there, the nerves are there, so in those situations it’s tough to enjoy playing those moments. But … when I’m struggling a little bit or I’m mad on the court, (my team) put a smile on their faces to try to bring the joy again on the court.
“That’s the key of my game … to put the smile on my face. I try to do it every day.”
In that same interview, Alcaraz revealed that, like Gauff, this was a learning process after struggling to enjoy himself on court in younger years. It’s paid dividends, with both winning Grand Slam titles in the past year.
“I say to my kids all the time, when we’re watching tennis, and I see like Carlos Alcaraz or Coco Gauff who’re like 18 years old and winning Grand Slams. I say, ‘see kids, look at what they’re doing with their life. What are you doing with your life?’” said Jennifer Welch, co-host of the popular I’ve Had It podcast.
“And my kids roll their eyes and walk off from me. But I’m dead serious – I’m like, ‘what’re y’all doing with your lives?’”
Welch, an unabashed tennis fan who has featured doubles champion Rennae Stubbs as a guest, will no doubt be impressed by several others representing this emerging generation.
Felix Auger-Aliassime, already a former world No.6, joined the ATP Player Council in 2020 at just 20 years of age. The next youngest representative on the nine-player body at that time was aged 31. His council position prompted, at the US Open in 2021, a question about LGBITQA+ inclusion, given the ATP Tour is still yet to feature a single active openly gay player.
His response was unexpected. “Recently I’ve started doing a survey inside the ATP about the LGBTQ+ community,” revealed the Canadian, who like Gauff also used his platform to support the Black Lives Matter movement. “It’s important these days to be aware of that and to be openminded and the ATP needs to do that in today’s time, it’s needed.”
That year’s US Open was where qualifier Emma Raducanu became perhaps the unlikeliest Grand Slam champion in history.
Earlier that year she had played sparingly, instead completing her A-levels after attending high school in person, unlike many of her rivals.
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“I’m happy if I can inspire a young boy or girl to pick up a racquet. But I think it’s just as important to keep your education going. If anything, it’s one thing I want to stand for,” she recently told Tatler Asia.
“I think doing your education properly helps so much, because it develops you as a person and benefits you in all walks of life. Once you hit 35, if you’ve only played tennis, it’s very difficult to get into something brand new.”
In the same article, Raducanu credited her parents with encouraging her to prioritise and pursue her education, something former ATP pro Bryan Shelton also impressed upon his son Ben.
"He’s definitely the biggest influence on me as a player and as a person as well," said Ben, who has since risen to become a top-20 player and Grand Slam semifinalist after coming through the US college system, of his father. "He keeps me in check with my tennis but also, off the court with who I am, the things I say and how I treat people."
Parents again got a shout-out at AO 2024 when Sinner accepted the champion’s trophy.
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"I wish that everyone could have my parents because they always let me choose whatever I wanted to," Sinner said. “Even when I was younger, I made also some other sports, and they never put pressure on myself.
“I wish that this freedom is possible for as many young kids as possible."
While exciting to tell this generation’s story to tennis fans, more exciting is just how much reach these players have beyond that audience, maximising the example they’re setting.
Gauff, who recently graced the cover of Vogue, sits just behind Swiatek – named by Forbes as the world’s highest-paid female athlete – in terms of annual earnings, a list on which Raducanu is also high after her US Open triumph spawned a glittering endorsement portfolio. Sinner and Alcaraz have followed suit, becoming ambassadors for Gucci and Louis Vuitton respectively, while Shelton’s global profile has also increased since his viral telephone celebrations.
As more people get to know the members of this impressive young generation, the future of the sport, as Djokovic noted, is indeed looking bright.