Who's Next To Go?

Hello, Backspin readers. Galileo here.

Occasionally we like to throw out some features. In this Olympic year retirements are surely going to be par for the course.

As we usually do on these features, I’ll offer up some names that could see Tokyo as their swan song. Age, injuries and motivation are all factors. Some players could also retire because they have time left to come back. I'll go in order of most likely down to least, starting with our top seeds and working our way down. Anything goes here on Backspin, as we look at the names we won’t be seeing in 2021.

I’m discounting Sam Stosur because she will switch back to doubles at some point, but her singles career is over. I don’t count Andy Murray, either, because I just don’t know what he’s doing.

A few who aren't included because of their recent announcements to retire after 2020...

CARLA SUAREZ NAVARRO: If only talent meant something in tennis. When you’re young it seems so important but as you get older you realize hard work is more important. Look at David Ferrer and Richard Gasquet. Look at Sara Errani and CSN. Now 34, the Spaniard always felt like a player from another era, perhaps one who stepped into the Tardis and appeared in 2008 by accident. Now, with the way Barty, Tsitsipas and Pliskova play it feels like a different era from the baseline bashing one we’ve just had. Can you imagine having to reply to a thousand Barty slices? This Backspinner has never seen a player he likes more who he would want to play less. CSN has a gorgeous game that can survive winds, light rain and heavy clay. She is the nightmare all players have when it comes to the draw.

THE BRYAN TWINS: Every era you have a great doubles pairing. They may be great because they're iconic like McNamara/McNamee or because they're great. Look at the Woodies. Fleming/McEnroe was a great partnership, as were the early trailblazers Newcombe/Roche. The behemoths, however, are the Bryans. They saved the game of doubles. There were plans to make doubles an annex, a game apart from singles. They wanted to relegate it to second class citizenship. When Bob and Mike retire at the end of the year thousands of articles will be written about their greatness and rightly so. In 2005 they sued the ATP to keep men's doubles as it was. They fought for their sport. Doubles is more legitimate than the XFL or synchronized swimming. It's more international than baseball, cricket or, heck, rugby. It needed to be saved and they did it. Whatever you may think of them they deserve our credit for that. They've won everything from Gold medals to Wimbledon titles and even Roland Garros. I really believe the RG trophy is the hardest to earn on the tour because it's so different. The crowds are tough, the surface plays tricks on you and hard court/grass court experts struggle. The Bryans won it twice!!



=THE CRITERIA=
1. They must have at least five titles and have been in the top 15 at some point.
2. Four nominees each from the ATP and WTA tour.
ONE: VENUS WILLIAMSWHY: So many injuries. She’s 40. Never winning Wimbledon again. Her last final was in 2017 and her last title came four years ago.

Venus won gold in Sydney in 2000. Twenty years ago. Steffi Graf had just retired. There may be no better run this century than Venus’ 2000 summer. Wimbledon, U.S. Open and Olympic crowns were complimented by three other titles. She is a four-time Gold medalist (3 WD, 1 WS) and one time Silver winner in 2016 (MD). It’s not an exact science but when you search injury on her Wikipedia page you will find that word appears 34 times. The woman she beat for her Gold medal, Elena Dementieva, has her own page and on it you will see injury just thrice. In her last match in Acapulco (vs. Kaja Juvan), Venus looked old. She looked bloated and her serve was totally off. She doesn’t pass the eye test or the titles test. Her last three tournaments where she won at least two matches in a row were Cincy, Birmingham and Rome. Some of her wins were walkovers. Right now she’s just accompanying her sister on the tour and playing part time. She should have retired in 2017 when she was a top five player.

TODD SPIKER: Certainly a possibly, especially if she doesn't begin to post a few wins. Although she *has* remained competitive, falling in back-to-back three-setters in recent weeks (holding 7 MP in one loss). I don't like to *predict* retirements, but I'd say to at least keep on eye on the Germans. Anna-Lena Groenefeld recently stepped away, and the futures of the other three major personalities from her generation surely bear watching. Julia Goerges is past her career peak, Angelique Kerber has been bothered by injuries more and more over the past two seasons as she's slid down the rankings, and Andrea Petkovic's growing opportunities off the court (in TV and writing) might soon end up causing her to decide the time is right to make a move to address her post-tour career full-time.
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ONE: KEI NISHIKORIWHY: Injuries. Chances to retire at your home Olympics don’t come around every year. He’s 30. Won 1 title in four years.

Nishikori made three slam quarterfinals last year. He has been a Top 10 mainstay despite the word "injuries" cropping up on his Wikipedia page 29 times. He struggles to convert quarterfinal and semifinal appearances into silverware. He is ranked 31 in the world and last won back to back matches at the U.S. Open. His season ended with elbow surgery last year, but it’s the latest, not the last. He won the Bronze medal four years ago, in an epic match against Nadal. Eventually he will need to make a decision: play for another three years and retire with a broken body or call it quits at a home Olympics in a city where he has won two titles. If he does retire he can come back in a couple of years and throw everything at it.
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TWO: SANIA MIRZAWHY: To spend time with her newborn and husband Shaoib Malik. Injuries. The missing piece?

Mirza is one of India’s great sporting figures. She reached a Top 30 ranking in singles and number one in doubles. This Backspinner saw her and Martina Hingis play live at Wimbledon. It was a terrifying sight. The way they played doubles was just outright better, like peak Patriots or Blackhawks, than anyone else could play. If Mirza wins the Wimbledon mixed title and the Roland Garros women’s doubles she will have two Career Grand Slams. If she gets the Olympic Gold what else is she playing for? She’s won Miami, Indian Wells, Rome and Beijing. She’s won Cincy, Wuhan and Tokyo. Can you imagine a player sticking around just to win Madrid, the Rogers Cup, Dubai and Doha? Will Mirza, who has won just about everything, with her bad knees, her new baby and a faithful husband she loves stay on? She had surgery before her pregnancy but did win a title this year. So she *is* back. But for how long?

TS: Mirza has been notoriously hard to read when it's come to things like this, but she worked hard to get back on tour after being out for two years so I wonder (barring a major injury, or a continual string of small ones) if she'd exit without at least playing through *next* season. On the other hand, I've never felt that Kim Clijsters' latest comeback would be even a moderately "long term" thing. She's looked fairly good so far after over seven years (!) away, but if injuries start to keep her out of tournaments (one in training delayed the *start* of her comeback) as the season so goes on, I wonder if she'll figure the effort to stick around isn't worth it. She's already proved she could make it back, and I'm not sure her goals are really *too* much more extensive than just being competitive over the course of this season.
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TWO: ROGER FEDERERWHY: He’s old. The back and knees are going. He only needs the Olympic Gold medal. He has a big family and might want to spend more time them.

We’ve watched Federer grow up. He has defined a sport (along with Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal) for the last twenty years. At what point does the man who has won everything, except a couple of clay Masters titles, put his rackets in the cupboard and step into the booth? Or begin to coach? Or do a Bjorn Borg and disappear? Regardless, nursing a dodgy knee and bad back, Federer is in the twilight of the twilight of his career. In 2015 we thought he was done! That was five years ago. That was so long ago, the KC Royals were good then. Federer has managed to do a Tom Brady and evade Father Time’s clutches for a while now, but he turns 39 this year. Federer is still behind Jimmy Connors in semi-finals, finals and titles. He is second to Connors in matches played and won, too. Is that worth playing on for? I think what he will do is get into some form in London and then try to peak at the Olympics in August.

TS: Well, eventually this one's going to be right, eh? He's been written off before, and will surely be again with his recently-announced knee surgery. But it shouldn't be forgotten that he had two MP to win Wimbledon just last year, as he surely hasn't let it slip *his* mind. It shows that, assuming he's physically sound when he returns this summer, he likely believes he *can* win another major and at least *try* to get some additional distance between himself and Nadal and/or Djokovic on the slam title list for a little while longer, as futile as the long-term prospects of *staying* on top may ultimately be.
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THREE: SERENA WILLIAMSWHY: She will always be going for the next record. She isn’t as fit as she was even two years ago. A young family How will she go without her sister?

It may be unfair but it feels as if Venus is just following her sister around as part of her team and she occasionally plays tennis. If she pulls the plug, however, what will that do to sister Serena? Serena has two records she could feasibly track down. Win every major four times (Steffi Graf) and win 24 majors. Serena is such a perfectionist, however, that she will always find some new record she doesn’t have. Titles, finals or years played. She will find something. She is now 39 and you just wonder how many more slams she can be relevant at. Williams is in the Top 10 but she needs a favourable draw and even that is no guarantee anymore. What if in the next slam she has to play Halep, Kenin and Barty back to back to back? So why not win her umpteenth Gold medal and call it quits? Why not end on a high, like Justin Henin? Actually perhaps she might not want to do anything Henin does after the hand incident.

TS: While #24 is still out there and attainable (which it still is, though it's now hardly a given she'll get there), I can't see Serena stepping away quite yet. I've been saying that, as the next generation of players continues to come on strong, her opportunities to win *seven* straight matches gets tougher and tougher, and if she doesn't get it by the end of 2020 I'd lean toward her maybe *never* getting doing so. If she *does* get to 24, though, I'd imagine she'd at least go another year or so to try to break the tie with Margaret Court. It's really the last important record left on the table.
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THREE: IVO KARLOVICWHY: This has been on the cards for a while. Mounting injuries. Dr. Ivo is so old he has been married for 15 years.

This is an interesting one. You could make a case for John Isner or Dr. Ivo here. He made a minor final last year, losing to Kevin Anderson in three breakers. If he goes on another run at Wimbledon and then gets a wild card into the Olympics would he be happy then? He is the oldest man to win a match at the Master level, one of the oldest finalists out there and played in an all time old final in 2017, too. Gilles Muller and Ivo had a combined age of 72 when they played in the Ricoh Open on the grass. In 2007 he won titles on grass, clay and hard. It’s been an entertaining, ace-tastic career.
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FOUR: BARBORA STRYCOVAAfter originally having CSN here, let me take a swing with Strycova.

A walking play in four acts. She creates drama, doesn't appear to be well liked and is not fun to watch on TV, but she has presence. She has guts. I've watched matches where she has lost the first set 6-1 and I have known she'll still be there three hours later, at 5-5 in the third. She has been 6 in the world in singles and 1 in the world in doubles, with a Wimbledon title alongside Hsieh Su-Wei. Can you imagine a more frustrating, irritating, balling up fists team to play against? The grinder and the slicer. They're 1-1 in slam finals. Strycova is in top form at the moment, having reached last year's Wimbledon semi-finals in the singles, too. She has a Bronze in the dubs, playing with Lucie Safarova. She beat four seeds at Wimbledon last year so it wasn't like a Marion Bartoli type run. She is in peak form. But if she loses all those points in singles and drops out of the Top 50, and gets a Gold in Tokyo... would she be tempted to call it right then?

TS: Strycova (who I would say is fun to watch once you commit to "the ride") has *said* she'll retire soon, but I'm wondering if her current run with Hsieh might cause her to rethink things and ride it out for a year or two beyond whatever her original plans were. She's had the best results of her entire career over the last year and a half. A Tokyo Gold (assuming that *is* an Olympics to contest this summer) *would* be an enticing exclamation point at the end of a career, though.

I'll throw out a few more names for consideration... Timea Bacsinszky's sure feels like it's on a ticking clock, and Victoria Azarenka's future was in doubt coming into *this* season. She's back playing, but if she can't make a huge breakthrough by the end of the summer I wonder if she'll see the use is trying again in '21. As for a Hail Mary possibility that would likely shock some (but not all, when you think about it)... hmmm, maybe Sloane Stephens?
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FOUR: JO-W TSONGA/RICHARD GASQUETWHY: A combined age of 70 odd is the big reason. Many, many injuries. Enough wasted potential to build a whole Monfils.

Oh, France. Gael Monfils, Gasquet and Tsonga should all have a slam. We saw Monfils choke against Novak Djokovic again recently and this now feels incredibly fitting. Gasquet has a Bronze and Tsonga a Silver, but that was in doubles, in 2012. That was on grass in London. Gasquet, like Grigor Dimitrov, has had a good career but has suffered from the early comparisons to Fed and people now fail to recognize he’s had a magnificent and entertaining career. Tsonga is so big and powerful he was bound to become injured at some point. His 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 demolition of Rafa Nadal in 2008 in Melbourne remains one of my favourite matches ever. It was magnificent. He could serve and volley, hit dropshots and he managed to be mentally tough too. He never went away in matches or faded.

TS: I suppose it says something about Nadal's resilience that you didn't include Rafa on your list, as you've written him off in the past with his knees injuries.

I'm not really keyed in on the ATP players to consider here, but... Feliciano Lopez is 38, Marin Cilic isn't likely going to challenge for another slam and, unfortunately, Juan Martin del Potro's injuries are going to lead to an end at some point. In fact, we *may* have already seen the last of him, as far as we know.
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Thanks all.

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