Flavia Pennetta - No icons after Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova
Flavia Pennetta , 2015 US Open winner, is concerned about the future attractiveness of women's tennis.
by tennisnet.com
last edit: Jun 03, 2020, 01:18 pm
Naomi Osaka may have surpassed Serena Williams in terms of total revenue in 2019, but the 23-time major winner from the United States should still have the edge in worldwide appeal. And probably not too short. Flavia Pennetta can attest to this from her own experience: In 2015 Serena was preparing to complete the US Open of her first annual Grand Slam. As a result, the women's endgame was sold out more than that of the men, a rather rare occurrence.
Roberta Vinci was sincere though, she defeated Serena in the semi-final, but had to admit defeat to Flavia Pennetta in the final. The scenes immediately after the end of the match, when the Italians cheerfully joined each other gently at the award ceremony. Neither Vinci nor Pennetta are still active on the WTA tour, after all, Flavia occasionally visits the tournaments as a TV expert. And is concerned about the popularity of her favorite discipline in the coming years.
Pennetta grew up with Graf, Seles, Sabatini
"For men, we have Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, who have written incredible tennis history over the past 15 years, but after that come solid and consistent young people," said Pennetta in an interview with La Gazzetta di Mezzogiorno. “With women, there is no longer one icon that sells tickets. Serena Williams is still there, but has more and more problems. Sharapova has resigned, she was also an icon off the pitch. On the one hand, every tournament is fun because almost every player can win the title, but that makes us think. Before that, the top ten were a step or two ahead of the rest. ”
It is precisely in this knowledge that Flavia Pennetta grew up. “Tennis at the time of Sabatini, Graf, Seles, Capriati was wonderful. I grew up with them, had Monica's poster on my door. I personally miss this tennis because I grew up with it. Today's young people probably don't even know who these players are. ”