By Blair Henley

Photo Credit: FFT

(June 4th, 2012)
Serena’s first round French Open exit coupled with the second round demise of just about every other American woman in the draw at Roland Garros caused yet another wave of panic regarding the state of women’s tennis in the States. But as Serena and Venus have shown us over the past 15 years, it only takes one or two star players to carry a country. After Sloane Stephens’ breakout performance in Paris, she’s shown that she might just have what it takes to shoulder the burden.
 

Stephens fell 7-5, 6-4 at the hands of 28-year-old Sam Stosur yesterday, and it was clear that the Australian’s experience level was the deciding factor in the tight two-setter. At 19 years old, Stephens was playing in just her fourth Grand Slam. By that same age, Serena had played in 10 Grand Slams and won her first. But as a recent Wall Street Journal piece pointed out, tennis’s notoriously short careers are getting longer by the minute. At this year’s French Open, there were 14 players in the women’s singles draw over the age of 30. In 2002 there were only five.

 

Unlike so many tennis phenoms who pick up a racquet as soon as they can walk, Stephens began playing tennis when she turned nine at the urging of her stepfather, Sheldon Smith, who died of cancer in 2007. Perhaps she’s a late bloomer, but with a career that could conceivably last though her mid-thirties, she has plenty of time to make her mark on the sport. And she certainly isn’t hurting in the gene department. Her dad was the late Patriots running back John Stephens, and her mother, Sybil Smith, was an All-American swimmer at Boston University.

 

Improving her results (and her current rank of No. 70) is the first step to tennis stardom, but a bright personality doesn’t hurt either. Her comfort in the media spotlight was as entertaining as it was refreshing.

 

Here are some gems from her French Open press conferences:

 

On cutting out sugary sodas:  “For lunch I would have a soda. And then dinner was really late, so I would go and get one before I left, and then I’d drink another one. And I was like, whoa, that’s a lot of sugar. So I stopped doing that.”

 

On winning a couple of rounds at Roland Garros: "There's always more. Because my mom is spoiled rotten, (I was thinking) she's going to want to fly home first-class or something. So I got to keep winning."

 

On her French Open success: “Now I’m going to have more Twitter followers!”

On whether she’ll be flying home first class: “Definitely, definitely.”

American Christina McHale is just a year older than Stephens and with three third round Grand Slam appearances and a current rank of No. 36, she’s seen more success. But as McHale upset seed after seed in her impressive run last summer, it was clear the shy teenager wasn’t incredibly comfortable with her newfound star status. “Shy” is definitely not how one would characterize Stephens. In fact, when asked to describe herself in one word, she responded: “Giggly.”

Stephens has improved by a round in each of her four Grand Slam appearances, so if the pattern holds, we should see her in the quarterfinals at Wimbledon. Regardless, she has shown American tennis fans that they have a player to get excited about. At this point, that’s all we can ask for.