Tennis: Starlets light up women's game

LITTLE MORE than 12 years ago, the tennis world was marvelling at a 17-year-old German girl who had emerged as if from nowhere to win the French Open. Steffi Graf went on to win all four Grand Slam singles tournaments in 1988. Before arriving at the Championships this year, aged 30, with seven Wimbledon titles to her name, her Grand Slam tally stood at 22.

It seems only fitting, as Graf exits centre stage from the All England Club for the final time, albeit without a much-desired eighth title, that a new generation of emerging talent should take its place under the spotlight.

Foremost among the pretenders are Jelena Dokic, the 16-year-old Australian qualifier who caused the biggest upset in years by beating Martina Hingis in the first round; Alexandra Stevenson, the 18-year-old American qualifier with the protective mother and the basketball-playing father, who eliminated Dokic in the quarter-final; and Mirjana Lucic, the 17-year-old Croatian, who made it as far as the semi-final before being beaten in three sets by Graf.

That Dokic and Stevenson met in the quarter-finals - and hence guaranteed that a qualifier would grace the women's semi-finals for the first time - was remarkable, but they did not emerge from the ether without trace.

Dokic's family had moved to Australia when she was 12 to give her greater opportunities to play sport and develop her career. She is a former junior world No 1, and in January she reached the third round of the Australian Open, where she lost to Hingis. Her progress, like that of her contemporaries such as Hingis, Venus and Serena Williams and Anna Kournikova, has been the result of efficient youth programmes and the unstinting ambition of parents and mentors.

Stevenson, too, has played tennis since she was a youngster and grew up in close contact with the Williams sisters, whose father made a decision not to allow them to play in junior tournaments because he did not want them to face too much pressure. That Stevenson has not been prominent until now is less to do with a lack of ability than her mother's desire for her to maintain a low profile.

Of the three, Lucic, ranked No 134 in the world before Wimbledon, was the most established and arguably had only taken this long to get noticed because of personal problems earlier in her career. After playing in the 1997 US Open aged 15, when she lost to Jana Novotna, Lucic's abusive father hindered her advancement. Now those troubles are behind her - illustrated by progress to a Wimbledon semi-final - a bright future beckons. "She wasn't tentative, she really went for it," Graf said, after their match. "There are only a few players in the game who hit the ball as hard as she does. Experience is always important but the way she was going for her shots, she really took a lot of risks and it didn't seem like she was getting nervous at any stage and that's very impressive to me."

Equally impressive is Stevenson's self-belief, even after her 6-1, 6- 1 semi-final defeat to Lindsay Davenport. "In the years to come I'll win on Centre Court," she said. "I've had great fun here this time, knocked out some good players and made history. Every match I feel I'm getting closer to what I want to achieve."

While the women's game becomes stronger in depth, the same is not happening in the men's, where there are far fewer gifted teenagers coming through. The simplest reason for this could be that men do not mature as quickly as women, and at 16 or 17 cannot compete with those five years older. Boris Becker, Wimbledon champion at 17, and Michael Chang, French Open winner at the same age, are rarities. Is that why men earn more?

Three teenagers point way to future with

surprise Wimbledon runs. By Nick Harris