Andrew Miller writes:
Catherine, that's quite an observation. My guess is it depends on the player. Muguruza is more like past one hit French open winners such as Ivanovic, who never quite recovered her game. Kerber's a different beast, who is dumbfounded by her unbelievable 2016. By the end of 2016 you have this legitimate credible multi slam champion who put on a year like Serena Williams or Henin or Mauresmo in Mauresmo's two slam year. Unlike Pennetta she was as in Kerber was still hungry. Still saying the right things. Almost as if she had struck on some kind of secret to tennis domination. Nope. Agassi once said that he (1) knew that every match had a winner and a loser, and (2) after winning a slam there's an empty feeling and a what am I supposed to do now? sensation. That he had to reconcile or acknowledge this, that winning slams doesn't change all that much, it's still up to the player to figure out what to do next. He suggests without saying it that being a slam winner doesn't do much for your next tournament - a player would still need to have a routine, practice, get matches, eat, sleep, etc. The only thing that changes is likely what others think of the champion. I'd guess and we've said this before, Kerber became a celebrity athlete in Germany. On every talk show under the sun. More demands on her life. More pressure to explain the secret etc of her accomplishments and spell out her desire to do it all again, on top it. This pressure to improve in some way tore up Fish's career. His heart condition was the central reason obviously. But after a pretty solid run into the top ten and emergence as the USA top men's player, his mental state turned to complete fear. Could he keep it up? What if he couldn't? Could he improve? This growing avalanche of questions got to him and then all of the sudden he was off the ATP tour and playing semipro golf. Strangest occurrence in men's tennis here in the States. He literally had to escape the sport. My guess is that Muguruza, having done as well as possible, has been dealing with the what next thing. She's been pretty coaching resistant and gone for the old just play my game. Her game hasn't evolved much. And she's gone from champion to contender to competitor. So we could say well, it's sophomore slump, after a fantastic year you have an ok one. I don't buy it. I think it's a what am I going to do now thing, and in many ways a rejection of the need to prove themselves. Like Agassi says, winning a slam doesn't change how hard the sport is, what a player needs to do to remain relevant. But the psychology etc, that very well could change.
