The Slam Season in Summary, and Where to from Here

So how should we summarize the Slam season in general? And how do we expect the respective tours to progress from here?

Among the women, we had four different winners over the four Slams. Serena won in Australia and then left the tour to have a baby. Young Jelena Ostapenko won in France and has had okay results since (the quarters at Wimbledon, the third round in New York). After a lackluster early season and her meltdown in Paris, Muguruza beat Venus for the Wimbledon title. And now Sloane Stephens comes out of nowhere to win in New York. Do you see any kind of pattern there? Because I do not. It seems like this is a year of transition. Let's hope that this year's breakthrough players continue to play well through the end of season--and beyond. After all, last year, it looked like Angelique Kerber was going to truly embrace the role of becoming a long-term force on the tour, but this year, she was merely a shell.

The story atop the men's game has been, in essence, the drop-off of last year's top-two, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic, and the return to splendor of Federer and Nadal. Federer and Nadal were both amazing in Australia, and their final there was a classic. Afterward, Federer stormed through the North American spring hardcourt season. When things returned to Europe and Nadal's beloved clay, Nadal owned everybody. I maintain that Federer did not play a great Wimbledon, but still, he was better than everybody else. And then Federer was lackluster in New York, the injury he suffered in Montreal clearly taking a lot from him, and it was Nadal who was brilliant.

Back in April, I predicted a remarkable year for both Federer and Nadal, and that's pretty much how it worked out. Yes, I hoped for a more remarkable ending to the Slam season, that Federer and Nadal would compete the way they did in Australia, and that unfortuantely isn't what happened. Still, though: at the end of 2016, would you have guessed that Federer and Nadal would split the four Slams between them?

And where to from here? The Asian swing and the European fall tournaments can sometimes feel like something of an afterthought after the U.S. Open. This year, for the men, with so much of the top end of the field out for the season, it will seem especially so. Unless Federer regains his form and offers some stout competition for Nadal in the late-season Masters 1000s--which is possible, if he wants to compete for year-end number one--then the season will end not with a bang but a whimper. We'll see.

Among the women, there's been no clear number one. With many rankings points still to play for, let's hope we some exciting play and perhaps some consolidation among the top players in the game.

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