The Almost Club

I started to write a post yesterday about two girls that I'm really excited about on the WTA Tour: Laura Robson and Marina Erakovic.

Each of these two young women have showed great promise and poise in the last six months as they've made their own inroads on the pro tour, but I can't help but think of them as part of a club that I feel is growing and growing: The Almost Club.

The Almost Club grows in membership each year, but in the last two years I've noticed that the application process has sped up and the applicant line never gets too deep - they just hop right in. Over at On the Baseline, Aaress did a great post on "The Most Frustrating WTA Players" on tour right now.

For me, the list could go on and on, but more than anything, I worry for the next generation - for girls like Robson and Erakovic - that they'll always be Almosters... that they'll never achieve greatness.

Perhaps it's something that I shouldn't lose sleep over. Fact is, there are few Venus Williams-like players in the world, and not everyone is destined for greatness. While working with the Easter Bowl, I'm learning how far tennis can reach (over 600 American kids play this tournament every year!) and how selective it truly is.

When it comes to team sports, greatness can be passed around from position to position. But in tennis, there is only one position: on the court. If you're not on it, you're off it. And if you're off it, you're probably not winning very much.

It would take me weeks to talk about all the Almosters on the WTA Tour, so I'll just stick with Robson and Erakovic. For now, they both have their careers ahead of them, so it's unfair to put them in one category or another.

But truth is, they probably will become a part of the Club, because we all know how hard it is to get into that other one club: the Club of Champions.

Wimbledon: My Favorite Things

Random musings from a Wimbledon we won't soon forget:

As I mentioned in the video post, Alexandra Stevenson has a new blog up on ESPN.com. Is this finally her time to come back? Or was she ever really a legitimate player to begin with? It'll be interesting to see just how far she goes (and how healthy she stays).

Laura Robson is the FairyTale Princess of The Championships 2008. This is a story I just can't resist, especially because growing up, I would play tennis in my back alley and always concoct some sort of darkhorse who at the French was French or at Wimbledon was British and he or should would caption the nation's heart with out-of-this-world tennis.

Robson certainly did that in the last two weeks, winning her home title as a darkhouse and as a player who really played like she was from a different world. Robson's win was a legitimate one, beating the 1st, 9th and 3rd seeds along her way.

How special would it be to see this girl in the main draw next year? Only the next 12 months can show us what she's learned at the Girl's Champion.

Marina Erakovic is my new favorite women's player. Don't know her? Read up!

What a tournament for Andy Murray (and Jie Zheng and Marat Safin and Elena Dementieva, too!)! Murray's fourth-round conquering of Richard Gasquet was his proclamation to the tennis world: I have arrived.

Murray was overwhelmed in the quarters by Kingdom of Clay-Grass King Rafael Nadal, but his consistent effort at the All England Club show me that he is making headway each year, and continuing to improve in surprising ways. This kid will win WImbledon some day, that is no doubt. Even Tim Henman thinks so.

And, before I pay homage to Mr. Nadal himself, I want to thank William C. Rhoden of The New York Times for his thoughtful and dead-on column on the legacy of the Williams sisters. They certainly don't get enough credit for what they've done for the game, and Saturday's final is another example.

So at last we come to Rafa. This is what I'll say: the kid didn't miss. All in all, he dug deep, ran everything down, hit the ball as hard as he could, and - most importantly - didn't miss. Yes, Federer made a few errors, but it was all about the human boomerang on Sunday: everything Fed threw at Nadal, the Spaniard threw right back, and with a little more zip and curve than the five-time champ.