TENNIS ATP PREVIEW 2015 – The start of the 2015 tennis season is just around the corner and that only means one thing: it’s time to anticipate who could burst on the scene this year. Bruno Bergareche Sans
The start of the 2015 tennis season is just around the corner and that only means one thing: it’s time to anticipate who could burst on the scene this year. In the men’s tour, 2014 served as a stimulus for the majority of the field as the god’s of the game lost their aura and the likes of Stanislas Wawrinka or Marin Cilic proved that winning a Grand Slam isn’t an impossible feat.
A new group of youngsters showed glimpses of what they’re capable of last year and this season will try and consolidate those promising signs and establish themselves amongst the sport’s elite.
With a ranking of 39 and an ATP title already to his name, Dominic Thiem is no longer a dark horse, but 2015 will be a real test to see if this young Austrian with a devastating single-hand backhand can push on to greater heights or if the new-found pressure of being expected to deliver will get to him. 2015 will be a real measurement of what the 21 year-old from Wiener Neustadt is really made of.
Another player who caught the attention of the tennis world last campaign was Nick Kyrgios with that unforgettable victory over Rafa Nadal at Wimbledon. Confidence doesn’t seem to be an issue for this vibrant Aussie who thrives on the big scene. Equipped with a huge serve and powerful strokes, Kyrgios plays a brand of tennis that is common in this new generation of players. Power and athleticism has taken over finesse, and it seems that players of a Fabrice Santoro or Richard Gasquet mould are going to become more and more a rare commodity. How this style matches up with the old guard will be fascinating but these young bucks must remember that tennis isn’t only about hitting the ball as hard as you can and that apparent lack of a backup plan in their game could see them come up short on a number of occasions.
Also basing his play on power and making shockwaves in 2014 is Croatian Borna Coric. He topped the junior rankings in 2013 and took the junior US Open that same year and, unlike many who dominate in junior categories, Coric has been able to take that giant leap into the pro tour. The 18 year-old finished the season ranked 91, climbing over 200 places, on the back of a semi-final appearance in Basel, where he defeated Rafa Nadal en route, although it must be said that the Spaniard was a shadow of himself as a result of that appendicitis that kept him out at the end of the season. Other promising facts for the man from Zagreb are that he became the youngest player to reach two ATP World Tour quarter-finals in a single season since Nadal in 2003 and he was victorious in his Grand Slam debut with a win against Lukas Rosol at the US Open.
Other players to keep an eye out for will be Thanasi Kokkinakis, who made a good account of himself on home soil at the Australian Open last year and performed consistently on the Challenger tour, Alexander Zverev, who stunned the world with his run to the semi-finals in Hamburg, and Yoshihito Nishioka, another player to come off the recently productive Japanese conveyer belt who had a promising season on the unforgiving Challenger circuit.
