By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Tuesday June 5, 2019
17-year-old Amanda Anisimova could be the next great American champion in Paris. TN's Chris Oddo breaks down what makes her special at this stage of her career.
Photo Source: Philippe Lopez/Getty
It’s no accident that Amanda Anisimova has become the first player, male or female, born in the 2000s to reach a Grand Slam quarter-final.
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That silky backhand doesn’t lie—this is a player with eye-catching talent and the ability to parlay it into victories on the world’s biggest stages. She won’t turn 18 until the U.S. Open starts later this summer, but the youngest American woman to reach the Roland Garros quarter-finals in 26 years has already proven that she has the lethal groundstrokes—and the icy demeanor—that make her an absolute puzzle to play against, even for top players.
Ask Aryna Sabalenka, who could manage just six games against the precocious American in the second round in Paris--she fell to Anisimova in straight sets at a Grand Slam for the second straight time this year.
“She played great,” Sabalenka noted matter-of-factly after that second round loss. “And my serve doesn't work well today, and that was the key for her. It helps her a lot, I think.”
Riding a grooved baseline game and a precious backhand return that could be a game-changer, Anisimova powered into the third round, where she was the cooler player under pressure in defeating Irina-Camelia Begu in straights sets. Then she destroyed Spanish qualifier Aliona Bolsova in straights sets in the round of 16 on Monday behind 33 winners, many of them of the jaw-dropping variety.
She’s 17 and she hasn’t dropped a set at Roland Garros through four rounds.
Just wow.
So what is it that makes the American so darn good at such a young age? How has she managed to become the youngest Roland Garros quarter-finalist in 13 years and why is she holding a Grand Slam record of 7-1 thus far in 2019?
It starts with a backhand that is pure and prolific. Watching from the media seats on Court Simonne-Mathieu on Monday, I could only be amazed by the ease with which Anisimova manages to strike her two-handed backhand with consistent depth and weight. Her technique is exacting and repeatable, it looks like she could get out of bed and play a 16-stroke rally before she brushed her teeth.
There is a metronomic quality to Anisimova’s baseline game. She can control the court and the sway of rallies and stay on the attack almost effortlessly. Her backhand return opens up a lot of opportunities to be offensive as well. She times the ball perfectly and can tuck it just inside her opponent’s baseline a fair amount of the time.
And there’s more good news. Anisimova’s game, while bristling already at this stage of her career, still has plenty of room to improve. She plays a simple style, preferring to treat her opponent as a hitting partner and not venturing off of her perch on the baseline to often. Her backhand down the line is such a natural shot that she can win matches with it alone. And yet, one gets the sense that when she starts using crosscourt angles and other forms of chicanery more regularly, she will be able to open up that shot even more.
Anisimova hit two brilliant--dare we say Djokovician?--crosscourt backhands on Monday, late in the lopsided victory over Bolsova. She either isn’t comfortable enough with the shot or doesn’t feel the need to take on the additional risk that comes with it to employ it regularly.
Not to worry, she’s into the quarter-finals at Roland Garros by just playing devilishly good, clean and mean baseline tennis.
Thus far we’ve talked only about Anisimova’s backhand (hard to stop raving about it) but her forehand, while not as consistent or as heavy as her backhand, can do a lot of damage as well. She has a more compact swing on this side and is really comfortable striking the inside-out forehand. Anisimova cracks this shot relatively flat with some sidespin—it could be a real terror on the grass, and she rarely misses it.
As for Friday's quarter-final with 2018 Roland Garros champion Simona Halep, Anisimova will likely be forced to play more defense against the Romanian, who is an absolute whiz at getting an opponent to move on a clay court. This will be an area where the American will likely struggle. She’s tall, a bit lanky and not the best mover at this phase of her career. Perhaps down the road she’ll improve drastically and, more important, she’ll find more ways to ensure that she doesn’t have to play too much defense, even against top players.
On Monday Anisimova showed a deft touch with the drop shot, though she didn’t use it very much. She also showed the ability to use the court's geometry to create more space and opportunity for herself.
All the tools are there for Anisimova and as she continues to evolve we should see her become even more devastating. Pundits are already droolig over the purity of her ball striking and the ease with which she can aggressively control the game from the baseline. In a few years’ time, she could be an absolute tour de force.
And as far as the attitude and level of professionalism goes, it’s there as well.
“No player is ever a finished product,” she said on Monday. “I still have a lot of work to do and a lot of building to do.”
We mustn’t forget that Anisimova is young and that there are bound to be bumps along the way. Her second main draw appearance at Roland Garros points to a bright future, but a quick glance at 2017 Roland Garros champion Jelena Ostapenko’s fall from grace reminds us that climbing the mountain can be easier than staying on top of it.
It’s worth considering as Anisimova attempts to continue her climb on Wednesday against last year’s champion Halep.
Halep didn’t find incredible success as a teenager on tour and she says that in retrospect having to take small steps incrementally over the course of her career may have been a blessing for her.
“I was not on Chatrier at 17,” she said. “I was in qualies here.”
Halep admits that while her path worked for her, everybody is different. Being this deep in a major at 17 says a lot about what Anisimova’s future could be, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.
“I'm happy with the way [my story] was,” said Halep. “But also, for the teenagers that are at 17, 18 in the quarterfinals or something like this, it's also good. Means that they are different, they have more courage when they are young, and they see different things. So both sides I think are good.”
Meanwhile, Anisimova is thrilled to be ahead of schedule here in Paris. Two years ago she earned a wild card to Roland Garros at 15 and lost in the first round. Last year an injury to her foot kept her off the clay for the whole season.
Now that she’s back on the surface, she’s excited to be where she is, about to take on the defending champion who has won 11 straight matches in Paris.
“When I was playing two years ago, I really wanted to just win one match and I would have been the happiest person alive,” Anisimova said. “So to tell me I would be in the quarters right now, I would be very happy.”