The tennisnet.com editorial team picks its candidates for the players of the year on the ATP and WTA Tour. We’ll start with the ladies. Today: Julia Görges.
It is obvious that Julia Görges is not the most obvious tip for the best player of the year. But on closer inspection, it is noticeable: The German can look back on an outstanding 2018 season and was able to establish herself at the top of the world thanks to constant performances.
After the excellent final sprint in 2017 with the tournament victories in Moscow and Zhuhai, Görges opened the so difficult second year in Auckland. Of course, the 30-year-old finished 2011 in 21st place, but the absolute breakthrough came six years later.
The start of the season in New Zealand was promising: Jule won the final against the Australian Open winner Caroline Wozniacki. So what could you expect from Görges for the upcoming season? A march to the top of the world? Or is it a burglary in the near future?
There was no crash in the rankings, nor did the Germans, however, take sole control of women’s tennis. Nevertheless, Görges managed one thing: to bring consistency into her game. Tennisnet looks back on the season of the Bad Oldesloerin.
After the outstanding start of the season with the tournament victory in Auckland, Görges could not be disturbed by the second round of the Australian Open. A semi-final entry at the St. Petersburg Open brought the German back on track. This serenity after bitter defeats is symbolic of the elapsed playing time.
Even after losing in the third round at the French Open and being eliminated in the second round in New York, Jule kept on striking back. Symptomatic of this is the fact that the Wimbledon preliminary round was reached after the disappointment in the French capital. In London Görges showed on the so far unloved underground what abilities she has and what makes her game so dangerous.
The brute service paired with power tennis from the baseline – two components that the 30-year-old perfected in the past season – brought her to the semi-finals in the Mecca of tennis where Görges only lost to the probably best player of all time, Serena Williams. Despite the six tournament victories in her career, the semi-final in Wimbledon represents the greatest success of her career.
Not only because Görges shone playfully on the sacred lawn – no, she showed her fighter heart and defied all adversities (unloved surface, curse in the round of 16th finals at Grand Slam tournaments) into the round of the last four. Furthermore, thanks to this great success, Görges was again able to advance into the top ten of the WTA world rankings. For the first time, it succeeded in doing so in February 2018.
The fact that, after reaching the career high in August 2018 (ninth place), the German finished the season in a strong 14th place, as in the previous year, was mainly due to the strong performances of her immediate rivals towards the end of the year. Görges was also able to celebrate two tournament victories in 2018.
In addition to her victory at the Auckland event, the Bad Oldesloerin triumphed in Luxembourg in October, and Jule did not allow a single breakpoint in her final victory over Belinda Bencic. This is primarily due to the consistently strong serve and the powerful basic strokes. This newly won consistency in the most important components of her game made Görges one of the hottest stocks on the WTA Tour, in addition to the aforementioned successes.
With the exception of the Wimbledon semi-final, Görges must look back on a disappointing 2018 season at the major events. At the Australian Open, she was one of the favourites for the title in the second round against the French Alize Cornet in two sets, and at the US Open she also failed in the same round against the Russian Ekaterina Makarova.
Furthermore, Jule had to admit defeat at the French Open in the round of the last 32 Serena Williams. Defeats that everyone can, but shouldn’t, happen, Görges wants to take the next step towards absolute world class.
In addition, the big coup at one of the Premier Mandatory and Premier 5 events failed to materialize. Especially at these events there is a lot of room for the 30-year-old to move up, as she could lay the foundation for an even better world ranking position here.