One of the players that I really thought was gonna make it big is Cepelova. I was mesmerized by the way she beat Serena in that Charleston match. Serena wasn't at her best, but Cepelova was playing flawless tennis all around. I really came to think that she has the game to even reach the top 10 at some point in her career. And then, she just disappeared. I managed to watch a couple of her matches later on that year and she looked like a completely different player compared to what I had seen her do in that match against Serena. And now, she is nowhere to be seen on the big stage.
Well, I didn't necessarily believe she'd fulfill all the excessive hype, but I thought she'd do a damn sight better than she has. Even given her injury woes, I thought she'd have a better comeback than this.
Biggest WTA underachievers in last decade is Li Na which STARTED seriously to play pro tennis few months before 30th birthday and Ana Ivanovic which STOPPED to play seriously few months after 20th birthday :shrug:
Krajicek obviously. Also Milevskaya looked like she would be really good. Kalashnikova as well.
I guess Kanepi doesn't really fit into this category because she still had a great career, but after that Brisbane evisceration I really thought she'd make Top 10/win a Slam.
I'm not sure Golovin really fits in this category. She had a pretty good career while it lasted. She was still very young when she was forced to retire and had already accomplished more than most players her age. She was on her way to the top 10. Such a shame...
There's a weird history of players cracking the top 20 when they're 18-19-20 years old and then dropping back to another, lower level shortly thereafter, for various reasons.
Tulyaganova, Bedanova, Daniliidou....2002 and 2003 was chock full of top 20ers who then didn't back it up.
Cepelova has one of the worst FH's this side of Dushevina so I wasn't surprised that she hasn't made it big.
I remember thinking Sprem had the potential to be a top 10 player when I first saw her and after her Berlin/Wimbledon runs, but I don't know how sustainable her balls-to-the-wall tennis would've been physically in the long run, and her string of injuries attest to that.
Groenefeld looked like she was going to slot into the top 10 quite comfortably in mid 2006, but she had that off-court drama with her former coach, slumped miserably and never got into anywhere near the shape she was again to succeed in singles.
Mirza is kind of a similar story, but it was more to do with her game becoming outdated very quickly as opposed to any glaring physical/off-court impediments.
And of course Szavay. Her career deserved so much more.