Women's Tennis Primer!
Here we go, it's the Women's Tennis Primer! :)
Just in time to promote women's tennis for Yuletide - because you should definitely, definitely consider requesting and/or writing it. It's the best. (I may be biased.) Women's tennis seldom gets written, and yet it has all the elements for fantastic fic - amazing women, great sports narratives, close friendships (I refuse to use the word "sismance"), canon lesbians (including one with the cutest baby ever!), stirring rivalries, all sorts of different personalities, a wide range of body types (seriously, whatever your type, we've got you covered!), drama, glory, laughter, revenge - oh, and best friends who totally take you out to go bikini-sunbathing and dancing and drinking after your jerkass fiance dumps you over the phone the weekend your wedding invitations go out (the evilness!)
Now, I for one am extremely excited at the prospect of receiving and/or writing femslash for this fandom. Caro/Serena, bonding and falling in love (or having NSA sex) after Rory-the-douchebag dumps Caro? A five-times story with Aga and her flirtations & crushes? Laura & Genie being teenage girlfriends (whether or not this incorporates and/or is a fixit for their RL breakup)? Sam/Simmone long-term-relationship fic that has a lot of tennis and other Aussies and adventures? Vika & Maria adding frisson to their rivalry in bed? Vika & Laura bonding over their awesome braided hairstyles? Aga & Caro friends-to-lovers fic? SO MANY OPTIONS.
But even if you don't write/request femslash, or just aren't feeling it right now, there are plenty of opportunities for great gen stories as well! So many rivalries, so much tennis, and so many friendships. If you are into gen, this is totally a primer for you too! (And if you request it, I will probably, uh, gush all over you and write you a treat. Because you have no idea how excited I am about this fandom, lol. GIVE ME THAT WTA.)
Sorry, I'm far too longwinded! Moving on to the actual primer part now!
Disclaimer: First, I’m just one fan. My impressions of your favorite player may be different than yours - feel free to chime in on the comments and I’ll incorporate your thoughts! Second, I don’t know any of these players personally, and nothing is implied about their actual personalities, habits, or relationships (unless it’s part of the public record).
On to the primer! :)
WTA players nominated for Yuletide this year:
Serena Williams
Serena is 33 years old, #1 in the world, and unquestionably awesome. She has incredible power and steamrolls the competition when she's playing well. She's won 18 grand slams, starting in 1999 at the USO when she was 17, and her last one in August at this year's USO. She's also won 13 grand slam doubles titles (with a perfect record in finals), and 4 mixed doubles titles. Oh, and 4 Olympic gold medals (1 singles, 3 doubles). She's also funny, has a cute little dog, and is great friends with Caroline Wozniacki.
(See the short list of unnominated players for an introduction to Venus, Serena’s older sister, because she’s critical to understanding Serena, and you might want to have her at least in the background if you wrote Serena.)
Caroline Wozniacki
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Caroline (also known as Caro) is a 24-year-old Danish player. She’s really sweet, & best buddies with Serena (also has close friendships with others on the tour, including Aga & Vika). She's a former World #1 but has never won a Slam. Until recently, she was engaged to be married to Rory McIlroy (the famous golfer), and they were sickeningly-sweetly in love, until Rory phoned her out of the blue the week their wedding invitations went out and dumped her. She's handled it very well, but media of course went wild. Serena took her out sunbathing and dancing and really rallied behind her. It was very sweet. She's running the NYC marathon this year the week of her would-have-been wedding, and has been doing great in tennis post-Rory.
Victoria Azarenka
Vika, 25, Belarussian. She's won 2 Grand Slams and an Olympic bronze medal in singles, as well as some mixed doubles titles (2 Grand Slams and a gold medal). She's found some controversy because of questionable medical time outs (most famously, against American youngster Sloane Stephens), but she's also pretty popular. She dated RedFoo for a while, blegh, but thankfully they're broken up now. She comes across as a little ditzy (but in a self-aware way), cute, frank, and a bit naive (see, Redfoo). She has a cute disheveled braid style going on most of the time. Recently she had an #askVika session on Twitter that would give you a sense of her personality.
Maria Sharapova
Maria is a blonde 27-year-old Russian player, who rose to prominence by winning Wimbledon in 2004 at 17. She’s a very canny businesswoman and has made a TON of money, recently most notably with her candy, Sugarpova, but also with endorsements and stuff. Very smart. Also kinda known as an Ice Queen? She's been in a relationship for the past 18 months with an up-and-comer on the men's tour, Grigor Dimitrov, who's gorgeous, talented, and 5 years younger than her. He is cute, good at tennis, and just a little bit camp, so the dynamic between them is kinda neat. She's definitely in charge, IMO.
Agnieszka Radwanska
Aga, 25, Polish. She always seems to have a twinkle in her eye, at least to me. She's very cheerful. She also said to a question about "which superpower do you want" - "invisibility, I'd go in the men's locker room ;)", and was definitely eyeing up her cute partner at the Hopman Cup last year, so I read her as very flirty and up to jumping people. :D She has a cute relationship with Caro as well. She’s also very smart - I think she did her real estate degree in her off time while having a full-time tennis career, which is kinda impressive.
Eugenie Bouchard
Genie is a 20-year-old Canadian superstar. She just made her first GS final at Wimbledon this year (lost to Petra Kvitova, who isn’t nominated). I’d say she’s the jockiest girl on the WTA tour, which is interesting because she's also one of the most classically beautiful (blonde, statuesque, etc). She's also rumored to be happily sleeping her way through the ATP tour, lol. But in general, think very jocky, slightly awkward, but nice. She used to be BEST friends with Laura Robson, but they broke up last year (*tear*). You might see fix-it prompts for them, because they were seriously BFFs from like age 8 all through their teenage years, so teenage girlfriends would be legitimately a thing.
Laura Robson
(Laura & Genie)
Laura’s 20 years old, British, and really pretty in a girl-next-door way. Like, really pretty. She won Junior Wimbledon at age 14 and has been uber-popular in the UK ever since. She also won silver with Andy Murray in mixed doubles in London, and they were adorable together (think big brother & kid sister). She's really nice (has done some really sweet things for fans), really funny, and is pro-LGBT. Sadly she's injured right now, and her ranking has fallen shockingly low as a result. Come back, Laura!
Samantha Stosur
Sam is a 30-year-old Australian. Okay. Full disclosure: I adore Sammy. She has the most fabulous shoulders & arms EVER. Like. Oh god. Also she's really funny in an understated Aussie way, and she beat Serena to win a Grand Slam in 2011. Her personal trainer, Simmone, a former professional women's softball player, is rumored to be her girlfriend, and is often seen on the sidelines of Sam's matches (sometimes with a stress ball). [Simmone is also nominated.] Sadly Sam doesn't win as often as I'd like. But she did just win a title in Osaka! :) If you write Sam, you might also want to look into Casey Dellacqua, another Australian, who’s a canon lesbian and has an adorable baby boy with her partner (see the “not nominated but FYI” list).
Taylor Townsend
Taylor is an 18-year-old American who’s definitely one of the next crop of American stars (IMO). She's awesome. Sensible, funny, really has a head on her shoulders. She's also immensely powerful & can take your breath away with her shots. But of course she's young and still developing her game. There's been controversy surrounding her because when she was younger, the US Tennis Association told her they weren't allowing her to compete in the junior USO because she weighed too much. Nevermind that her physique was the way she was built and she obviously played great tennis (I think she was junior #1 at that point). It was a big brouhaha and everyone went "USTA, you are dicks, leave the teenager alone". She's still heavier than most of the tennis players (Serena is also built for power, but doesn't have the baby chub Taylor carries), but it hasn't affected her play and people are mostly good about it now.
Chris Evert
Chris Evert is a 59-year-old American ex-tennis player. During her career, she won 18 Grand Slam singles titles and a frickin’ incredible 157 singles titles overall. Her record of 34 Grand Slam singles finals reached is also more than anybody else EVER. Nowadays she has three kids and is an ESPN tennis commentator. I’m 99% sure she’s been nominated in tandem with Martina Navratilova, so keep reading.
Martina Navratilova
(Martina proposing to Julia)
Martina Navratilova is a 57-year-old Czech-American tennis player. Tennis legend Billie Jean King has called her “the greatest singles, doubles and mixed doubles player who's ever lived,” and tennis historian Bud Collins has said that she’s “arguably the greatest tennis player of all time.” She won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, 31 Grand Slam women's doubles titles (a record), and 10 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. 1974 was her first Grand Slam title - and 2006 her last (when she was a month away from her 50th birthday). She’s also one of the most out & proud - if not the most - LGBT athletes around; she came out in 1981 and has been fighting for LGBT rights (among other political causes) ever since. She recently got engaged to her longtime girlfriend Julia.
Okay, that’s everybody! (Mandy Moore is also nominated in this category, but she’s not a tennis player. She dated tennis player Andy Roddick for like a year a long time ago - Andy is now married to Brooklyn Decker.)
WTA players who aren’t nominated, but you should probably know about:
Venus Williams: 34, Serena's older sister. They're very close. Venus comes across more regal and Serena more bubbly, at least to me. People keep saying she's about to retire, but she keeps proving them wrong! She's won 7 Grand Slams in singles, 13 in doubles (guess who her partner was?), and 2 in mixed doubles. Oh, and 4 Olympics golds (again, the doubles ones with Serena). She has a really great tennis-dresses line. She also has Sjögren's syndrome, which makes it really amazing that she's still playing, IMO.
Picture of Venus & Serena as baby phenoms:
Li Na: Chinese superstar, absolutely flippin' hilarious (best pressers, hands down), I adore her. She sadly just retired, but had just won the Australian Open in January.
Ana Ivanovic - 26, Serbian. Whenever you ask men who's the prettiest WTA player, they usually say Ana (although Genie's starting to make inroads). Very classically beautiful, has done modeling, always comes across as kinda shy to me. But she's Serbian (the Serbian tennis players are known to be pretty loud in general), so who knows. ;)
Jelena Jankovic - 29, Serbian. Oh god. I have to include JJ, because she's hilarious. Like, hilarious. Her press conferences can be legendary, kinda like Li Na's, but in a different style. She's very self-aware and can laugh at herself a lot. (For example, JJ talks about wearing makeup on court: "Here I want to look like a beast. I just want to look as scary as possible. I don't want to look all pretty and nice and dolled up. For what? I'm going to get dirty and sweaty.") She's not classically pretty but has a great smile and an amazing laugh. I also for some reason think she's probably great at dirty jokes. Oh, and she adores pink.
Petra Kvitova: 24, Czech. Just won Wimbledon. Seems very sweet. She used to date Radek Stepanek, who is hands-down the ugliest player on the ATP tour but somehow dates tons of pretty women. I have no idea how. We try not to think about it too much. (It doesn't help that his victory dance is called "The Worm".) She's really good on grass.
Sloane Stephens: 21, American. Has a rep for having a bad attitude and not really having her heart in the sport, but is really talented when she does show up & has caused some big upsets in the past. She's said some shocking things to reporters, and we're not entirely sure if she realized she was on the record. Oh, and she’s in a relationship with Jack Sock, who IS nominated (although I presume he’s nominated for slash with Vasek Pospisil, who’s also nominated), so she might come up in that context.
Casey Dellacqua: 29, Aussie. Is primarily known for being a doubles player - she's been to 4 Grand Slam doubles finals, and won a GS mixed doubles title - but this year is having a huge career year in singles and is up to career high #26. Last August she announced out of the blue that she and her partner Amanda (nobody had known she was gay or had a partner) had just become mothers to Blake, who's adorable.
(Blake with Casey) (Blake with Roger Federer)
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That's all, folks! Hope you've enjoyed this post! Enjoy Yuletide. :)
And feel free to talk to me in the comments! I adore this fandom, as I imagine you've gathered, and am always happy to talk about tennis femslash and/or the WTA in general. It's wonderful. <3
Just in time to promote women's tennis for Yuletide - because you should definitely, definitely consider requesting and/or writing it. It's the best. (I may be biased.) Women's tennis seldom gets written, and yet it has all the elements for fantastic fic - amazing women, great sports narratives, close friendships (I refuse to use the word "sismance"), canon lesbians (including one with the cutest baby ever!), stirring rivalries, all sorts of different personalities, a wide range of body types (seriously, whatever your type, we've got you covered!), drama, glory, laughter, revenge - oh, and best friends who totally take you out to go bikini-sunbathing and dancing and drinking after your jerkass fiance dumps you over the phone the weekend your wedding invitations go out (the evilness!)
Now, I for one am extremely excited at the prospect of receiving and/or writing femslash for this fandom. Caro/Serena, bonding and falling in love (or having NSA sex) after Rory-the-douchebag dumps Caro? A five-times story with Aga and her flirtations & crushes? Laura & Genie being teenage girlfriends (whether or not this incorporates and/or is a fixit for their RL breakup)? Sam/Simmone long-term-relationship fic that has a lot of tennis and other Aussies and adventures? Vika & Maria adding frisson to their rivalry in bed? Vika & Laura bonding over their awesome braided hairstyles? Aga & Caro friends-to-lovers fic? SO MANY OPTIONS.
But even if you don't write/request femslash, or just aren't feeling it right now, there are plenty of opportunities for great gen stories as well! So many rivalries, so much tennis, and so many friendships. If you are into gen, this is totally a primer for you too! (And if you request it, I will probably, uh, gush all over you and write you a treat. Because you have no idea how excited I am about this fandom, lol. GIVE ME THAT WTA.)
Sorry, I'm far too longwinded! Moving on to the actual primer part now!
Disclaimer: First, I’m just one fan. My impressions of your favorite player may be different than yours - feel free to chime in on the comments and I’ll incorporate your thoughts! Second, I don’t know any of these players personally, and nothing is implied about their actual personalities, habits, or relationships (unless it’s part of the public record).
On to the primer! :)
WTA players nominated for Yuletide this year:
Serena Williams
Serena is 33 years old, #1 in the world, and unquestionably awesome. She has incredible power and steamrolls the competition when she's playing well. She's won 18 grand slams, starting in 1999 at the USO when she was 17, and her last one in August at this year's USO. She's also won 13 grand slam doubles titles (with a perfect record in finals), and 4 mixed doubles titles. Oh, and 4 Olympic gold medals (1 singles, 3 doubles). She's also funny, has a cute little dog, and is great friends with Caroline Wozniacki.
(See the short list of unnominated players for an introduction to Venus, Serena’s older sister, because she’s critical to understanding Serena, and you might want to have her at least in the background if you wrote Serena.)
Caroline Wozniacki
Caroline (also known as Caro) is a 24-year-old Danish player. She’s really sweet, & best buddies with Serena (also has close friendships with others on the tour, including Aga & Vika). She's a former World #1 but has never won a Slam. Until recently, she was engaged to be married to Rory McIlroy (the famous golfer), and they were sickeningly-sweetly in love, until Rory phoned her out of the blue the week their wedding invitations went out and dumped her. She's handled it very well, but media of course went wild. Serena took her out sunbathing and dancing and really rallied behind her. It was very sweet. She's running the NYC marathon this year the week of her would-have-been wedding, and has been doing great in tennis post-Rory.
Victoria Azarenka
Vika, 25, Belarussian. She's won 2 Grand Slams and an Olympic bronze medal in singles, as well as some mixed doubles titles (2 Grand Slams and a gold medal). She's found some controversy because of questionable medical time outs (most famously, against American youngster Sloane Stephens), but she's also pretty popular. She dated RedFoo for a while, blegh, but thankfully they're broken up now. She comes across as a little ditzy (but in a self-aware way), cute, frank, and a bit naive (see, Redfoo). She has a cute disheveled braid style going on most of the time. Recently she had an #askVika session on Twitter that would give you a sense of her personality.
Maria Sharapova
Maria is a blonde 27-year-old Russian player, who rose to prominence by winning Wimbledon in 2004 at 17. She’s a very canny businesswoman and has made a TON of money, recently most notably with her candy, Sugarpova, but also with endorsements and stuff. Very smart. Also kinda known as an Ice Queen? She's been in a relationship for the past 18 months with an up-and-comer on the men's tour, Grigor Dimitrov, who's gorgeous, talented, and 5 years younger than her. He is cute, good at tennis, and just a little bit camp, so the dynamic between them is kinda neat. She's definitely in charge, IMO.
Agnieszka Radwanska
Aga, 25, Polish. She always seems to have a twinkle in her eye, at least to me. She's very cheerful. She also said to a question about "which superpower do you want" - "invisibility, I'd go in the men's locker room ;)", and was definitely eyeing up her cute partner at the Hopman Cup last year, so I read her as very flirty and up to jumping people. :D She has a cute relationship with Caro as well. She’s also very smart - I think she did her real estate degree in her off time while having a full-time tennis career, which is kinda impressive.
Eugenie Bouchard
Genie is a 20-year-old Canadian superstar. She just made her first GS final at Wimbledon this year (lost to Petra Kvitova, who isn’t nominated). I’d say she’s the jockiest girl on the WTA tour, which is interesting because she's also one of the most classically beautiful (blonde, statuesque, etc). She's also rumored to be happily sleeping her way through the ATP tour, lol. But in general, think very jocky, slightly awkward, but nice. She used to be BEST friends with Laura Robson, but they broke up last year (*tear*). You might see fix-it prompts for them, because they were seriously BFFs from like age 8 all through their teenage years, so teenage girlfriends would be legitimately a thing.
Laura Robson
(Laura & Genie)
Laura’s 20 years old, British, and really pretty in a girl-next-door way. Like, really pretty. She won Junior Wimbledon at age 14 and has been uber-popular in the UK ever since. She also won silver with Andy Murray in mixed doubles in London, and they were adorable together (think big brother & kid sister). She's really nice (has done some really sweet things for fans), really funny, and is pro-LGBT. Sadly she's injured right now, and her ranking has fallen shockingly low as a result. Come back, Laura!
Samantha Stosur
Sam is a 30-year-old Australian. Okay. Full disclosure: I adore Sammy. She has the most fabulous shoulders & arms EVER. Like. Oh god. Also she's really funny in an understated Aussie way, and she beat Serena to win a Grand Slam in 2011. Her personal trainer, Simmone, a former professional women's softball player, is rumored to be her girlfriend, and is often seen on the sidelines of Sam's matches (sometimes with a stress ball). [Simmone is also nominated.] Sadly Sam doesn't win as often as I'd like. But she did just win a title in Osaka! :) If you write Sam, you might also want to look into Casey Dellacqua, another Australian, who’s a canon lesbian and has an adorable baby boy with her partner (see the “not nominated but FYI” list).
Taylor Townsend
Taylor is an 18-year-old American who’s definitely one of the next crop of American stars (IMO). She's awesome. Sensible, funny, really has a head on her shoulders. She's also immensely powerful & can take your breath away with her shots. But of course she's young and still developing her game. There's been controversy surrounding her because when she was younger, the US Tennis Association told her they weren't allowing her to compete in the junior USO because she weighed too much. Nevermind that her physique was the way she was built and she obviously played great tennis (I think she was junior #1 at that point). It was a big brouhaha and everyone went "USTA, you are dicks, leave the teenager alone". She's still heavier than most of the tennis players (Serena is also built for power, but doesn't have the baby chub Taylor carries), but it hasn't affected her play and people are mostly good about it now.
Chris Evert
Chris Evert is a 59-year-old American ex-tennis player. During her career, she won 18 Grand Slam singles titles and a frickin’ incredible 157 singles titles overall. Her record of 34 Grand Slam singles finals reached is also more than anybody else EVER. Nowadays she has three kids and is an ESPN tennis commentator. I’m 99% sure she’s been nominated in tandem with Martina Navratilova, so keep reading.
Martina Navratilova
(Martina proposing to Julia)
Martina Navratilova is a 57-year-old Czech-American tennis player. Tennis legend Billie Jean King has called her “the greatest singles, doubles and mixed doubles player who's ever lived,” and tennis historian Bud Collins has said that she’s “arguably the greatest tennis player of all time.” She won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, 31 Grand Slam women's doubles titles (a record), and 10 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. 1974 was her first Grand Slam title - and 2006 her last (when she was a month away from her 50th birthday). She’s also one of the most out & proud - if not the most - LGBT athletes around; she came out in 1981 and has been fighting for LGBT rights (among other political causes) ever since. She recently got engaged to her longtime girlfriend Julia.
Okay, that’s everybody! (Mandy Moore is also nominated in this category, but she’s not a tennis player. She dated tennis player Andy Roddick for like a year a long time ago - Andy is now married to Brooklyn Decker.)
WTA players who aren’t nominated, but you should probably know about:
Venus Williams: 34, Serena's older sister. They're very close. Venus comes across more regal and Serena more bubbly, at least to me. People keep saying she's about to retire, but she keeps proving them wrong! She's won 7 Grand Slams in singles, 13 in doubles (guess who her partner was?), and 2 in mixed doubles. Oh, and 4 Olympics golds (again, the doubles ones with Serena). She has a really great tennis-dresses line. She also has Sjögren's syndrome, which makes it really amazing that she's still playing, IMO.
Picture of Venus & Serena as baby phenoms:
Li Na: Chinese superstar, absolutely flippin' hilarious (best pressers, hands down), I adore her. She sadly just retired, but had just won the Australian Open in January.
Ana Ivanovic - 26, Serbian. Whenever you ask men who's the prettiest WTA player, they usually say Ana (although Genie's starting to make inroads). Very classically beautiful, has done modeling, always comes across as kinda shy to me. But she's Serbian (the Serbian tennis players are known to be pretty loud in general), so who knows. ;)
Jelena Jankovic - 29, Serbian. Oh god. I have to include JJ, because she's hilarious. Like, hilarious. Her press conferences can be legendary, kinda like Li Na's, but in a different style. She's very self-aware and can laugh at herself a lot. (For example, JJ talks about wearing makeup on court: "Here I want to look like a beast. I just want to look as scary as possible. I don't want to look all pretty and nice and dolled up. For what? I'm going to get dirty and sweaty.") She's not classically pretty but has a great smile and an amazing laugh. I also for some reason think she's probably great at dirty jokes. Oh, and she adores pink.
Petra Kvitova: 24, Czech. Just won Wimbledon. Seems very sweet. She used to date Radek Stepanek, who is hands-down the ugliest player on the ATP tour but somehow dates tons of pretty women. I have no idea how. We try not to think about it too much. (It doesn't help that his victory dance is called "The Worm".) She's really good on grass.
Sloane Stephens: 21, American. Has a rep for having a bad attitude and not really having her heart in the sport, but is really talented when she does show up & has caused some big upsets in the past. She's said some shocking things to reporters, and we're not entirely sure if she realized she was on the record. Oh, and she’s in a relationship with Jack Sock, who IS nominated (although I presume he’s nominated for slash with Vasek Pospisil, who’s also nominated), so she might come up in that context.
Casey Dellacqua: 29, Aussie. Is primarily known for being a doubles player - she's been to 4 Grand Slam doubles finals, and won a GS mixed doubles title - but this year is having a huge career year in singles and is up to career high #26. Last August she announced out of the blue that she and her partner Amanda (nobody had known she was gay or had a partner) had just become mothers to Blake, who's adorable.
(Blake with Casey) (Blake with Roger Federer)
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That's all, folks! Hope you've enjoyed this post! Enjoy Yuletide. :)
And feel free to talk to me in the comments! I adore this fandom, as I imagine you've gathered, and am always happy to talk about tennis femslash and/or the WTA in general. It's wonderful. <3