2017 Season Preview: WTA No. 3 Agnieszka Radwanska

Over the first 10 days of 2017, we're examining the Top 10 players on the ATP and WTA tours—how will they fare during the new season? All of the previews can be found here.

Nobody is young anymore, are they? We know that Serena Williams is in the middle of her third tennis life at 35, but it’s more surprising to realize that Agnieszka Radwanska will turn 28 in March. As with Stan Wawrinka on the men’s side, there’s still a sense that, even after all of these years, Aga hasn’t entirely fulfilled her potential.

There are good reasons for that. Radwanska is currently the Best Never—i.e., the best player never to have won a major—on the women’s side. She finished 2016 ranked No. 3, has spent virtually every week in the Top 10 since 2010 and is one the most creative and entertaining players in history. In 2015, she also showed that she can win big events, when she ended the year with her first WTA Finals title. But Aga has yet to conquer the majors. In 42 Slams over the last 10 years, she has reached one final, at Wimbledon in 2012, and four semifinals. The 123-pound Radwanska is living proof, if you still needed any, that in women’s tennis the big titles go to the big hitters. She’s also living proof of how hard it has been to win those titles in the era of Serena; Radwanska is 0-10 against Williams.

But if seeing Serena across the net robs Aga of all hope, the sight of another player—Angelique Kerber—should infuse her with it. As of 12 months ago, Kerber was in the same position as Radwanska: She was about to turn 28 and had established herself in the Top 10, but she had never made it past the semifinals at a Slam. Kerber is superior to Radwanska in certain respects; her lefty serve is trickier, her ground strokes are stronger and she’s a more imposing physical presence. But Radwanska is just as steady and has a more varied attack; the head to head between the two players stands at 6-6. In Radwanska’s mind, Kerber should prove that the sky can still be the limit, even for a player of her age and stature. As with so many players, though, seeing is not necessarily believing. Radwanska has always played as many tournaments as possible; while that puts the No. 1 ranking within reach—she almost got there in 2012—it makes peaking for the majors much more difficult. Changing her mindset and her scheduling priorities at this late date would be difficult; if she doesn’t, Radwanska might have a better chance of finishing 2017 at No. 1 than she does of winning a major.

In truth, two of the four Slams really do seem out of reach for her. Aga has reached the quarterfinals at the French Open just once, and has never been past the fourth round at the U.S. Open. In Paris, the clay is too slow to give her finesse game a boost, and she often seems burned out by the time she reaches Flushing Meadows. But the Australian Open and Wimbledon, where she has reached the quarterfinals or better a combined 11 times, will be in reach.