'I was really depressed': Is winning young in 2025 a good thing?
- Thomas Dev
- 23 minutes ago
- 6 min read
Last month, another teen sensation in Victoria Mboko stormed onto the scene by winning the National Bank Open at just 18.
What made it more impressive is that she defeated three former Grand Slam champions in Sofia Kenin, Coco Gauff and Elena Rybakina on the way to beating four-time major winner Naomi Osaka in the final.
In the span of a week, Mboko went from a relatively unknown wildcard to the seventh favourite to win the US Open (according to the bookmakers) before her first round defeat against Barbora Krejčíková.
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It's nothing crazy in the tennis world though. Countless times, we've seen teens and players 22 or under win not just tournaments, but majors.
Serena Williams, Rafael Nadal, Steffi Graf and Monica Seles all won majors when they were teenagers.
Famously, Lleyton Hewitt won Wimbledon and the US Open before turning 22, and Venus Williams has done the same at just 20.
Recently, we've seen Bianca Andreescu, Iga Świątek, Emma Raducanu, Carlos Alcaraz and Gauff all win majors as a teen in the last six years.
While a fair few of the greats have won young and gone on to have amazing careers, it feels as if it is becoming less and less common today that winning at a young age translates to immediate success.
Back in the 70s, 80s and 90s, many players who won a major while being 22 or under went on and won at least two or three more in a short span.
When you look at the last 10 years, we've had those five players mentioned above win a major, and after each winning their first, they were all touted to continue to dominate for years to come.
That certainly has been the case for Alcaraz as he already has five majors and an Olympic silver medal to his name, and at only 22, he could genuinely challenge the record for most ever majors.
Likewise, Świątek has started to dominate, winning six majors and a bronze medal.
Using those two, we can see that immediate success is still very much a thing when winning young; however, Gauff, Raducanu and Andreescu have combined for four, and while they are all still very young, they haven't lived up to the lofty expectations.
Since winning the US Open, Raducanu and Andreescu have both only made it to the fourth round in a major just once.
Gauff, however, has made two semi-finals and won another Slam since winning her first, but since bursting onto the scene, she has been somewhat inconsistent.
Now, by no means have they had disappointing careers to this point, making it into a major, let alone winning one, is an incredible achievement, but once they won one, the expectations drastically changed, and perhaps that's the problem with winning them so young.
But others have won young in the past and gone on to have incredible careers, so surely it can't be that hard, right?
Well, like everything in sports, comparing what happened 10, 20, or 50 years ago to today is nearly impossible.
In today's landscape, one minute they can be an up-and-coming player with potential or even, in some cases, just a wildcard that few have ever heard of, the next they're on top of the podium, lifting a trophy, being shown on TVs in every corner of the world.
Within two weeks, a tennis player can go from walking around on the street and not being recognised, to being on billboards and the new face of a brand.
It must feel like they're on top of the world as their whole lives suddenly change, and all it took was a few wins on a tennis court, but now the expectations on the court completely change, too.
Suddenly winning one or two rounds and picking up a nice paycheque isn't considered a success, but rather a failure, and a disappointment.
They're expected to appear in quarter-finals at every major as a bare minimum, and just like the great names that came before them and won at such a young age, the trophy cabinet is supposed to have yearly additions.
Two decades ago, sports coverage wasn't 24/7, smartphones weren't around, and really, unless captured by a tabloid, we didn't know or care what the players were up to between tournaments.
It allowed for less pressure to build on these players, and instead of expectations changing overnight, they were built up organically and over time, whereas now, it's a tad different.
Hear from our Aussies on the Road in 2025 as they navigate winning on tour. Fresh off the court, taking you inside their mind.
When Raducanu became the US Open champion, it felt like we knew her every movement for the next month, and it was as if the tennis world was setting her up to be a star.
It was now like she was on a pedestal that she was bound to fall off due to the fans' and media's high and unrealistic expectations.
In all four of her next major appearances, she failed to make it past the second round, and then in 2023, Raducanu would only play at the Australian Open after injuries caused her to miss the rest of the year.
She has also been very upfront about struggling with the pressure put on her and the effect it has had on her mental health, to the point where she has even said she at times wishes she had never won the US Open.
"That moment on the court, when I was celebrating, I was like, I would literally trade any struggle in the world for this moment. Anything can come my way, I will take it for what I have right now because this is the best thing in the world. I promised myself that on the court that day. Since then, I've had a lot of setbacks, one after the other," she told the Sunday Times.
"I am resilient, my tolerance is high, but it's not easy. And sometimes I think to myself, I wish I'd never won the US Open, I wish that didn't happen. Then I am like, remember that feeling, remember that promise, because it was completely pure."
Raducanu isn't alone, as Gauff also has been open about the mental toll her early success has caused, even leading her to contemplate taking a break from tennis.
"Right before Wimbledon, going back to around 2017/18, I was struggling to figure out if this was really what I wanted. I always had the results, so that wasn't the issue. I just found myself not enjoying what I loved," the world No.3 wrote in a post for Behind The Racquet.
"I realised I needed to start playing for myself and not other people. For about a year, I was really depressed. That was the toughest year for me so far."
While Gauff's career didn't start with a trophy, at just 15, she defeated Venus Williams at Wimbledon and made it all the way to the fourth round.
Of course, with a debut like that on arguably the biggest stage in tennis, expectations were only going to skyrocket, even if legally she couldn't drink alcohol or even drive.
In 2023, Gauff would break through and win the US Open, followed by semi-final appearances in Melbourne and Paris.
Earlier this year at Roland-Garros, she won her second major, and although she didn't make it past the first round at Wimbledon, at 21, Gauff is now playing more consistent tennis, albeit with a couple of hiccups since winning in the French capital.
When tennis players win so young, the bar is set so high externally and internally, and especially in today's age, it feels as if we're in a rush to label any teenage player as the next great thing.
Sure, it's only natural to look ahead to the future when someone so young achieves great things, but maybe if everyone pumps the brakes for a moment, these young athletes will grow on their own time and the mental toll it takes on the players will lessen.
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