Rising from the Ash

Janice Tjen, a rare Indonesian talent, is building back Barty.

NEW YORK — One of the laziest tropes in tennis, both unilluminating and overused, is declaring that a young player is “the next [name of star player].”

Even when the younger player turns into a bona fide champion, the comparisons always fall flat. No, nothing about Coco Gauff’s personality, nor her game style as a counterpuncher makes her “the next Serena Williams.” No, nothing about Carlos Alcaraz drifting in and out of focus and smiling giddily as he hits absurd low-percentage shots makes him “the next Rafael Nadal.”¹

Nearly always, such proclamations are based upon superficial reasons first-glance reasons, most often a shared race or nationality.

But in the first round of the U.S. Open, I saw a young qualifier who genuinely evoked the presence of an earlier great more directly than I had ever before witnessed. The distinctive forehand looked the same; so, too, did the consistently-sliced backhand. Their statures were almost identical, as were their styles of on-court apparel, to further enhance the visual impact.

“Yeah, I have been hearing that a lot,” the player later said.

When I spoke to one of her former coaches, he confirmed that the emulation had been entirely intentional: “We kept telling her, ‘There’s a girl on the tour that’s playing a lot like you; you can do the same thing!’”

This is the story of Indonesia’s Janice Tjen, the next Ash Barty.

Janice Tjen after winning her first round at the U.S. Open on Sunday.

To read about Tjen’s remarkable journey of tracing Barty’s footsteps, and read up on U.S. Open Day 4 Matches to Watch, please subscribe to Bounces! -Ben