Since the turn of the century, women’s tennis has established itself as one of the world’s most unpredictable sports. With 36 different Grand Slam champions from 2000 to 2024, upsets have become the norm and underdog triumphs are almost guaranteed.

These young winners are not all serve bots or baseline bruisers hailing from the tennis academy system. Instead, their origin stories differ considerably. A generation of Czech talent eclipsing the richest tennis nations; child prodigies like Coco Gauff modelled by her parents; Kim Clijsters defying the odds to become a comeback champion after giving birth; and Emma Raducanu crafting a coaching rotation system to achieve her fairytale in New York.

This book maps out the complex, remarkable blueprints followed by champions from across the globe, as told by those in their inner circle, and explores what this generation of women can tell us about the future of the game.

Shortlisted for The Vikki Orvice Award for Women’s Sports Writing.

Prizes

Short-listed for The Vikki Orvice Award for Women’s Sports Writing 2026

'This book helps us gain a greater understandings of the way champions were molded by their culture, community and tennis, and are now shaping the sport themselves'

Molly McElwee is a freelance sports journalist writing about women’s sport, football, tennis, Olympic and Paralympic sport. Molly spent more than five years as a sportswriter for the Daily Telegraph, with a key focus on women’s sports and tennis. She has covered major championships at Wimbledon, Roland Garros and in New York as well as the 2019 Women’s World Cup, the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo and the 2024 Olympics in Paris. In 2024, Molly won the Tom Perrotta Prize, awarded by the International Tennis Writers’ Association (ITWA) to a writer aged 35 or under who shows excellence in tennis journalism.