US Open: Why is it so difficult to win a second grand slam?

It was a familiar scene, one recurring throughout the years simply by first-time grand throw winners; Daniil Medvedev also fell to the floor as he gained his maiden great slam a day after Raducanu, as did Dominic Thiem a year before that.
Actually 23-time grand throw winner Serena Williams , who will “evolve away from tennis” after this competition, seemed shocked when she won her first at the 99 US Open.
Yet after this euphoric time, there often seems to be a gap prior to that pinnacle could be reached again — 34 of the forty five first-time grand slam winners since 2k have endured a wait of at least a year for another, if they won a second name at all.
Williams herself had to wait two-and-a-half years to win her second great slam.

‘Depth of self-belief unlike anything else’

Alongside Williams, tennis has been dominated just for 20 years by gamers for whom shedding seems more difficult than winning — Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
Successful considerably more than a single grand slam has become normalized, even expected, somewhat obscuring the difficulties of claiming that will first one.
A then 18-year-old Emma Raducanu won the 2021 US Open without dropping a set.

Within tennis, a lonesome individual sport requiring constant travel pertaining to 10 months from the year across various time zones plus environments, the emotional pressure of successful a grand slam differs compared to other sports activities.
“A lot of times when there is certainly social support, I look to my left, I look to my right, I see my teammate to give me a closed fist pump… That type of social support can go a really long way for an individual to manage performance anxiousness, ” sports psychiatrist Dr Jarrod Bradzino explains to CNN Sport .
“But [when] it could just one-on-one, you look to your still left and your right and you also realize that you’re by itself. That requires a level of self-belief that is unlike anything else. ”
And with an unique scoring system that creates jeopardy on almost every stage, much of playing tennis is “actually upward in the head, inch as Eurosport professional and former globe No . 7 Barbara Schett tells CNN.
Winning would seem to create a virtuous circle, deepening self-belief which in turn builds self-confidence to be deployed in crucial points within tight matches.
“When I was top 10, ” Schett says, “I has been at the stage exactly where I went on the particular court and I thought, ‘I’m not going to lose this match. Discover absolutely no chance. ‘ I can only visualize how… the stories of our game would certainly feel when these types of stepping on the courtroom. ”
Schett played Williams three times within her career and never defeated her. They will met for the last period at the French Open up in 2003 plus Schett lost 6-0 6-0.
Barbara Schett played Serena Williams during the third round of the French Open.

“I got already lost the match before I actually played against her because her presence on the court was just unbelievable, ” Schett recalls.
“I just felt like, ‘How am I going to beat this girl? She actually is physically so much better. She plays a lot harder. She feels in herself. And I had better go to the locker space. ‘”
But winning can lead to a sense of fallibility along with invincibility, creating a new set of expectations and goals to be believed with.

‘Perfection is not going to exist’

In the consequences of Raducanu’s US Open triumph, pundits rushed to are her as a long term multiple grand slam winner on account of the girl powerful groundstrokes plus consistently aggressive return of serve.
She collected sponsor after attract and PR specialists branded her with all the potential to become Britain’s very first billion-dollar sport star .
“Everyone just anticipated me to win every single tournament I had been ever going to perform again. It’s a little bit unrealistic because excellence just doesn’t exist, ” Raducanu said in a recent interview along with Nike .
A succession of injuries offers marred Raducanu’s initial full year upon tour with blisters, back issues, part strains and cool injuries all making her to pull away from various competitions throughout the season.
Emma Raducanu played, and defeated, Serena Williams two weeks ago in Cincinnati.

In her 3 grand slam looks since those marvelous two weeks in Nyc, Raducanu has achieved just the second circular, falling to gamers ranked lower than her on every occasion.
“There’s a lot of expectation externally on her, ” Schett says. “Obviously, she wants to win another. She wants to convince everybody that she wasn’t an one time wonder or a two week wonder and that the lady can do more, but the pressure and the requirements are extremely high in the girl case. ”
For a 19-year-old competing in the girl first year at the WTA Tour, it is often a solid, if unremarkable season, but the stratospheric expectations surrounding the Brit have reframed every loss as something resembling a catastrophic failure.

‘That point of satiation’

Goals, as well as expectations, alter in the aftermath of a major success like a grand slam title.
Dominic Thiem has experienced a similar trajectory to Raducanu given that winning his first grand slam at the 2020 US Open up, plummeting out of the upper echelons of the video game to a ranking as low as world No . 352.
The lingering wrist injuries hampered the Austrian, as did visiting terms with his brand new status as a fantastic slam winner.
“When a person fight for a goal, a person leave everything for it and you achieve it, everything changes, ” Thiem told the particular Austrian newspaper Der Regular in April 2021 .
“However, within tennis, everything will go very fast, you don’t have time to enjoy the victory, and when you are not 100%, you already know. It happened to me this year. ”
Dominic Thiem celebrates winning the 2020 US Open final against Alexander Zverev.

To describe the psychological associated with achieving a major objective, Spencer compares it to a more everyday experience — consuming.
“When you’re hungry, you can do whatever it takes to obtain some food, inch he says. “And after that once you reach that point of satiation where you just feel full, then it’s such as, I can’t eat another bite, I avoid want anything for quite some time. ”
“And so it’s very normal and natural, just like eating a big meal that occasionally an athlete, after they win something actually significant might just get rid of a little bit of drive for the little while. ”
The emotional costs of elite sport are becoming a lot more evident every year since athletes begin to talk openly about psychological health and its significance.
At the French Open a year ago, four-time grand throw winner Naomi Osaka withdrew to protect her mental health after a furor erupted following her refusal to conduct post-match press conferences.
Later on, she revealed that she had “suffered long rounds of depression” plus “huge waves of anxiety” since her first grand throw triumph in 2018.
Iga Swiatek, meanwhile, hailed her sports psychologist Daria Abramowicz for the role that she played helping the girl win the French Open up in 2020.

‘Many, many things have happened’

Managing the “emotional energy” which sport depletes is key in order to recalibrating an athlete’s goals and goals, Spencer explains.
Thiem has begun to rebuild right after his year in the wilderness, winning his first ATP Visit match in 14 months with a success in the first round against of the Bastad Open against Finland’s Emil Ruusuvuori in July 2022.
“My last victory was in Rome in 2021, seems like a different globe somehow, ” this individual said afterwards, according to the BBC .
“Many, many things occurred. It was tough, but it was also a very good experience, I think, for life generally. I’m so happy that I got this particular first victory here today. ”
Dominic Thiem reached the quarterfinal of the Austrian Open in July this year.

Within recent weeks, Raducanu too has shown flickers of the form that will propelled her in order to tennis stardom with victories against Williams and Victoria Azarenka at the Western & Southern Open within Cincinnati before the lady lost to Jessica Pegula in the 3rd round — just her second ever match against a top 10 player.
She will encounter Alizé Cornet within the first round from the US Open because she begins the girl title defense, whilst Thiem — also appearing at the tournament for the first time since winning it — may play Pablo Carreño Busta.