Building Champions

Reveals the diverse backgrounds and journeys of women's tennis champions shaping the sport's unpredictable future.Featuring a foreword by Billie Jean King. 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.