Eyeing top spot
A number of athletes will look to cement their place at the pinnacle of their sport in 2017
Shakya Mitra A number of athletes will look to cement their place at the pinnacle of their sport in 2017. Shakya Mitra lists a few of them:
Virat Kohli
He is Indian cricket’s golden boy, having scored 2,595 international runs in 2016, and a further 973 if you include Indian Premier League (IPL). If Kohli, 28, does scale more peaks from here, he is likely to become immortal. The Indian Test captain already averages over 50 in all three formats of the game, and is well on course to break Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 49 one-day international centuries — he already has a mind-boggling 26 tons in 176 ODIs. If there is anything he may want to improve on, that will be winning more major tournaments. The new year will give him that chance, as he hopes to win IPL for the first time as well as the ICC Champions Trophy that is slated to take place in June.
Andy Murray
The world of tennis enters 2017 with the unfamiliar but far from undeserved sight of Andy Murray beginning as the men’s numero uno. The Scot has spent the best part of his career chasing down Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, but now his moment has finally arrived. And, all the pressure is going to be on him — watching his great peers, he would know that staying at the top is almost as hard as reaching there. But if he can sustain the momentum he gathered in the second half of 2016, then the sky will be the limit for Murray. Having already won the US Open and Wimbledon, he will target the Australian Open and the French Open to complete his set of Grand Slam titles.
Max Verstappen
In a sport that has often been criticised for being too “status quo” and having the same set of drivers dominate every season, 19-year-old Dutchman Max Verstappen has come like a breath of fresh air. In what may count as high praise, writers and experts have even gone on to hail him as the most exciting arrival since Lewis Hamilton made his F1 debut as a 22-year-old in 2007. Having earlier raced for Toro Rosso, Verstappen joined Red Bull for the Spanish Grand Prix in 2016, and promptly won his debut race for the team— at 18 years and 228 days, he became the youngest man to ever win an F1 race . He is already being tipped for greater glory and will be the “F1 driver to watch” in 2017.
Luis Suarez
Come the end-of-the-year gongs and almost inevitably one will see either Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi walk away with the Ballon d’Or. To keep it a little different, Uruguay and Barcelona forward Luis Suarez makes it to this list as the footballer to watch in 2017. The 29-year-old’s record over the past four seasons, both at the Nou Camp and earlier at Liverpool, has been stellar. In 2015-16, he scored 40 league goals, becoming the first player apart from Ronaldo and Messi to top Spanish goal-scoring charts since 2009. If there is one player, who on current form seems capable of ending Ronaldo and Messi’s hegemony at the top of world football, it is Suarez. Let’s hope he does.
Rory McIlroy
In a sport desperately craving a superstar, Rory McIlroy has had to deal with high expectations from a young age — the weight of which becomes heavier when you’re expected to replace a certain Tiger Woods. While the 27-year-old Irishman hasn’t coped too badly, it must be remembered that he hasn’t won a major title for the last two years. He is no longer the world’s top golfer, either. When Woods was the same age, he had won twice the number of majors that McIlroy has. Though the past two years may represent a sort of mini-slump, experts believe 2017 will be better for him. They point to his extreme drive at wanting to win the Masters for the first time as a reason for that belief.
Wayde Van Niekerk
The 2017 World Athletics Championships in London will be a sentimental affair, with Usain Bolt set to retire and Mo Farah winding up his track career to shift to marathon running — it is likely to leave a big void in the world of athletics . South African Wayde Van Niekerk, 24, could well be the athlete to fill it. He arguably delivered the performance of the Rio Olympics, running the 400 metres in 43.03 seconds — breaking Michael Johnson’s world record of 43.18 seconds set in 1999 in the process. While Van Niekerk has given some thought to running the 200m, it is unlikely to be as early as the World Championships. Nevertheless, the meet could see the passing of the baton from the old to the new.
Angelique Kerber
After a spectacular 2016 season that saw her rise from number 10 to number one in the world, Germany’s Angelique Kerber has become the likely successor to Serena Williams. At 28, Kerber isn’t the youngest, but she is arguably one of the fittest players around — quite a transformation for someone who was once derided for being “fat” after losing a Grand Slam match in 2013. If Kerber, who won two majors in 2016, can keep up the same intensity and fitness levels, there is no reason why she can’t perform a repeat of last season in 2017. With Williams entering the twilight of her career, the new year will provide Kerber a good opportunity to create her own era of dominance.
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 "Eyeing top spot")
