The days when precocious teens dominated the upper reaches of women's tennis looked to be gone for good, given the increased fitness of the top players and the more physical nature of the sport – plus new rules to reduce the risk of burnout.
But a new generation is now threatening to make its mark at this year's Wimbledon, with Britain's Laura Robson and the hotly tipped American hope Madison Keys leading the way. Where there were just two teenagers inside the top 100 at last year's Wimbledon, now there are 11.
The youngest of all, the 16-year-old Croatian Donna Vekic, has already been compared by some to Maria Sharapova, who won her first Wimbledon title at the age of 17 and was the last teenager to win at the All England Club in 2004. Vekic turned heads by reaching the final at the Aegon Classic in Birmingham earlier this month, although she fared less well on Monday, losing to Petra Cetkovska from the Czech Republic.
From Monica Seles to Martina Hingis and Maria Sharapova to Serena Williams, not forgetting Tracy Austin, Andrea Jaeger and Jennifer Capriati, youthful talents dominated women's tennis for decades – for many years you were nothing if you hadn't won a grand slam title by your 20th birthday.
Yet the flipside was a trail of stories of overbearing parents and coaches, psychological trauma and physical burnout.
For the past decade, the direction of travel has been in the opposite direction as the top 100 got steadily older. At 31, Serena Williams is the oldest No 1 player in the history of the game. But further down the ranks, there has been a clear shift.
"I think we've had some reordering of the dominance in the past 12 to 18 months. The youth movement is coming," said Stacey Allaster, the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) chief executive, of the changing of the guard.
Robson, now 19 and the highest ranked teenager on the WTA tour at 37, won a silver medal on Centre Court last year in the Olympics mixed doubles alongside Andy Murray and has claimed several big-name scalps in the past year.
But she has just changed coaches, linking up with Murray's former trainer Miles Maclagan on a temporary basis, and faces a tough draw in the shape of world No 10 Maria Kirilenko.
Keys, from Rock Island in Illinois, is already ranked 52 and is one of a crop of youngsters who the American public hope will assume the mantle of the Williams sisters. She plays British No 2 Heather Watson on Tuesday.
Robson's best friend, the 19-year-old Canadian Eugenie Bouchard, was among those to progress at Wimbledon on Monday.
And the most eye-catching victory was by a 19-year-old Puerto Rican, Mónica Puig, who defeated the Italian fifth seed Sara Errani in straight sets to provide the first shock of the fortnight on her senior Wimbledon debut.
The German Annika Beck, ranked 54, and the Spaniard Garbiñe Muguruza, ranked 59, are also highly rated.
Vekic has already reached two senior finals, most recently the Aegon Classic, and is ranked 64 in the world despite not turning 17 until Friday.
David Felgate, the coach who helped Tim Henman to four semi-finals at Wimbledon and has coached Vekic since she was 11, said: "Her biggest attributes are her heart and her head. It's still harder than it was 10 years ago for the really young players to get to the top. But at the moment we've got a decent crop."
The last teens, male and female, to win a grand slam were Maria Sharapova and Rafael Nadal in 2006, who won the US Open and French Open respectively.
While there is little sign of anyone emerging in the men's game to change that statistic, in the women's game it is not impossible to imagine the old order being eventually challenged by the new.
Not that the likes of Serena Williams and Sharapova are likely to take the challenge lying down. Allaster said that while the number of teenagers had grown sharply in the past year, the number of players over 30 in the top 100 was also going up, showing the extent to which players were increasingly playing on beyond their 20s.
The WTA age restrictions, dubbed the "Jennifer Capriati rules", were put into place in the wake of problems the American notoriously faced after becoming a top 10 player at the age of just 14 in the early 90s, including an arrest for shoplifting.
Andrea Jaeger and Jelena Dokic were others who initially burned brightly but had to endure high-profile off-the-court issues in the glare of the public eye.
The restrictions limit the number of senior tournaments a young player can take part in and Felgate believes it is time they were reviewed.
"It's a strange rule because the tour only allows so many tournaments but Donna could, if she wanted to, go and play a load more junior tournaments as well. I'd like to see the rule looked at so that if you get to a certain ranking, they could allow for a couple more tournaments," he said.
Restricting the number of tournaments can increase the pressure on young players because it ratchets up the pressure on them to perform, he said: "All the intentions are in the right place, but it's worth looking at again."
It was widely assumed that rule changes introduced to protect younger players, combined with the way the game has changed and become more physically demanding, would mean it took longer than ever for young players to become established.
That has been the case in the men's game, where there is only one player under 20 in the top 100.
"If people want to say good things then that's very nice," said Felgate of Vekic. "None of it has changed what she has to improve and there are other very good young players out there, even younger than Donna, who haven't come to the fore yet."
Teenagers in the WTA top 100
38 Laura Robson (GB), 19
52 Madison Keys (US), 18
54 Annika Beck (Germany), 19
59 Garbiñe Muguruza (Spain), 19
64 Donna Vekic (Croatia), 16
65 Mónica Puig (Puerto Rico), 19
66 Eugenie Bouchard (Canada), 19
82 Elina Svitolina (Ukraine), 18
85 Lauren Davis (US), 19
90 Yulia Putintseva (Kazakhstan), 18
100 Caroline Garcia (France), 19
