C.E.: I’m surprised nobody has stepped up to the plate. Martina, are you?

M.N.: I am, too. I think it’s a combination of the age eligibility rule in which they’re not able to play [fully] on the tour until they’re 18. I think they’re losing two or three years of really critical improvement time in their game, which to me comes between 15 and 20. That’s why they are not winning slams at 21; they are waiting until they are 24, 25. That’s given Serena Williams a little breathing room.

C.E.: Also, I think getting endorsements and setting players up for life is very important, but we didn’t have as many distractions, and I think we were hungrier. I really do. A lot of it has to do with Serena, too. The combination of the movement and the power — when she’s on, it’s hard to beat her. But this year, with her having more losses, I would think one or two of the players would be hungry enough and sense it, like, “O.K., this could be the year of the changing of the guard” and “this could be my year.” I don’t know. I just don’t see the Radwanskas and Azarenkas doing that. I don’t know. Maybe I am underestimating. Maybe everybody is hungry. But I just don’t see anybody, except for [Eugenie] Bouchard, who seems to have that eye-of-the-tiger intensity, along with Sharapova. I mean, we thought Sloane Stephens would have it, and she hasn’t shown it. Martina, what do you think?

M.N.: I agree. I think that the quality of being able to sustain the drive and the focus and the concentration and the hard work — even with Serena, it was kind of in and out, but now she certainly has had it the last three years. Sharapova has always had it, but she had injuries get in the way. I think Azarenka was pretty driven, but she had some injuries get in the way. Now I’m not so sure. I thought she should have played more tournaments after Wimbledon, and she didn’t, and she’s not in the mix right now. And Sloane Stephens doesn’t have that sense of urgency, which certainly Bouchard has. That’s nice to see. You can’t be pushed into it. You have to do it yourself.

J.K.: Unlike the two of you during your rivalry, these women are all playing more or less the same game — power tennis. Tell me about the evolution of the power game.

C.E.: I noticed it with Monica [Seles] and then Steffi [Graf], but Martina led the way. What she had, at her peak, was a serve like Serena Williams right now — either it was an ace, or it was unreturnable, or it would set up for her to come in and volley. I mean, Steffi and Martina were the two greatest players that I ever played. But with Monica, it’s hard to say, because when she got stabbed, she was No. 1 in the world and had won that last grand slam [the 1993 Australian Open, her eighth slam]. With her out of the game for two and a half years, Steffi really didn’t have anybody that was going to challenge her. So she piled up a few more grand slams. After Monica got back, it wasn’t ever the same.

M.N.: I think the power just kind of came gradually. First it was Steffi with the big forehand; then Monica with power off both wings and taking the ball early, really taking time away from you; and then Lindsay [Davenport] with her heavy ball; and then here come the Williams sisters — and then everybody was hitting the ball at Mach-3, and everybody still does now. The equipment makes it possible to do that: it’s not just that you can hit the groundstrokes hard, but you can return hard. With our rackets, you could block or slice the ball on the return of serve; you couldn’t swing — you wouldn’t make it, or you’d make one out of five. The new strings allow you to take a big cut at the ball and put a lot of spin on it, and now everybody can use power, because the harder you swing, the safer the shot. For us, it was the opposite.

C.E.: So these days, the players go out and just say, “I’ve got to play my game.” In our day, strategy was a lot more important. We played the weaknesses as much as we played our own game. In this day and age, they just worry about, “I’ve just got to hit out, I’ve just got to be relaxed.”