How Much Should We Read Into Sloane Stephens' Win Over Venus Williams?

— -- PARIS -- We've been waiting a long, long time for the next American player to grab the baton from the Williams sisters, speculating again and again over candidate after candidate, just like pundits on cable news three years ahead of an election.

And here we are in 2015, still waiting, still speculating. Serena and Venus will turn 34 and 35 this year, but they still entered the French Open as the highest-ranked Americans at Nos. 1 and 15.

So who now? Well, after she beat Venus 7-6 (5), 6-1 in their first-round French Open match Monday, rules, standards and protocol dictate we must bring up the name Sloane Stephens again.

Yeah, yeah. You've heard this before. There has been much (too much?) speculation about Stephens, primarily after she beat Serena in the quarterfinals of the 2013 Australian Open and rose as high as No. 11.

Stephens, 22, has done little since then, though. She still hasn't won a single tournament or even reached the final of a WTA event. She had been playing well in Grand Slams, but that ended last summer, when she lost in the first round at Wimbledon, the second round at the US Open and the first round at the Australian Open this year. Limited by a wrist injury last year, she tumbled to 41st in the rankings, behind not only the Williams sisters but also behind the Madisons (Keys, currently ranked just behind Venus at 16th, and Brengle).

Serena also has beaten Stephens twice this season, so she clearly still has a ways to go.

While Stephens has played Serena five times (1-4), this was her first real match against Venus. "I didn't know if she was going to boss me off the court or how that was going to go,'' Stephens said. "But I knew if I just stayed in there and played my game that it would be a good match."

As to what Venus thought of Stephens? Well, that's unknown. Venus declined to speak at the required postmatch news conference. That action subjects her to a possible fine by French Open officials. She did issue a two-paragraph statement in which she said: "She just played better than me today.''