The end of an era: the Big Three of tennis on their way out - what is next?
It's almost over: the figures, more than the facts, prove that the era of the Big Three is coming to an end before our very eyes. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic are slowly making way for the new generation, after more than once putting off the rise of the famous NextGen.
Since 2003, a member of the Big Three has always won at least one Grand Slam during the season. In the Masters 1000, that streak began in 2002. And you only have to go back to 2001 for the ATP Finals, the high mass at the end of the year, to be held without one of the three players who have dominated men's tennis for more than 20 years.
This situation has now become a reality, with Djokovic withdrawing from the 2024 ATP Finals in Turin, even though he was the defending champion. Federer has retired in 2022, Nadal will follow suit after the Davis Cup finals at the end of the month, and if Nole were to announce his retirement in the next few weeks, it would clearly not be the surprise of the century.
After all, he said it himself when Nadal's retirement was announced a few weeks ago: "I still love competition, but part of me has gone with them. They are Nadal, Federer and even Andy Murray, who put away his racket this summer. The new generation has taken over, and Djokovic resisted until last year, but this season he couldn't keep up with the newer generation, so he chose the most prestigious one: Olympic gold, the last jewel missing from his crown. It was a goal he narrowly missed, so much so that he has never looked the same since.
Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner - who split the four Grand Slam tournaments this season - are now the big names on the circuit. This begs the logical question: can they make up for the departure of the Big Three? With Nole' s withdrawal , the line-up for the ATP Finals became official, and there was no shortage of mockery on social networks about the quality of the 8 players involved.
There are only three Grand Slam winners on the list. Two of them have never even seen the light of a major semi-final, and three have never been in the world's Top 3. A drop in intrinsic quality intertwined with the dominance of the Big Three, to be sure. But as much as Alcaraz and Sinner have pushed the big boys out of the tournament by sheer force of will, the rest of the squad, Medvedev aside, have not shone against the greats of the last 20 years.
We had a Big Three, now we have a Big Two, a judgement made even though Alexander Zverev has just regained the number two ranking in the world following his success at the Paris Masters 1000. It was his second major success of the season after the Rome Masters 1000, and on both occasions he didn't need to beat a Top 10 player to go all the way. Disappointing, like his Grand Slam performances, particularly his defeat in the final of the French Open. The man who was heralded as the next star saw two players overtake him in terms of reputation.
There's no denying it: the confrontations between Alcaraz and Sinner were the highlights of the season, even though there were only 4 of them. It's not for nothing that the last one at the famous Six Kings Slam, an exhibition with enormous financial power, was closely scrutinized even though all that was at stake was a huge cheque. Just look at the audience figures for the US Open: the final saw a 31% drop in viewers in the USA compared to last year's final (source: Tennis365), even though Jannik Sinner beat Taylor Fritz, the first American to reach the final of his national Grand Slam since Andy Roddick in 2006!
There may be one (or two) more duels at the ATP Finals, but two players alone will not save the departure of Roger, Rafa and Nole. Zverev has spent the season embroiled in legal problems, Medvedev spends half his time taunting referees, Casper Ruud is reviled for only winning ATP 250s, everyone wonders how Taylor Fritz ever reached a Grand Slam final, nobody knows who Alex De Minaur is and Andrey Rublev is doing the rounds of the social networks by banging his racket on the court.
Yet these are the six players who will accompany Alcaraz and Sinner to Turin. And since it's the end of the season, anything is possible in terms of results. After all, we have already seen David Goffin, or Casper Ruud himself, reach the final of the last major event of the season. But above all, this is a test to usher in a new era in men's tennis. There must be a show at all costs in Italy to replace three players who have amassed 67 Grand Slam titles and 104 Masters 1000 titles.
If not, the ATP circuit could be in for some dark times. If everything hinges on Alcaraz and Sinner, all it would take is for one of them to get injured or lose his tennis completely to cause a massive loss of interest. And this at a time when, thanks to the Big Three's 20 years of domination, sponsor interest and prize money have never been so high. We wonder how long that will last. Unless the 2025 season reveals one or more truly great hopefula, that's all we're asking...
