Males’s tennis appears to be turning into the WTA and girls’s ITF circuits.
Or relatively, the latest historical past of the ladies’s tour. Flashback to the 2010s and girls’s tennis revolved round a single figurehead within the type of Serena Williams.
She was the one participant to persistently win grand slams throughout a number of seasons, whereas different “satellite tv for pc” winners would declare a most of two, maybe three grand slams in the event that they have been fortunate, then return to relative obscurity.
Aside from Williams, Naomi Osaka is the one different participant to win not less than 4 majors up to now ten years, although she is now taking a break from the game on account of being pregnant.
Now, with Roger Federer out of the image and Rafael Nadal plagued extra usually by harm in 2022 and 2023, Djokovic is about to echo Williams in turning into the only real figurehead of the lads’s tour.
This doesn’t imply Nadal can by no means win a slam once more. In spite of everything, the French Open is simply across the nook. However because the passage of time and bodily difficulties meet up with Nadal’s intense taking part in model, I feel it is extremely probably that Djokovic would be the solely member of the “large three” who critically contests main tournaments, with youthful gamers as his challengers.
Aside from Carlos Alcaraz, as within the ladies’s tour of the 2010s with Williams, not one of the youthful gamers appears to be a critical risk to the figurehead of Djokovic.
This time final 12 months, I predicted the rise of the “new three” – Stefanos Tsitsipas, Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev – that may slowly substitute the massive three.
Whereas Medvedev defeated Djokovic within the 2021 US Open ultimate, the Serb has rapidly reasserted his authority, successful all of their 4 encounters since then, throughout a spread of indoor and out of doors laborious court docket surfaces, the place each specialise.
The others should not have the perfect report both, with Tsitsipas twice going through Djokovic in a grand slam ultimate and being demolished in each, most just lately this Sunday on the 2023 Australian Open. Zverev has additionally struggled to succeed in a grand slam ultimate after his 2020 US Open conflict with Dominic Thiem.
Put merely, the dominance of the NextGen has did not materialise. Gamers like Medvedev and Thiem echo the “satellite tv for pc” winners that secured grand slam victories alongside Williams in the identical season however failed to provide constant leads to main finals.
To additional complicate issues for gamers like Tsitsipas and Medvedev, the generations under them are fiercely aggressive.
Gamers like Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Casper Ruud, and Holger Rune have all confirmed to win large matches towards high-ranked gamers.
Early on this 12 months’s Australian Open, in the course of the third spherical, Medvedev was knocked out by American younger gun Sebastian Korda. In flip, within the following spherical, Tsitsipas took down Sinner. The NextGen and youthful generations are cancelling one another out.
One other problem for would-be slam challengers is that the ability of the massive three has brought about a virtually insoluble drawback for the rest of the sphere.
Their rule meant that nobody has been capable of win tournaments towards them persistently. This consolidated the massive three’s positive aspects and diminished the arrogance of the remainder of the sphere.
The extra the massive three received and the extra different gamers misplaced, with little or no expertise successful a slam, the much less they thought they might beat the game’s giants.
The result’s that any finalist (other than Nadal) who does face Djokovic doesn’t have the observe report and psychological perception to beat him throughout a number of finals.
Until one participant figures out methods to win the psychological battle towards Djokovic, the Serb seems set this 12 months to attain a brand new grand slam report for the lads’s sport and within the historical past of tennis itself.
Do you suppose males’s tennis is heading for a repeat of the ladies’s tour within the 2010s? Will Djokovic emerge as the only real figurehead? And will any participant persistently steal grand slams from the restored world primary? Go away your feedback under.
