Time out?

The next generation of tennis champions is hard to spot

Consider this, none of the top five men’s tennis players is below 30 years. From 2004, with the exception of six years, these five men have won all the Grand Slam titles — Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer accounting for the lion’s share. In most years, these five were the runners-up in those tournaments. And they don’t appear to be thinking of signing out as yet. When Nadal defeated Stanislas Wawrinka in straight sets at the Roland Garros last week to win the record-breaking “Decima”, or tenth French Open title, without dropping a set in the entire tournament, it was instructive to remember that the combined ages of the two contestants was 63 years.

Two days before this final, Nadal, 31, had demolished, again in straight sets, the upcoming sensation Dominic Thiem, eight years his junior. Five months before, Nadal had been on the receiving end when he lost to another veteran, Roger Federer, 35, in a closely fought five-setter. All told in this tennis season, Messrs Federer and Nadal share a Grand Slam title apiece of the two that have been played and two each of the five ATP Masters 1,000 series, the third highest ranking tournament (the second highest ranking is the ATP Finals, which is a season-ending tournament played in November). As far as the eye can see, there seems to be no stable champions to replace this ageing generation.

In women’s tennis the story is slightly different but points to the same problem. From 2000, when the phenomenal Williams sisters started breaking into the big league, the Grand Slams have ricocheted between them and a parade of other women, only some of whom were able to offer some degree of consistency. After Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters, Amelie Mauresmo and Maria Sharapova (recently banned for two years for failing a drug test), Generation Next is hard to spot. In 2015, Serena Williams, at age 33, nearly won a Golden Slam. In January 2017, at age 35 and some weeks pregnant to boot, she beat her 36-year-old sister to win the Australian Open.

The current women’s number one, Angelique Kerber, the stylish left-hander who won two Grand Slams in 2016 at age 28 and was regarded as the next big thing on the women’s circuit, didn't even get past the first round in the French Open and hadn’t done much better in the pre-Slam tournaments either. Bar Mses Williams and Kerber, none of the reigning top ten has won a Grand Slam tournament in the last five years. The promising Jelena Ostapenko, 20, the first unseeded women’s player to win the French Open in the open era, is still an unknown quantity.

From eras that saw dominant champions — from Bjorn Borg and Pete Sampras to Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf — tennis fans appear to be in for a period of variability. Sure Thiem, the current world number eight, looks like an exciting prospect, as does Alexander Zverev Jr, age 20, but both have yet to win a Grand Slam event. The others in the top ten are all in their late 20s — Milos Raonic (26), Marin Cilic (28), Kei Nishikori (27) — and fast reaching the peak age for sportspeople.

What accounts for this churn? One is the sheer challenge of the high-paying modern game — from faster racket-head speeds that put a premium on the power game to the frequency of tournaments that players need to play to maintain their ranks. The physical and mental demands on players, especially those on the singles circuit, are, thus, increasing exponentially. Given the high rate of burnout, Messrs Nadal and Federer and the Williams sisters may be the last truly great players we have been privileged to watch.