Young guns are finally firing in men's tennis at this year's ATP Finals

Stefanos Tsitsipas and Dominic Thiem dominated the early stages of the year-end ATP Finals this week, suggesting men's tennis is in good form

On Tuesday night, the hailstorm of winners from Dominic Thiem’s backhand at the Nitto ATP Finals tournament in London, regarded as tennis’ fifth Grand Slam, seemed like an indoor variant of an extreme weather event. That his opponent was Novak Djokovic, whose superhuman elasticity and tenacity mean that he normally chases down just about any ball, made the match even more incredible. Like bolts of lightning, single-handed backhand after backhand winner followed from Thiem. Even for the Austrian, who often strikes the ball with such manic energy that he looks at risk of a shoulder dislocation, the pace of hitting was incredible. As Thiem went up a break of serve in the final set against Djokovic, it became almost too much for the effusive South African TV commentator Robbie Koenig. How to describe such a match after your hyperbole has become legendary? “Flood the court,” Koenig shouted, “and see if this guy (Thiem) really does walk on water.” After dropping his serve when he served for the match at 5-4, Thiem rebounded from a 1-4 deficit in the tiebreak to win. 

Many had looked ahead to the celebrated year-end shootout between the world’s top eight players as essentially another milestone for the great Serb, who looked set to equal Roger Federer’s record of six wins at the tournament. Even with the Serb out, the old guard could still win this weekend. Regardless, 2019’s ATP finals will likely be viewed as a coming-of-age party for tennis’ Gen Next. Unexpectedly, by Wednesday night, the first two to qualify for the semifinals on Saturday were Thiem and the gifted 21-year-old Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas. 

This tournament has been crammed with omens for the future. More than a decade since the ATP finals moved from Shanghai, where it was a lacklustre event in a white elephant of a stadium built by a corrupt mayor, London’s event pulls in over 20,000 fans for two separate sessions daily. Thursday’s Federer-Djokovic match looked like it was full to capacity of 17,500.  At London’s O2, tennis’ future has often looked rosy. The stellar outgoing ATP head Chris Kermode devised a format that used two sessions a day to showcase the best doubles players alongside  superstar singles players. Budget flights to London and reasonably priced tickets made the stadium seem a very vibrant demonstration of the ideals that the now-besieged European Union was built on. (On Thursday night, I was sitting next to a Greek, who often seemed Djokovic's loudest supporter, in seats that cost us less than Rs 4,000.)

Each of the eight players this year was from a different European country, ranging from Italy to Germany. Daniil Medvedev, the 23-year-old Russian and world number 4, arrived in London after the most extended run of success during the summer and autumn hard court season in recent memory. This started at the important and highly competitive season ahead of and including the US Open in North America, where he reached four consecutive finals (winning Cincinnati) before he lost a five-set final to Rafael Nadal at the US Open. No one had reached all four finals since Ivan Lendl and Andre Agassi. Medvedev followed that up by winning in Shanghai and St Petersburg. While tennis has been fixated on Thiem, Alexander Zverev, Tsitsipas and the bad boy antics of Nick Kyrgios, Medvedev has come closer to winning a Grand Slam than any of them (although Thiem has finished runner up to Nadal twice consecutively at the French Open).  

In fact, the Next Gen has mostly seemed erratic and flashy. As recently as the summer of 2018 when Zverev and Thiem crashed out of Wimbledon early, they seemed overwhelmed by the huge task of succeeding the fabulous three. The longevity of tennis champions hasn’t helped; that year, the four Wimbledon semifinalists were collectively the oldest cohort at that stage of the tournament in 50 years of professional tennis. 

Many question marks still loom over Zverev, who was once the most celebrated young player but whose Grand Slam record is a picture of consistent under-achievement. Although he won last year’s somewhat moth-eaten Nitto ATP finals (Nadal and Juan Martín del Potro withdrew), his performance since has been so predictably erratic that it is hard to believe he will ever be a Grand Slam winner. Zverev has shown an inability to shift gears when playing below his best, instead resorting to smashing rackets and pouting. He has seemed a journeyman professional with choir boy good looks and charm, akin to a male Anna Kournikova.

The US, Australian and French Opens and Wimbledon, played against seven opponents over a fortnight, are a test of character rather than just a matter of consistency, both of which the younger generation appears to have lacked. This week, each of the younger lot (other than Tsitsipas) showed they are prone to what might unkindly be called milder cases of Zverev Syndrome. Zverev dominated Nadal, beating him in straight sets, before losing 3-6, 2-6 to Tsitsipas in a match in which he was so lumberingly unimaginative that it was hard to believe only one place separated them in the rankings. At a changeover, Zverev appeared to be checking his phone, which is strictly against the rules, perhaps out of boredom or because he was looking in vain for a Plan B. Then Thiem, who had made Federer and Djokovic briefly mortal this week, looked on Thursday as if his shoes were tied to each other, while losing in straight sets against Matteo Berrettini on Thursday. Medvedev was a break point away from a 5-0 lead in the third set against Nadal on Wednesday and then contrived to lose the set 6-7. At 6’6”, he often looks like a baby-faced schoolboy who happens to have the body of a giant. His forehand, a weirdly effective if ugly hybrid of a squash and table tennis stroke, broke down completely. 

Tsitsipas has also been inconsistent but at 21, he is arguably further along than Federer, with whom he is often compared, was at his age. He reached the semifinals at this year’s Australian Open, becoming the youngest man to do so — since Djokovic aged 20 at the 2007 US Open. Like Federer, the Greek is gifted with almost too many strokes, which is a burden for a young player. But this avid reader of history won last year’s Next Generation finals (for players under 21) and seems to be seamlessly transitioning to being a serious contender. The tall Greek, with the looks, wisecracks and Instagram story-telling instincts of a rock star, attracts crowds in a way that none of his contemporaries (except Kyrgios) do. At last year’s Wimbledon, a steward apologised for the long wait getting onto Court 2 where the Greek was playing. “The friends’ box (for players) always overflows when Tsitsipas is playing. He has so many nephews,” she said. It did not seem plausible that a 20-year-old could be an uncle many times over but perhaps it was a metaphor for the popularity of the Greek, who makes friends everywhere and received loud cheers around the O2 stadium in Greek, in English and in French at the fantastically multicultural event. The O2 is usually a venue for raucous pop music concerts, but this week at least the standing ovations for Tsitsipas and Thiem suggested tennis can look to the future with hope and anticipation even after the holy trinity of tennis gods retires. Amid all the cheering, the sense of foreboding when asking that almost existential question for the men’s game — after Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, who? — evaporated somewhat. In tennis, that counts as an extreme event of the best kind.