US Open: Gen-Next at the net

The tournament could signal a new era in men's tennis

The US Open final between Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz Garfia (19) and Norway’s Casper Ruud (23) has raised considerable excitement in the tennis world. Does it signal — finally — the dawn of a new era in the men’s tennis dominated for two decades by the Big Three — Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer? This was the first Grand Slam in many years in which none of the Big Three figured from the quarter final rounds. Alcaraz, who made his senior debut only in 2020, has become the youngest US Open champion, the first teenager to win the trophy and the youngest ever to hold the men’s number one world ranking. From the quarter finals on, his path to the finals — all gruelling five setters — certainly showcased the new generation. In the quarters, he beat Italy’s J Sinner, who is just 21, in a classic match that finished at nearly 3 am. In the semis, he beat 24-year-old American Frances Tiafoe, who was responsible for Nadal’s shock exit in the round of 16.

The generation change has been as sudden and unexpected. Over the past five years, the rise of Dominic Thiem, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alexander Zverev and Daniil Medvedev provoked many predictions of the rise of Gen Next, when Thiem won the US Open in 2020 and the under-rated Russian player Daniil Medvedev, 26, beat Novak Djokovic in three sets at the US Open in September 2021, ending the latter’s bid for a Grand Slam that year. But it proved a false dawn. Thiem (now 29) won his Grand Slam when Nadal and Federer did not participate owing to Covid and Djokovic was disqualified early on for bad behaviour. He was counted as a sure thing when he beat Nadal in the Barcelona Open in 2019, only to fall to him in four sets in the French Open in June that year. Injury has kept him out for over a year — from being world number 3, he now ranks 231. Neither Tsitsipas (24) nor Zverev (25), now out with an injury, have won a Grand Slam.

In January this year, Rafael Nadal, then 35, handily beat 26-year-old Medvedev in the Australian Open Final in a thrilling five setter — after being two sets down. In June, he beat Ruud, 13 years his junior and a product of his own academy, in three sets to win his 22nd Grand Slam and his 14th French Open title. Then in July, with Nadal pulling out of his semi-final with a recurrence of an abdomen injury, 35-year-old Djokovic beat the maverick 27-year-old Nick Kyrgios, the beneficiary of the Nadal walkover, in four sets to win his 21st Grand Slam. Forty-one-year-old Federer, the most stylish of the Big Three, has not played since 2020 and widely suspected to have retired by stealth and now ranks at number 803.

At the start of this year, the Big Three were ranked world number ones for 892 weeks, roughly equivalent to 17 years, with one of them being number one for every year between 2004 and 2021, except for 2016, when Britain’s Andy Murray held the position. This is a phenomenal record unequalled in the Open era. For all the feting of the youngsters now filling the top 20 ranks (in which Nadal at number three and Djokovic at seven still figure), they remain untested in matching the sheer resilience and memorable brilliance of the Big Three and will always be measured against them.