The Big Three era is ending but a US men’s major seems a long way off

“We must hate our immediate predecessors to get rid of their authority.” DH Laurens

It seemed like this day would never come. We thought that the seemingly immortal trio known as the Big Three would somehow play for eternity, exciting their rabid fanbases while simultaneously destroying the hopes of subsequent generations of players. But with Novak Djokovic struggling with injury and his hopes of winning another grand slam before his peerless career comes to an end, it’s safe to assume that the 20-year reign of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Djokovic is all but over.

But it took a while.

The Google/Oxford Dictionary defines a generation as “all people born and living at about the same time, considered collectively.” When talking about family generations, people are usually talking about 20-30 years. But in tennis, a generation is about five to seven years long, if that.

Consider the fact that those who grew up in the 1970s and early 1980s, during the peak of the sport’s popularity in the United States, saw years of dominance among both men and women, led by Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe and Chris Evert. lamented the fact that the sport was not the same in the years that followed, that nothing could compare to the rivalry that developed between Connors, Björn Borg and McEnroe (you could call them the first Big Three of the Open era). Yet Borg and McEnroe met in Grand Slam finals in only two calendar years (1980-81). And Connors and Borg played in only four Grand Slam championship matches, while Connors and McEnroe played for a Grand Slam title only twice. That’s a total of 10 Grand Slam finals. Compare that to Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, who have played each other in a whopping 23 Grand Slam finals – not to mention numerous semifinals. Dynasty is a more appropriate name to describe the trio.

The start of the Big Three dynasty dates back to when Nadal joined the fray and won his first slam at Roland Garros in 2005, when Federer finally had legitimate competition (Djokovic had to wait until 2008 to claim his first major), the numbers are staggering. Of the 75 majors from Nadal’s first French triumph through the 2023 US Open, the big three won 63 of the 75 grand slams. Never before in the modern history of the sport has there been such dominance. Andy Murray won three, as did Stan Wawrinka. Carlos Alcaraz took two (and added a third at the French Open this year). Juan Martín del Potro, Dominic Thiem, Daniil Medvedev and Marin Cilic one each. That’s all.

For most of the Open era in the men’s game, a challenger would rise up in youthful arrogance – and sometimes with a bit of the hatred that DH Lawrence alluded to – and seize control of a rivalry and with it the honor of becoming the top-ranked player.

There has never been a generational confrontation among the Big Three. Federer, Nadal and Djokovic (when he’s ready) all leave the sport without any of the younger players proving they were better. Like a ruthless army, they took no prisoners and left behind a lot of casualties. They have overtaken several generations of the sport, as evidenced by this brief list of the players who were touted for Grand Slam glory, but who used themselves in vain against the Big Three: Grigor Dimitrov, 33 years old, unfairly nicknamed “Baby Fed “; Milos Raonic (33); Alexander Zverev (27); Stefanos Tsitsipas (25). To put it more bluntly, only two men born in the 1990s – Thiem and Medvedev – have won a major.

And then there are the American men. So much has been written – by myself and other tennis writers – about the agonizing streak that has burdened each successive generation of young American male players; No American has won a major since Andy Roddick’s victory at the US Open in 2003. That’s now 21 years ago and there are no signs of improvement.

On the other hand, American women have never faced such a shortage. With the exception of a few isolated periods, the Open era has seen a relatively unbroken string of American women at the top of the sport, from Billie Jean King and Evert to Tracy Austin and Lindsay Davenport to the Williams sisters and now Coco Gauff.

John Isner’s deadly serve looked set to land a slam, but he reached base in a major semi-final at Wimbledon in 2018, which he lost. Mardy Fish had a few years where his all-court talent produced some big wins, but he also fell short. Tommy Paul, Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe seemed to have been in prime positions as the Big Three were disappearing, but Paul is now 27 and the latter two are 26, at risk of being overshadowed by younger players. So right now, two players must carry the enormous burden of becoming the next American hope: left-hander Ben Shelton at 14th and the supremely talented Sebastian Korda at 20th are the most likely to claim a major. But even for them, they will have some catching up to do as there are now clearly two players who look to be the dominant forces in the game for years to come.

Carlos Alcaraz, 21, and Jannik Sinner, 22, are beginning to tighten their grip at the top of the sport as they are responsible for three of the last four majors. They are extremely talented players who were also born at the right time. Raonic, Dimitrov and Zverev and all the other big players who failed to break through must have wished they had been born a few years later, with the luxury of avoiding the Big Three at their best.

American fans can hope that in five or ten years we will be speaking with reverence about how the Big Four of Alcaraz, Sinner, Korda and Shelton continue the great tradition of rivalries of the past. Dreaming is allowed. For fans of American men’s tennis, that’s all they have right now.