With the U.S. Open upon us, much has been made of the Next Gen’s failure to produce results at the slams. Last year, Sascha Zverev went into New York with titles in Washington, D.C. and Montreal. Grigor Dimitrov won in Cincy. It was going to be the year. The Next Gen–or in Dimitrov’s case the Lost Gen–was going to break through….and then Zverev lost in the second round to world No. 61 Borna Coric and Dimitrov also fell in the second to Andrey Rublev. Roughly a week and a half later, Rafael Nadal hoisted the U.S. Open trophy (which, disappointingly, hasn’t another moniker).
No Next Gen. In fact, the closest any of them came was Rublev–who got shellacked by Nadal in the quarters.
Since that time, Roger Federer has snagged the Australian Open, Nadal has continued his complete dominance at Roland Garros, and Novak Djokovic has captured Wimbledon. In tennis terms, there is little discernible difference between 2008 and 2018.
The bad news for the youngsters is that the Next Gen actually performed better during last year’s summer hard-court swing than they have so far this year, in which Nadal and Djokovic won Toronto and Cincinnati, respectively. Aren’t they supposed to be gaining ground??
It’s not all bad news, of course. There are more Next Gen guys making rankings moves than there were before. Frances Tiafoe, Denis Shapovalov, Karen Khachanov, and Stefanos Tsitsipas are all climbing the rankings. In fact, exactly one year ago Tsitsipas was ranked 161st in the world; he now sits at No. 15. He made history in Toronto a few weeks ago with four consecutive wins over top-10 players to reach the final (including over Djokovic). He was the talk of the tournament…until he was manhandled in the final by Nadal, that is. And then it was back down to earth for young Stefanos.
If you watched the Cincinnati Masters, you might be understandably concerned that the entirety of the men’s game has fallen into a drunken stupor. The final was to be a BLOCKBUSTER: a showdown between the almighty Roger Federer and the resurgent Novak Djokovic. What we got instead was mediocre tennis from Djokovic and a Federer who was so bad that ghastly is not even an exaggeration.
So is this what we’ve come to? Are the Next Gen guys afraid to win? Are the Big Three going to keep winning titles on the strength of their reputations alone? No, I don’t think so. So will the Next Gen finally make their breakthrough at the U.S. Open? Current form and recent history suggest not.
To state the obvious first: Nadal, Federer, and Djokovic are extraordinary. All three of them know how to win even when they aren’t at their best–and it’s not just because their opponents assume that a loss is imminent (though I don’t discount that advantage, either). They are the most mentally tough, athletically gifted, and savviest players the sport has ever seen. As Tsitsipas found to his dismay in Toronto, you might be able to beat one of them, but beating two in the same tournament is absurdly difficult.
Put simply, the three of them help each other stay on top; they wear opponents down for the rest, then split the winnings. They’re like a dragon consortium, hoarding ranking points between them and protecting the collective treasure from Greek and German interlopers. “Rafa! Breathe fire on that blonde one over there.” “Nole, flap your wings and roar!” “Roger, you sniff disdainfully and flick the tall, skinny one away with your claw….”
There really is talent in those Next Gen players; there’s probably a future world No. 1 amongst them. But the game has physically progressed FAR beyond what we saw in the John McEnroe days of the sport. You can’t just be talented. You have to be talented, strong, smart, opportunistic, and possess near-super-human stamina…and then there’s the mental toughness. It’s probably too much to ask a 19-year-old to display all of those things on a consistent basis, especially over two weeks in seven best-of-five matches.
Next Gen? Not yet.
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another good one
“Dragon consortium” Love it, Cheryl!
epic
I think both Sasha and Tsitsipas are making good progress. Sasha reached the QF at FO, an improvement; with Lendl in the team, he may be doing better at the slams from now on. I feel what he lacks is how to pace himself in a BO5 match, should go for the kill sooner rather than later. He has all the weapons, just doesn’t know how to use them at the right time.
Tsitsipas too, tends to procrastinate instead of going for the kill. The boy has all the weapons too, is good when at the net, maybe needs to improve his ROS. I like his never gives up mentality. I think he has better potential than Shapo in time to come.
Rafa, Djoko and Fed are ATGs, as long as at least two of them are there, it’s hard for anyone to beat them one after another. I think it’ll take another two years at least before the next gen or the lost gen could win a slam. Rafa and Djoko are not going anywhere in the next two years at least imo, even though Fed may not be a threat anymore.
Fed will clean the path for Rafole 😉
The thing is that they all do it for each other to some extent. In this case, Federer is the one who ended up with the crappy draw, so yeah…he’s going to take it on the chin this time around.
Agreed. Sascha and Tsitsi have the biggest upsides atm. Khachanov does too actually, he just seems to do it more quietly than the other two.