For close to two decades, men’s tennis has been dominated by three players: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic. As I write, the week before the final of the U.S. Open, they sit in a three-way tie for the most Grand Slams of all time, with 20 each, though Djokovic has a better-than-even chance of winning his 21st before this article hits newsstands.
The collective dominance of these three is hard to wrap your head around. Since the start of 2004, Federer’s breakout year, they have won an astounding 59 out of the last 70 Grand Slams. During that period, Andy Murray has won three, Stanislas Wawrinka has won three, five players have won one, and the rest of the field — two if not three full generations — have won zero. That’s 10 different champions in 17 years. Compare that to the women’s tour, in which 13 different players have won slams since the start of 2017.
But time waits for no one, and this year, we’ve watched the “Big Three” finally, definitively, shrink to the “Big One.” Djokovic is still alive and kicking and may, pending the outcome of the U.S. Open final, surpass his rivals. Indeed, the 34-year-old Serb may well remain the best player in the world into his late 30s — given his form and fitness, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the favorite at the 2025 U.S. Open.
But he will be continuing his journey alone. Federer, age 40 and recovering from his fourth knee surgery in five years, is done as a contender. In his lone slam this year, Wimbledon, he puttered his way through the early rounds before receiving a straight-set beat down from 14th seed Hubert Hurkacz in the quarterfinal. Nadal, at 35, is still a threat on clay — he won last year’s French Open and narrowly lost to Djokovic in this year’s semifinal — but he has been surpassed by younger players on hard court and has more recently been hobbled by injury. He has failed to play in three of the last five majors and has reached a final only once since winning in New York at the end of 2019.
Men’s tennis is now effectively Djokovic vs. the field, and this year’s U.S. Open has given us a glimpse of what that looks like. No one can defeat the Serb unless he’s having an off day, and with a few exceptions, almost none of the sport’s young guns are so far ahead of the field that they could reliably win majors even in his absence.
The most established of the young players, 28-year-old Dominic Thiem, once looked to be the best candidate for a breakthrough, and he has defeated both Djokovic and Nadal in major semifinals. But after winning last year’s Djokovic-free U.S. Open, he seemed to collapse mentally and then physically, and he has spent this year’s tournament at home nursing a nasty wrist injury. World No. 3 Stefanos Tsitsipas, 23, who nearly beat Djokovic in the French Open, used the 2021 U.S. Open to cement his reputation as a headcase, coughing up a double-break third-set lead in the course of a five-set loss to 18-year-old Carlos Alcaraz Garfia. World No. 7 Andrey Rublev, 23, went down to World No. 50 Frances Tiafoe in the third round, and world No. 10 Denis Shapovalov, 22, lost in straight sets to No. 49 Lloyd Harris. World No. 11 Casper Ruud, also 22, lost in four sets to the qualifier Botic van de Zandschulp, ranked outside of the top 100.
Not all of the next generation have face-planted. Two, in particular — world No. 2 Daniil Medvedev, 25, and World No. 4 Alexander Zverev, 24 — have cemented their statuses as perennial quarter- and semifinalists, both dropping only a single set in their respective waltzes to the semis. Without Djokovic in their way, it’s likely that both would be winning slams. Both, however, are still given to periodic collapses, and Medvedev struggles mightily on surfaces other than hard court. In this slightly higher tier, we can also include world No. 8 Matteo Berrettini, 25, who has reached three straight quarterfinals, though his run in New York ended in the same way as his previous two: with a four-set loss to Djokovic that only briefly looked close.
In short, what we’re looking at is a one-man show, with a rotating cast of characters auditioning for the chance to play second fiddle. But Djokovic will one day lose a step, and then two and three. When that day comes, the men’s tour may look a lot the women’s: a lot of good players with a chance to win, a handful with the potential to be great, and none standing head and shoulders above the competition. But hey, at least this way, the Americans might have a chance.
Park MacDougald is Life and Arts editor of the Washington Examiner magazine.
