We’re Gonna Be Okay After All

Breathing deep, finally, as a new era of tennis dawns.

In one way or another, it’s been an uneasy last few years in the hallways and backrooms of professional tennis. There have still been banner moments out on court. Electric matches. Heightened emotions. Storylines, as ever, declared by pundits as “better than they could dream up in Hollywood” (or on Netflix). A growing and eclectic cast of characters.

But there’s also been this unmistakable feeling of discomfort among fans and figures of the sport alike. As if, while all that electricity and all those soon-to-be-considered-classic matches went on as usual, the same question has been on everyone’s mind:

“What’s gonna happen when these guys are done?”

Those guys, of course, were Roger, and Rafa, and Novak. These three who (along with Serena Williams) defined not just their generation, but nearly three generations worth of tennis history, solely through the sheer force of their will and a collective resume of success so stunning that it essentially blotted out the sun. 80 major tournaments held between 2003 and 2023. One of these three men won 65 of them. An achievement so stunning but also so consistent that it’s become nearly blasé — commonplace to fans of the game.

So what would happen when they stopped? Would there be monetary repercussions? A loss of year-over-year capital for the sport itself? And in the gravitational balance of the game, who would step up to claim that 18-slams-a-decade crown? Would things ever feel the same again?

And scariest of all: would anyone care anymore?

Stress tests and hand-wringing

That anxiety hung over the game for years, as those men (the Big Three, as they’re often referred to) refused to relinquish any grip.

Worse yet was any time Federer or Nadal would fall uncharacteristically early in a slam or big match. It would launch a stress-test of the “are we okay” system, and invariably, we would fail. Arms flailing, bed wetting. Anointing whoever happened to defeat them on a random week — Tomas Berdych, Philip Kohlschreiber — as king slayers and new paradigm setters. (Spoiler: they were not.)

But this was a routine we had to get used to. Nadal’s injuries began coming at a more frequent clip, and lasting longer. Federer, after spending two decades avoiding wear of any kind, finally started feeling a twinge in his back, and then his knee — becoming human finally, it seemed. And Djokovic chose a fun alternative option: grabbing onto a third rail of public discourse and letting its shock momentarily ravage his legacy.

You could feel tournament organizers sweating. Hedging their bets. Putting one of the big stars on their posters, and leaving them on there even when they pulled out of the tournament before it started. As if hoping people wouldn’t notice. And if the star did happen to actually show up, greasing the wheels as heavily as possible: giving them a first-round bye that felt like a second-round bye in the way that they scheduled the match for super late in the week, like Thursday. Somehow ensuring the match would be against a qualifier or a lucky loser or a wildcard. Making it a night match so conditions could be even more controlled.

And then, again, sweating and hand-wringing when, despite best efforts, the finals of that tournament were still between two guys ranked 60 in the world that no one knew. You could almost physically feel ticket sales plummeting.

And every year that we trudged on, that drumbeat got louder.

The ATP nervously rolling out multiple ad campaigns celebrating something they had dubbed “The Next Gen.” The creation of a new special tournament, the Next Gen ATP Finals, to support the idea. The coronating of a batch of Hot New Young Guys, among them some real deals and some also-rans and some who-the-hell-is-that types. Awarding the inaugural edition of that new tournament to *checks notes* Hyeon Chung. Hand-wringing about whether he was famous or good or hot enough to hoist hopes for the future upon. Repeating that process for every new kid who walked in the door.

Basically, as classily and as delicately as they could, intimating: “we need some new stars and we need them fast.”

Reality sneaking up

This March, it finally felt real.

Indian Wells and Miami, two popular, central, American tournaments that are well-attended by an entire universe of players and media, always act as a moment for us to take stock with where things are storyline-wise in the world of tennis. The chips you come to Indian Wells with are what you’re gonna take forward with you for the rest of the year.

And this year was set to be a big test: the first time in a decade that none of the Big Three were attending. Federer had finally retired from the game a few months earlier. Nadal had pulled out of both contests with injury. Djokovic barred from entering the country for his vaccine status. Kevin Anderson. Juan Martin Del Potro. David Ferrer. Name any number of stars, and they had retired or otherwise hopped off the chess board. Organizers and diehards prepared ourselves for the usual anxiety.

But, as we rounded the corner on Thursday approached the round of 16, murmurs around the grounds were not focused on who wasn’t there. Instead, conversations concentrated on compelling match-ups between faces we had quietly become accustomed to. Casper Ruud, who had somehow made it world number two last year without anyone really noticing. Jannick Sinner, fresh from a dynamite US Open semi-final months earlier. A blockbuster match on between Holger Rune and veteran Stan Wawrinka, who apparently had beef.

Even better — I heard people espousing how “this round of 16 lineup is SICK dude.” Even without Roger, Rafa, Novak, Serena. The hell was going on?

It’s like we were finally, calmly, focused on what was in front of us. Enough stress tests had come and passed. Enough brief little breakthrough moments from upstart talent had been seen by enough people, settled into the collective consciousness. It finally didn’t feel like the kids were throwing a party while the adults weren’t home. It finally felt normal.

Had we vaulted into the future? Did we even notice it happening?

The American question

For American tennis fans, that “uncomfortable last few years” the tennis world had gone through was more “an uncomfortable decade or two.” We’re a month away from the 20-year anniversary of an American winning a grand slam.

And at intervals ever since, we’ve gotten a taste of what many US fans have come to understand was The Best We Can Reasonably Expect — that is, the best American that year staging a herculean effort to win a prestigious tournament against odds, right at the end of the year, so that they could qualify for the ATP Tour Finals, where they would…not make an impact.

This pattern repeated four or five times throughout the 2010s. Every time, it felt like it took everything to make it happen. Heaven and earth moved. The gap between №8 and №9 in the world was a chasm.

Jack Sock won the damn Paris Masters his year. That is hard as hell to do. Mardy Fish lost 30 pounds and went on a tear for six months (defeating Nadal, holding match points against Djokovic) until he seemed about to physically break. Andy Roddick would make a habit of limping to the end in those bright red Babolat sneakers of his, losing to Roger, losing to Rafa, and bowing out.

But in 2022, Taylor Fritz won Indian Wells. He did his version of the heaven and earth moving. And then he did a couple even exceptionally harder things: he continued to have a really good year. He made the semi-finals of the Tour Finals. And he made it to 5 in the world — yes, 5 — off the back of that effort.

The mold — had it been broken? Or was it still not enough?

”He was human.”

I remember sitting in the stands of a decently boring tennis match featuring up-and-coming and exciting American Frances Tiafoe, listening (well, eavesdropping) to a conversation between the two people in front of me.

One guy asked, “why isn’t everyone freaking out about Tiafoe like he’s the next big thing?”

The other guy replied, “well, we all did — when he first came on the scene. But then what always happens happened. He was…kinda normal. He was human.”

“Meaning what?”

The guy tried to put it into words.

“It’s not like — I don’t know — it’s not like when Michael Chang happened, you know what I mean?”

The other guy did not know what he meant.

He was trying to say, I think, that times are different now. The barrier to entry used to be lower, I guess, or at least it felt like it. Kids — literal teenagers — used to pop onto the scene, impress everyone, and then instantly win a slam in no fewer than six months. At the age of 18. That’s what Nadal did. (That would have been a better example than Michael Chang.) But that doesn’t seem to happen anymore. Especially with Americans.

Every poor American player unlucky enough to be saddled with the label of “Next Great American Hope” has followed the same trajectory. Appear on the scene and look relatively impressive. Instantly get an ESPN or GQ article written about their hopes of winning a grand slam. Get tested with a series of frustratingly unfair draws at slams. (Play Nadal in the second round, things like that.) Bop around, have little moments of glory at lower level tournaments, top out around the quarterfinals of a slam at best. No fault of their own.

Taylor Dent. Donald Young. Ryan Harrison. Steve Johnson.

And following that trend, Tiafoe has done nearly everything right by any sensible, conventional standard. He’s had a steady rise that you can track with a simple readable graph. He will pop occasionally at a tournament, impress some people, and then get humbled in the next one. Make the ESPN Top 10 with a hotshot in Vienna or whatever, and then go quiet for a bit. Grinding it out. His ranking would climb and dip and then climb again, and stabilize somewhere in the 20s. It just got done climbing and stabilizing at 10. No small feat.

And to top it all off, he just made the semi-finals of the US Open, after half a decade of trying. But the man he lost that match to was the antithesis of his journey. Carlos Alcaraz was that thing those guys at that boring match couldn’t articulate.

The Realest Real Deal

Carlos Alcaraz didn’t need to build slow.

This kid was like nothing else. Energy like a newborn puppy. Hit it harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. (And that’s a thing that a lot of pundits and randos like to throw around: “He hits it so hard! Every shot!” But this kid, man. For real. He hits it so hard every shot.)

These effortful grunts, like you hear from every player, but with him it was like — they were actually helping? His effort feels passionately desperate, and palpable, and effective. You feel the power radiate off him. The intensity he throws into the motions, the wrist snaps, the arm whips, the sprints from side to side and back to front.

And this wild, terrifying energy of creativity. He has the potential to hit so many shots from so many positions. He’ll be out of position, wide, off-court, and rocket it cross-court. The drop-shot, overplayed and misused in the hands of inferior players for a decade, was newly exciting — and scary — in his hands.

And he burst onto the scene instantly. It felt like something from another universe — like he was just placed here by another being, at just the right time. You could watch the faces of every new person that played him, see them nearly mouthing “what the fuck” to themselves.

When he first made his big splash at the 2021 US Open, I remember asking my friend, “why haven’t I heard about this guy before?” It was because he had only just turned 18 years old. He hadn’t been allowed to play in the adult tournament yet. That was his only reason for not exploding sooner: not being born earlier.

A year later, he was lifting the trophy at that tournament. At 19. Eight months after that, he was snapping a four-year winning streak by the greatest player of all time. To win Wimbledon. At 20.

No need for excuses, or “he needs time to build experience,” or any of that. This was Michael Chang, times 1000. This was Rafael Nadal, version 2. Fully formed, already.

Look at this shot. And this one. And this one too. And this entire set of highlights. Scrub to any point in the video and watch your jaw drop.

(That first one inspired maybe my favorite comment I’ve ever seen on the Internet. Totally nailed it, too).

If anyone, anywhere, with any level of understanding of the game, still had anxieties about the future of tennis, they were almost wholly dispelled overnight. By one kid.

Cause for more hope

There are other bright spots too.

I’m on the record having bought early into Holger Rune stock — he constantly impresses with that elasticity, that verve, but in a more controlled and grittier package than the ultra-chippy and unfortunately ultra-inconsistent Denis Shapavalov.

Jannick Sinner elevates to another level whenever he shares the court with Alcaraz. It’s the best. He’s 8 in the world but he instantly becomes 2 in the world when he plays him. Watching them reminds of Federer-Nadal — the way they push each other, and seemingly the game, forward every time they meet.

And American Ben Shelton, a 20-year-old 6’4” happy-go-lucky presence with a thundering lefty game and seemingly no sense of abandon, is the most excited I’ve been about a player since, well, Alcaraz. His easy smile and likable demeanor have him prepared to be a natural star. His game is raw but he already shows terrifying electric potential.

And the women’s tour, similarly long tasked with finding self-sufficiency after the retirement of top stars (the Williams sisters), finally has a deep bench of some legitimately exciting talent that vie for titles and rankings. Their storylines differ but feature the same shades.

Coco Gauff burst onto the scene so young that she already reads like media-trained veteran — and she’s still a teenager. She’s had time to, like, fundamentally change her service motion (which was fine to begin with), and design her own line of shoes, and receive a passed torch from Venus Williams on Centre Court at Wimbledon…and she’s still a teenager.

Maria Sakkari is ripped, and more importantly, a sweetheart. She also takes the cover off the ball, and does so with a kind of dynamism and specialness that makes her very fun to watch.

I have what can only be described as an inordinate amount of time for Jessica Pegula, an understated and down-to-earth presence with a crisp and punchy game. She has climbed so steadily and consistently that we all looked up one day and realized she was №3 in the world.

And Iga Świątek’s game is worth 5000 words dedicated solely to her. She is special and unprecedented and the real deal and a permanent and exciting fixture in the game for myriad reasons. And: she never loses. Of anyone mentioned in this article save Alcaraz, she might be the most exciting prospect the game has seen in years. And she’s coming for your win-loss percentage record, Steffi Graf.

Another sport entirely

I remember one day pulling up a throwback Sampras-Agassi match on YouTube, just out of curiosity. I was taken by their point construction, their movement, their pace — it all was objectively near-perfect. At the time, it was bleeding edge. But compared to the current era, after a decade plus of being spoiled by the Big Three, it felt like a relic — time capsule.

And I just couldn’t shake the thought: it almost looked like two very good junior players in the 2010s having a bunch of really high quality rallies. There was no other way to explain it. Levels had caught up. We train differently now. Our racquets make it easier to bend physics.

I remember when phenomena like Nadal and his banana forehand, and Karlovic and Isner slamming serves from eleven feet in the air, were espoused as “opening a whole new dimension to the game.” And now, slingshotting forward in time, past the Big Three era, things are now even more wildly different. These new guys can look like they’re playing another sport entirely.

The point construction. The shot production. Generating fiery pace from positions where I’ve literally been told by coaches it would be impossible to do so, and unwise even if it wasn’t. The creativity with which they approach aggressive touch angles and dropshots, probably because they’re so well-versed in them from training them and screwing around with them in every practice.

They’re all so whippy and wiry. Rune looks like he’s made of melted plastic, or laffy taffy. Many of us remember the days that we called Djokovic “the Gumby of tennis.” But against these guys, his tight precision can actually look stiff by comparison.

Balls just snap and crack through the court. And the shots have this impeccable length to them — something we thought we had lost with the advent of our big loopy topspin in the 2000s. No, these kids just find a way to turn their wrist a complete 180-plus degrees to generate and lock in the spin, but still shoot them through the court like bullets. Show me all the close-up footage you want. It still doesn’t make sense.

Excited again

But maybe the most exhilarating facet of any of this is the way I see people talking — online, or in person — about the game. I haven’t seen fan forums light up with this much activity in years.

And it’s not from a place of fear or anxiety about the coming death of tennis, without stars, without new champions. No bed-wetting. No hand-wringing. Only upside.

We were disgustingly lucky to be able to have our jaws dropped by the same three people for fifteen years. But to now have all these new beings, all these dynamics and styles and personalities all bouncing off each other and clashing — there’s just so much for someone to take in.

There’s more activity and discourse across the board. There are factions to devoted to supporting or psycho-analyzing the trollish mercurial Russian Daniil Medvedev. Others make memes reviewing and ranking Alcaraz’s last three haircuts. And when something happens on court, big or small, it’s like the whole world lights up. There’s a video, there’s people talking about it. There’s action.

People that care about tennis are awake in a new way. And I’m excited again. I haven’t been this excited in years.