In case you didn’t know…
Some of the NextGen players, such as Alexander Zverev and Stefanos Tsitsipas, have reached finals of big tournaments and have even won some of them. However, they have failed to loosen the Big 3’s stranglehold over the Slams.
Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have combined to win the last 12 Majors, and have not been challenged much by the younger generation while doing so. The closest that anyone came to breaking through was Daniil Medvedev, who took Nadal to five sets in the US Open final this year.
The heart of the matter
He went on to suggest that the delay is largely due to the inconsistency of the younger players.
Stepanek further used Zverev’s and Tsitsipas’s inconsistent 2019 seasons to prove his point.
Still, the Czech did admit that the end of the Big 3 was inevitable, and that nothing can stop that.
What’s next?
Stepanek has raised some valid points. We have been predicting the NextGen revolution since 2017, but it hasn’t come to pass yet. As the Czech mentioned, while some of the NextGen have made great strides over the last few years, they have not been enough to dethrone the Big 3.
Zverev has often said that he wants his generation to reach the pinnacle of tennis through their talent and not just by the Big 3 retiring. That is a good attitude to adopt, but if the NextGen want it to happen they need to step up their game.
It is wrong to say it’s just the Big 3 stopping them at the Grand Slams, as they have often been defeated by lower-ranked players in the early rounds of tournaments too. It remains to be seen whether they can show the week-in, week-out consistency required to reach the top, the way the Big 3 do.
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