The big question remains: Who will finish with the most Slam titles? But tennis’s next generation could take advantage of this opportunity.
For most of tennis’s existence, winning even a single Grand Slam tournament meant career affirmation. From 1990 to ‘98,16 different players won a major, six for the first and only time. If there was a big-picture narrative involved, it likely had to do with reaching No.1 in the ATP rankings. A lone Slam win prompted Thomas Muster’s rise to No.1 in early 1996, just as it did for Carlos Moya in 1999. Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Patrick Rafter reached the summit in 1999 as well, just as Lleyton Hewitt, Gustavo Kuerten and Marat Safin would in the years that followed. In late 2003, it was Andy Roddick’s turn to both win a Slam (the US Open) and reach No.1. Since 2004, however, only four men have been ranked No.1: Roger Federer (310 weeks), Novak Djokovic (308), Rafael Nadal (209) and Andy Murray (41). The first three on that list have also won 57 of the last 69 Slams, and the only narrative that has mattered over the last decade has been: Who will finish with the most Slam titles? Nadal tied Federer at 20 with his late-2020 French Open win, and Djokovic, at 17, has been reeling in both of them for a while. That makes every loss noteworthy, especially with all three in the advanced stages of their respective careers (Federer is 39 years old, Nadal 34, Djokovic 33). When Djokovic got ejected from the US Open last fall for accidentally hitting a linesperson with a ball, it was a huge missed opportunity to get to within one title of Nadal and two of Federer; Nadal then snared another one when he swept Djokovic in Paris. Nadal missed his own opportunity on Wednesday in the Australian Open quarterfinals when he blew only his second two-set advantage at a Slam and lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas 3-6,2-6,7-6,6-4,7-5. This was a massive moment for the 22-year-old Tsitsipas, who has now overcome two-set disadvantages in consecutive Slams and has reached his third major semifinal, the second in a row. It was only his second win over a top-10 player in a Slam too. But sticking to tennis’s biggest narrative, we must ask what this does to the career Slams race as well. Nadal is the greatest clay-court player of all time; of that, there is no doubt. And he’s an all-time great overall because his prowess isn’t limited to clay — he’s won five hard-court Slams and two Wimbledons.
