ATP Tour finals without the “Big Three” bring hope and frustration to the tennis sandwich generation

TURIN, Italy – This is what they've been waiting for.

Some really good tennis players have gathered here in northern Italy for the ATP Tour Finals, the game's most exclusive men's tournament. Only the highest eight available players will receive an invite.

Novak Djokovic, the best player of his era and maybe of all time, isn’t here. He's 37, a mix of injured and exhausted, trying to save lots of himself for next 12 months's Grand Slams.

For the generation of players born within the mid- and late-Nineteen Nineties, Djokovic's absence represents a void they’ve dreamed of for many of their careers. For the primary time since 2001, this event won’t feature a member of the game's Big Three (Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal) in the sphere.

It's a harbinger that may soon spread to the remaining of the tennis calendar, removing the highest layer of the sandwich that for years has kept all the highest players born within the years before the twenty first century out of the Grand Slams and Masters 1000s . When Djokovic won the 2023 US Open, he claimed the Big Three's 66th title in 79 majors. They played one another so often in finals and semi-finals that players born within the Nineteen Nineties had little probability of losing in the ultimate stages of tournaments, let alone winning them.

“I think the mental coping I did was to play against Djokovic every time I was in the quarterfinals,” Taylor Fritz, 27, said at this 12 months’s US Open. Fritz would reach his first Grand Slam semifinal there after which his first final. He lost to Jannik Sinner, who, together with Carlos Alcaraz, is the epitome of how Djokovic and Nadal (who retires this month on the age of 38 after the Davis Cup) lasted just long enough to finish their downfall in tennis lives a generation.

Just once they thought the Big Three would stop gobbling up all of the oxygen, a 19-year-old from Murcia and a 21-year-old from the Dolomites walked into Arthur Ashe Stadium in 2022 and played five sets of computer game tennis that left the Nineteen Nineties -year group again left breathless. In the 2 years since that quarterfinal, Alcaraz and Sinner have won six majors between them and each were world No. 1 at one point, a position the latter currently holds.

Djokovic won the opposite majors. The sandwich was squeezed again.

“I guess these guys are younger, but they've done better than, say, the '90s kids, whatever you or I want to call them,” said Casper Ruud, 25, a three-time Grand Slam winner. finalist, in a news conference on Monday. Ruud lost to Alcaraz in the ultimate of the fateful US Open 2022; Nadal and Djokovic destroyed him at Roland Garros in consecutive years.

“They were almost in a league of their own this year.”

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That's not how tennis normally works.

There was an interregnum between the dominance of Pete Sampras/Andre Agassi within the Nineteen Nineties and the emergence of Federer after which Nadal and Djokovic. There was time for Patrick Rafters and Marat Safins in addition to Carlos Moyas and Juan Carlos Ferreros to grab among the highlight. Later, Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka won major titles; Juan Martin del Potro and Marin Cilic took their probabilities once they got here.

It is unlikely that there can be one other interregnum for a while, but there are slivers of this sort of light. Ruud celebrated his first win over Alcaraz in five attempts here on Monday, profiting from a weak opponent playing in his worst environment – indoors, on a quick pitch. He then admitted that Alcaraz's error-filled match contributed significantly to his success as he tries to play more aggressively to succeed in the heights that the Spaniard and Sinner reached in tennis.

“It’s not in the nature of my game,” said Ruud. “I hesitate a little when I have to be too aggressive. But I’m trying.”

“Try again. Fail again. Fail better,” Samuel Beckett famously wrote.

That's just about what tennis has turn out to be for Ruud's generation, which also includes Fritz, Alexander Zverev, Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev, all of whom are here in Turin.

Some appear to handle the method higher than others.

Medvedev, the group's most successful member, is within the midst of an intense battle for motivation. Mentally and physically exhausted, he has reached the top of his strength. “Every practice is a fight, every game is a fight,” the six-time Grand Slam finalist and 2021 US Open champion said in a press conference on Sunday after losing in straight sets to Fritz.

Not way back, Medvedev even blew away Sinner, rattling off six straight wins along with his beguiling defense and serve. Since then, a shoulder problem, changing balls and the Italian's development have set him back. Alcaraz's ability to dominate the front of the court has negated the deep return strategy that Medvedev used to unsettle so many opponents.

Medvedev, 28, is a former world No. 1. Zverev, 27, is the present world No. 2 and has won this tournament twice, but he says he knows he holds that position alone on the ATP computer.

When they're at the highest of their sport, they will feel like outsiders. Tennis will do this to you.

Zverev met one other leading member of the Sandwich Generation on Monday evening: Rublev, who’s 28 and continually on the verge of one other unpleasant self-flagellation. He bloodied himself several times previously 12 months. As if to rub salt into wounds, the match was delayed for about 20 minutes while the ATP awarded Sinner with the trophy for ending the 12 months as world No. 1.

There probably wasn't an appropriate time for the ceremony. This tour finale is basically a Sandwich Generation convention. It would definitely be uncomfortable.

Like Ruud and Fritz, Zverev has accepted the challenge of maintaining with Alcaraz and Sinner, if not every week or every season, but at the least in a single two-week stretch of seven games through which he can win a previously elusive Grand Slam. He is an Olympic gold medalist but has said that each one the opposite tournaments he has won will ultimately mean nothing unless he checks off one in every of the 4 majors.

To that end, Zverev has effectively foregone any results he could achieve this fall. Last month he trained for an hour day by day after his games while winning the title on the last major major tournament of the 12 months, the Paris Masters.

He said he was completely happy with the result. He would quite win than not. Who wouldn't do this? But he stays focused almost exclusively on improvement, and if meaning going to court in Paris with drained legs, then so be it. The 2025 Australian Open was just over two months away on the time and is now approaching; Until then, Zverev desires to play the style of tennis the sport requires.

Like Ruud, he believes he must play more aggressively to have a probability of staying on the pitch with Sinner and Alcaraz.

“If they get an easy ball when they're in an attacking position, the point is over 90 percent of the time, whether it's a winner or an unforced error,” he said. “That’s how hard they hit the ball, that’s how aggressive they are. I think I can improve in this regard. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

After the Sinner show, he did thoroughly against Rublev yesterday, winning 6-4, 6-4, forcing his way into the court and practically throwing his racket on the ball each time he had the prospect to take a degree away , even sometimes when the opportunities weren't there.

None of which means that all hope is lost and that Sinner and Alcaraz will win all the pieces essential for a decade. That just doesn't occur. Ruud remarked on Monday after his victory: “They are people too. I mean, they’ll lose games, but not that many over the course of a year.”

Sinner could still be stopped by off-field forces greater than another player. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is searching for a ban of 1 or two years in its appeal of his doping case, which it filed with the International Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in September.

Earlier this 12 months, Sinner tested positive twice for Clostebol, an anabolic steroid. Three tribunals convened by tennis anti-doping authorities accepted his explanation that the substance had by accident entered his body after his physiotherapist used it to treat a cut on his own finger after which massaged Sinner. WADA also accepts this explanation, but believes that he should bear some responsibility for the actions of his support team.

Until then, players must proceed attempting to work out the way to topple him and Alcaraz on the tennis court.

Today (Tuesday) it's Fritz's turn, as he and Sinner will duel in a rematch of the US Open final in September, where Sinner won by doing what Fritz does but doing it slightly higher – and by optimizing his return position relative to his opponent, he gained some momentum.

Unlike his European colleagues, Fritz has not been in the highest 10 since his late 20s. He's only recently turn out to be a serious threat and is trying to meet his potential before it's too late.