“Alexander Zverev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Andrey Rublev don’t advance tennis the way their elders did”: Patrick McEnroe
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Patrick McEnroe, Alexander Zverev, Stefanos Tsitsipas
Former World No. 3 in Doubles and the doubles champion at the 1989 French Open, Patrick McEnroe recently talked about the new generation of players that are looking to overtake the reins of the sport going ahead. While the dominance of the Big-3, the trio of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer is yet not challenged fully, glimpses have been there.
While Federer has been struggling with injuries since 2020, Djokovic and Nadal are still dominating the Slams having shared the last 5 of the 7 Slams that were contested since 2020. Novak won the Australian Open in 2020 and 2021 and followed it up with titles in Paris and Wimbledon in 2021. Rafa won the 2020 French Open and was stopped in the semis of his favourite Slam by Novak.
The US Open remains to have different winners with Dominic Thiem winning in 2020 and Daniil Medvedev winning in 2021 while Novak was the runner-up in New York in 2021 in one of the most dominant tennis seasons. While the new generation is definitely challenging the big stars for titles, McEnroe believes that they still can’t attract crowds.
The biggest problem with tennis, if I put on my old USTA cap, is that, let’s be honest, these young people don’t advance tennis the way their elders did. They do not sell as many tickets the first week of the US Open as Nadal, Federer and Djokovic,” said McEnroe.
Alexander Zverev finished the 2021 season with the most titles on the Tour
While McEnroe took a dig at the next-gen, of the 8 ATP-1000 Masters tournaments played this year, 6 were won by the upcoming players with Djokovic winning the 2021 Paris Masters and Nadal winning the 2021 Rome Masters.
Hubert Hurkacz won in Miami, Stefanos Tsitsipas won the Monte Carlos masters, Alexander Zverev won the masters title in Madrid and Cincinnati, Medvedev won in Canada while Cameron Norrie won in Indian Wells.
Zverev also won the Olympics Gold in Tokyo this year and the 2021 ATP Finals defeating Djokovic in the semi-finals on both occasions and finished the season with 6 titles to his name, the highest on both the WTA and ATP Tours.
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Sarthak Shitole
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