Tennis – ATP Finals – Pala Alpitour, Turin, Italy – November 21, 2021 Russia’s Daniil Medvedev holds a trophy after dropping his closing match in opposition to Germany’s Alexander Zverev REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane
Tennis has survived generational modifications earlier than and can accomplish that once more when the “Large Three” of Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic retire, world quantity two Daniil Medvedev mentioned on Sunday.
The 25-year-old Russian is a part of what has been dubbed the “Subsequent 4” alongside Alexander Zverev (24), Stefanos Tsitsipas (23) and Dominic Thiem (28), a cohort that’s trying to write the game’s subsequent chapter.
“When there was (Bjorn) Borg and (John) McEnroe, once they had been shut, completed their careers, everyone was like, ‘tennis is over, we received’t ever have any nice gamers, it’s completed’,” he mentioned after falling to Zverev within the ATP Finals championship match in Turin.
“We did have some. (Pete) Sampras, (Andre) Agassi, they had been on the high. (When) Sampras retired, (it was like once more individuals had been pondering) ‘Okay, tennis is over.’
Then we had Novak, Roger and Rafa. Should you requested simply earlier than they got here, everyone would say, ‘Effectively, tennis is not going to be attention-grabbing anymore.’
“It’s the identical right here. Tennis is a superb sport, so I don’t see why our technology would miss on one thing. In fact, possibly we don’t (win) 20 Grand Slams (every), but no person did earlier than Roger, Rafa and Novak, in order that they had been (all in a method) additionally worse than them… It’s undoubtedly not going to be shameful (if we win much less).”
Medvedev defeated Djokovic to earn his first Grand Slam title at September’s U.S. Open, whereas Thiem wanted a fifth-set tiebreak to edge out Zverev within the 2020 New York closing.
Zverev and Tsitsipas are each nonetheless looking for their first main, with each having squandered two-sets-to-love leads within the 2020 U.S. Open and this 12 months’s French Open finals respectively.
Federer, Nadal and Djokovic are all tied on a males’s document 20 Grand Slam titles every.
RELATED STORIES
Get the most well liked sports activities information straight into your inbox
Learn Subsequent
Subscribe to INQUIRER PLUS to get entry to The Philippine Day by day Inquirer & different 70+ titles, share as much as 5 devices, hearken to the information, obtain as early as 4am & share articles on social media. Name 896 6000.