The dominance of the big four (Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray) has prevented many talented players from winning the biggest tournaments. Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have won 56 of the last 67 slams played, including the last 13.
Gilles Simon, former number 6 in the world and winner of 14 titles on the ATP Tour, wrote an article for the ATP website expressing the myriad of difficulties in playing in the same era of these authentic champions.
Stan Wawrinka’s triumph at the 2016 US Open was the last success of a major by a player that is not included in the magic triad.
Gilles Simon: ‘The big four are just Martians’
“I think we need young players to play great tennis.
Tennis suffered too long because the new generations were not good enough to beat the big four. It says nothing bad about people like Milos Raonic or Kei Nishikori or anyone in their generation because these people are super good.
It just shows how good Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray were. Even if they’re 20 years older than some of the new players, they still beat them because they’re just Martians. It’s crazy to be so good at every single tournament, every single week.
At first I was a little happy that the new players couldn’t beat them because I had this feeling throughout my career. Of course we want to win a Grand Slam. It may sound like an excuse, but it was impossible with these people “- wrote Gilles Simon.
“However, as the big four get older, they have to play a little less, so there is a slightly larger opening.” It’s great to see new players get through.
Now I’m happy when the young people can finally hit them. We need that for sport. I think this new generation of players, many of whom are under the age of 23, are playing really well. They will be leading the sport in the future and I am really happy to see that.
I especially think that this youngest generation of players is really attractive. There are players with many different styles and also with different personalities. You take people like Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime, then you have the young Americans who are a very good generation of players.
Stefanos Tsitsipas can have a great game, including Sascha Zverev. I think it’s a great generation in terms of personality. People like Felix, Karen Khachanov, Daniil Medvedev. They are not only good players, but also super nice people and very good people.
That will help you. They bring a lot of variety to the court. We need it because Novak, Rafa and Roger have led the sport forever. At some point they will stop “- he finished.
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