When it comes to men’s tennis, there is a strong argument that we’ve been lucky enough to witness the greatest players of all time all playing at the same time as one another.
Andy Murray was good enough to have won countless Grand Slam titles at any other time in history, but because he was around at the same time as Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, he had to make do with just the three.
Although there are plenty of decent players around, are we likely to ever see another period as good as the one that’s come to a close?
A Dominant Four
Men’s tennis has long had battles between the top players that left the watching public thrilled and crying out for more. Pete Sampras versus Andre Agassi, for example, or Rod Laver and Jimmy Connors.
Yet it is worth pointing out just how dominant the four of Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer have been. Here is a list of the Australian Open winners since one of those four won it for the first time in 2004:
| Year | Winner |
|---|---|
| 2004 | Federer |
| 2005 | Safin |
| 2006 | Federer |
| 2007 | Federer |
| 2008 | Djokovic |
| 2009 | Nadal |
| 2010 | Federer |
| 2011 | Djokovic |
| 2012 | Djokovic |
| 2013 | Djokovic |
| 2014 | Wawrinka |
| 2015 | Djokovic |
| 2016 | Djokovic |
| 2017 | Federer |
| 2018 | Federer |
| 2019 | Djokovic |
| 2020 | Djokovic |
| 2021 | Djokovic |
| 2022 | Nadal |
| 2023 | Djokovic |
| 2024 | Sinner |
Across a period of 21 years, there were just three occasions in which the winner of the Australian Open wasn’t one of Djokovic, Nadal or Federer, with Andy Murray never having won it. That is simply remarkable and it is a similar story with the other Grand Slam events.
In the French Open, for example, Nadal won it for the first time in 2005 and between then and 2024 there were only two occasions on which it wasn’t won by one of the ‘big four’, with Wawrinka winning it in 2015 and Carlos Alcaraz doing so in 2024.
Crazy tennis statistic. This is the first year since 2002 that one of the ‘Big Four’ – Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic or Andy Murray – has not won a Grand Slam title.https://t.co/lTeL5sJuWS
โ Dr. Tim Baghurst (@Baghurst) September 9, 2024
You are unlikely to be surprised to learn that, from the moment that Roger Federer won Wimbledon for the first time in 2003, the four players shared the men’s singles title every year until 2023.
There was at least a touch of variation when it came to the US Open, with Federer’s first win coming in 2004 and Juan Martรญn del Potro eventually breaking his dominance in 2009, before the four shared it between them again until Marin ฤiliฤ won in 2014, with Wawrinka wining two years later, Dominic Thiem won in 2020, Daniil Medvedev in 2021 and Alcaraz in 2022 before Djokovic won it in 2023.
Such Dominance Will Never Happen Again
It is entirely possible that a player such as Jannik Sinner or Carlos Alcaraz goes on to have a career in which they dominate men’s tennis in a similar fashion to how Federer owned the US Open or Nadal was the king of the French court. That might happen. Yet the signs don’t seem to point to that. In fact, if history is anything to go by then we’re unlikely to see that sort of dominance ever again.
We had never seen it before in the Open era and so it is difficult to imagine seeing it again at any point in the near future, if we’re being honest.
Sure, Pete Sampras was dominant for a time and Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe shared the US Open between them for a time in 1980s, but it was nothing even close to the incredible domination of the sport that we witnessed from the ‘big four’ in the 2000s.
The fact that you could made an entirely fair argument for Federer, Djokovic or Nadal to be the greatest tennis player of all time when they existed at the same time as one another is, for want of a better phrase, a little bit mind-blowing. These men owned the sport like we’ve never seen before nor will again.
@eurosport “He was the ๐ค๐ฃ๐ก๐ฎ ๐ค๐ฃ๐!” Rafael Nadal hails Andy Murray as the ๐ฐ๐น๐ผ๐๐ฒ๐๐ to “the same level” of the Big Three ๐ #tennis #atp #murray #Nadal โฌ original sound – Eurosport
The saddest character in amongst it all is, arguably, Andy Murray. The Scot was an incredibly tennis player and will always look back on his two Wimbledon titles in particular with a sense pride. Yet he also wouldn’t be human if he wasn’t also just a little bit annoyed at being born in an era of such dominance by so few players.
He never won the Australian Open but was a losing finalist five times. He didn’t win the French Open but lost the final in 2016. Imagine the worst player of an era being that good and you can see why we were lucky to have seen it happen at all.
