The twilight of the tennis sandwich generation, foiled by the Big Three, Sinner and Alcaraz

New York Times

4 days ago

ROLAND GARROS, PARIS — The 'sandwich generation' of men's tennis increasingly look like the lost boys.
They are the players born in the 1990s who were tipped for big things, but suffered a double misfortune of circumstance. The first was that they entered the sport when it was in the vice-like grip of the Big Three: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. Those three hoovered up titles for longer than anybody expected, and no sooner had their collective powers waned than Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner arrived, seemingly fully formed, to steal away the promises that were made to the children of the 1990s.
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In the last couple of days at the French Open, their diminishing hopes of staying among the truly elite have dwindled further. Daniil Medvedev, 29 and the only one still active to win a Grand Slam, lost on Tuesday to the world No. 81 Cameron Norrie. On Wednesday, Casper Ruud (26) was beaten in four sets by world No. 41 Nuno Borges, and revealed afterwards that he's been suffering for almost two months with a knee problem. Stefanos Tsitsipas (26), a two-time Grand Slam finalist and one-time Next Big Thing, was beaten by Matteo Gigante, the 23-year-old Italian No. 167 who has never been inside the world's top 100.
As the second round winds down, world No. 3 Alexander Zverev (28) and No. 15 Andrey Rublev (27) remain, but neither are in great form. Twilight has fallen in Paris on a cohort of tennis players whose window of opportunity has less slammed shut than never truly opened.
Only two men born in the 1990s have won a Grand Slam — Medvedev and Dominic Thiem, who retired in 2024 and attributed his relatively early exit from the sport to the demands of keeping up with Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Andy Murray.
They arrived in the middle of the 2010s, when the ATP Tour was in need of a crop of young players to offer a future for a sport that had become more relevant than it had been for some years, thanks to the Big Three's rivalries. Zverev, Tsitsipas, Medvedev and Matteo Berrettini, the Italian who had to miss this French Open through injury, were chief among them. Ruud and Rublev were never quite tipped in the same way, but Ruud's three Grand Slam finals — one defeat to Alcaraz, one to Nadal and one to Djokovic — before turning 25 changed the record.
All of them have had great results along the way, with Medvedev spending 16 weeks at world No. 1 as well as winning the 2021 U.S. Open. All of them have won ATP Masters 1,000 titles and all of them bar one has has reached a Grand Slam final, but, Zverev aside, all of them feel further away from winning one than ever.
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In the long view, the Big Three won 66 Grand Slam titles between them; Alcaraz and Sinner have shared the last five majors. Of the original four, Medvedev's 16 weeks at world No. 1 pale in comparison to a combined 1,034 for the Big Three, Alcaraz and Sinner — 947 between Federer, Nadal and Djokovic; 36 for Alcaraz and 51 and counting for Sinner.
More immediately and concerningly, all of them are showing signs that the unfulfilled expectations and desires are getting to them.
Medvedev, like many players — Zverev included — has complained about the balls on the ATP Tour. He believes that they are so slow and heavy that players can no longer hit winners, except for players like Alcaraz or Sinner who can generate frightening pace from just about anywhere on the court. The Russian has started changing his strings mid-match in the hope that doing so might give him an edge, and did so on Tuesday against Norrie, but ultimately to no avail.
It's true that a combination of slower balls and faster courts favors players like Alcaraz and Sinner once rallies begin, because they are able to go on attack or use the front of the court more effectively than players who have less power, or more discomfort at the net. Where Medvedev had an edge was his serve. Together with Zverev, his ability to win free points and then counterpunch — or employ his octopus-like defense to steal more points — fundamentally altered men's tennis, relegating one-dimensional big-servers to irrelevance and testing Nadal and Djokovic, who had perfected baseline tennis in their primes.
What was once revolutionary eventually looks out of date. 'It's just tennis,' Medvedev said in a news conference after losing to Norrie, and he's right: the game changes and players who cannot keep up are left behind.
Tsitsipas also acknowledged pre-tournament that the rest of the field is stronger. 'I feel like the lineup right now is much more difficult than it was back then (2021),' he said in a news conference.
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'Players are so much more mature. Shots have changed. Players have second forehands in this very moment. I have to adapt my game.
'Tennis is very much different now than it was before Jannik and Carlos come around the corner.'
After losing to Gigante, Tsitsipas said that he needed to use his experience on the tour 'more wisely,' explaining that of late it 'stabs him,' rather than being of use. Where Medevdev changed his strings, Tsistipas tried to find salvation in a new racket.
He changed it earlier in the year and waxed lyrical after winning the Dubai Tennis Championships in March. But he found that the new racket was causing him lower-back pain when the clay swing started, and so he reverted to the old one.
And after losing to Gigante, Tsitsipas will drop out of the world's top 20 for the first time since August 2018.
Ruud, who like Medvedev will be out of the world's top 10 when the rankings update a week on Monday, can identify with the feeling of the tennis world passing him by. At the ATP Tour Finals last November, Ruud said in an interview that Sinner and Alcaraz's way of playing had made him reconsider everything. 'They can turn around the point with one shot on the run, even from the forehand or backhand,' he said.
'That's something in the next weeks and months I'll try to keep working on. But I'm not going to change my game in one day or one week. It's going to take time.'
Five months later, Ruud hadn't made much progress. 'My game style is vulnerable to big hitters,' he said in a huddle at the Madrid Open. 'For flat hitters and those guys who play aggressive. When it goes in for them, I struggle to find answers.'
Ruud went on to win the Madrid Open, his first at 1,000 level, a rung below the Grand Slams. Then he faced Sinner, on the Italian's return to tennis in Rome. The world No. 1 eviscerated the Norwegian 6-0, 6-1, with Ruud's gently disbelieving reaction betraying a player watching their specialism pass them by.
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Rublev, who reacted similarly after João Fonseca dismantled him at the Australian Open, has sought to manage the self-flagellating anger that has marked his worst moments on court, but still feels further away from the top of the sport than ever. On Tuesday, after a spotty four-set win over world No. 227 Lloyd Harris, he said of Sinner and Alcaraz: 'They're the best players at the moment. I don't know what else to say. I mean, I'm trying to improve, get better. We'll see.'
Then there's Zverev, who is in a different but no less difficult place. He reached the Australian Open final in January, and the French Open final last year and is, in theory, closer than ever to winning that elusive first Grand Slam. It doesn't feel that way. The pasting he took from Sinner in Melbourne four months ago underlined the chasm that exists between Zverev and the top two. The German talked about trying to change his mindset ahead of that final, putting in extra practice to try and bridge the gap.
The end result was the same.
'I wish I would not have had the three greatest players of all time for the first 10 years of my career, because I think I would have won maybe one or two Slams by now,' Zverev said in his pre-French Open news conference.
'At the same time, it was a privilege playing them and I enjoyed every moment of it.'
What is happening to Zverev and his cohort happened to generations before them and will happen to Alcaraz and Sinner one day. But enjoying every moment? It doesn't feel like that right now.
(Top photo of Stefanos Tsitsipas: Aurelien Morissard / Associated Press)