They pushed each other to greatness… Simon Barnes salutes the titans of men’s tennis who have dominated the game for the past 20 years
In 2002 the men’s singles at Wimbledon was won by Australia’s Lleyton Hewitt. Last year the title was won by Carlos Alcaraz of Spain. The period in between, all 20 years of it, was dominated by just four players. Only as things begin to change do we realise how extraordinary that was.
We like to refer to Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray as the Fab Four, but Murray, wonderful player that he was in his prime, was always fourth among equals. He performed superbly to get in among the leading three and win his three grand slams and two Olympic gold medals.
In those two amazing decades of Wimbledon, Federer won eight times, Djokovic seven and Murray and Nadal twice each (in 2020 Wimbledon went down with Covid). Federer, aged 42, has now retired, Nadal, 38, and Murray, 37, are raging against the dying of the light, and Djokovic, 37, is only third favourite for the title.
But never mind their number of years: what about their number of slams? Federer has 20, Nadal has 22, including 14 French Opens – and that last record is surely unbeatable – Djokovic has 24 and he at least is still around and counting.
In any other era, if they hadn’t had to beat each other, would Federer have won 50 slams without Nadal, and Nadal have done the same without Djokovic?
We’re leaving the greatest ever period in the history of the men’s game: the decades when the best players of all time were all playing at the same time, with the impossible task of playing each other.
So what made them so good, apart from high talent shown alarmingly young and the stamina to maintain their excellence over decades?
There’s a tendency to lapse into an aesthetic reverie where Federer is concerned: and he was indeed beautiful to watch. His racket skills, along with his ability to read his opponents, seemed to turn tennis into a ballet, a kind of pas de deux. But elegance alone doesn’t win tennis matches. Beauty was his weapon and his shot-making was brilliant.
THE RIVALS
Nadal beat Federer in 2008 to break his winning run; Murray won his first grand slam in 2013, against Djokovic
IT’S EASIER to be more precise about Nadal’s unique skill: top spin. Even now, when he struggles with injury and has had to withdraw from this year’s Wimbledon to give himself the best chance of making the Olympics, his remarkable timing as he hits the ball enables him to put unprecedented spin on it. A great wallop from the baseline always looks as if it will go long, but then dips impossibly to catch the line.
He has plenty of other great attributes as well, of course, as we saw in five scintillating s
