The Guard: A Change Is Gonna Come

This was meant to be written/posted prior to yesterday’s final but that somehow didn’t materialise. So it’s been finished off and updated accordingly, but hundreds of people, often of the Proper, Well-Established Writer and/or Actual Journalist types have written pretty similar things in the last 12 hours. Ah well.

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I’ll be honest, I’m sick of the phrase “changing of the guard”. It’s been everywhere this year. The commentators love it, the journalists even more – it’s featured in my twitter feed about twice an hour over the last 4 days.

Is the era of the Big Four over? Can Federer genuinely challenge for Grand Slams any more? Do the rest of the players on the tour believe they are capable of winning the sport’s biggest titles? Does Nadal have the physical capacity to remain at the top? Will Murray’s back surgery permanently impact his ability to keep up with the other top players?

We’ve heard all this before – Australia and Stan Wawrinka arguably shook things up for the first time in five years, before some semblance of normality returned for Roland Garros and Wimbledon. Journalists and pundits need a narrative, and the story of dominance in men’s tennis, always fascinating in a game where individual rivalries are responsible for so much of the sport’s appeal, has been the topic of the last decade. In the face of a year where two of the Major titles have been taken by first-time winners, it’s easy to begin speaking of an imminent “changing of the guard”, of the rise of the youngsters, and the fall of a generation of greats.

The “Big Four” mentality has been well-established since 2008, when Murray joined the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic triad at the top of the rankings. This was the same year that Djokovic broke Federer and Nadal’s Grand Slam stranglehold in Australia at a point at which the eleven previous Majors had been won by the pair, Murray reached his first Major final, and the idea of a Big Four was mooted. But before that year, there had been several years of Federer-Nadal symbiosis. I have distinct recollections of a “changing of the guard” being brought up at that point; commentators discussed Djokovic in terms of “the young pretender” and “tennis’ next big thing”, even then implying that Federer would lose his touch at the top and that the Nadal-Djokovic rivalry would take the place of the previous one. The adaptable and evolved Federer, however, is still very much present despite years of persistent reports of his forthcoming retirement. Nadal continues to build his medical files and trophy haul in tandem. Murray has had an admittedly weak year, but as someone who’s had major back surgery and isn’t even reliant on my physical capacity in order to carry out my job, I’m hardly surprised. Djokovic’s “slump” this year (44-7 record so far, including victories at Wimbledon, Miami, Indian Wells and Rome) firstly must be viewed in relative terms, and secondly is coincident with some real changes in his personal life – he’s gone from “winner of 6 Grand Slam titles” to “7-time Grand Slam winning husband and father-to-be Novak Djokovic”.

Immense credit is due, of course, to the rest of the players on the tour who have had such fantastic success at the biggest tournaments this year – not just Wawrinka and Cilic, the unexpected Major winners. The “next generation” players, particularly Nishikori – in spite of his painful retirement in Madrid and slightly limp last match in New York – Dimitrov and Raonic (Dimitrov making the QFs in Australia and SFs in Wimbledon, Raonic also making Wimbledon SFs and winning the US Open Series over the summer), made their first genuine threats to the top. And Cilic’s comments after both his victory and his SF upset of Federer demonstrate the presence of new, positive mentalities in the locker room, perhaps of a perception that the other players who are, in fact, among the top 50 practitioners of their craft worldwide, do have the capacity and opportunity to challenge the legends of their time.

However, the crucial idea is that they can challenge these players for the titles. The Big Four are not done yet. Fifty percent of this year’s Slams have been won by players ranked from 5-15, rather than 1-4, but 5 of the 7 Masters 1000 titles yet played have been taken by the supposed Old Guard. Even at the Majors, of the 8 GS final berths available in the course of a year, 5 were still claimed by Federer, Nadal and Djokovic. Those brought to tennis by the excitement of the present era, who cling blindly to certain players and who dread their retirement as an impending oblivion, need not tear their hair out yet. Who knows, perhaps a transition period, with the presence of new faces in the final stages of tennis’ major tournaments, will afford us the opportunities to find new favourites. As for me, I’m hoping for Djokovic to win in Australia in 2015, Rafa to make it 10 at Roland Garros, Fed to finally clinch #18 at Wimbledon, and Murray to reclaim his US Open title. They can all retire after that.