The Changing Face of Men's Tennis Or Not?

There are certainly signs of change now in the men's game. Roger Federer has slipped out of the top four in recent weeks and now we are seeing the next generation perhaps beginning to make their mark. We saw Janowicz reach the semi-finals at Wimbledon and Milos Raonic has now entered the top ten for the first time in his career and will take on Rafa Nadal later today in the final of the Montreal Masters. Also waiting in the wings, on the brink of breaking into the top ten is Kei Nishikori whilst (if he isn't careful) Jo Wilifried Tsonga could drop out of the top ten in the coming weeks.

Are these 'changes' just minor skirmishes though or the beginning of something big for the next generation?

We have been waiting so long for the next generation that many of them will be too old to be considered part of the next generation by the time they make their mark  

The change this year is Roger Federer taking a big step down and being consistently more vulnerable to guys outside the top 10.

Otherwise, the status quo remains unchanged, in fact it seems that it might be a second period of Rafa dominance!

The next generation are really not much cop - I think we have to wait for the bunch of guys after this 20-22 generation to challenge the top three (hopefully!)

I'd say that on current evidence, yes, there is a strong possibility that we are about to see a sustained period of Rafa dominance as per tp's assessment. His post-injury resurgence has been way more impressive than anyone predicted, with his Wimbledon exit the only major blemish in what is already an outstanding year. You have to go way back to 2005 for a season when he picked up more titles.

The only unknown quantity now is how he will fare over Bo5 in the two weeks of a HC Slam ; but Djokovic and Murray apart, it's getting harder to think of any serious threats. Djokovic will have to cut his DF + UE tally at the USO, although in fairness his overall game was looking extremely sharp until that Montreal SF. Murray did beat Rafa in their last meeting but that was almost 2 years ago. On the one hand it was Murray's first win in 6 BUT it was also prior to his Slam achievements (and resultant confidence boost), so all in all doesn't give much of a clue as to future outcomes.

I'm a firm believer in the the rankings system and Djokovic justifiably retains his Number One status on merit of past achievements. But should Rafa manage to overtake him by year-end then it would be confirmation that he has been the player of 2013 and is once again the hunted rather than the hunter.

lags72 wrote:
I'm a firm believer in the the rankings system and Djokovic justifiably retains his Number One status on merit of past achievements. But should Rafa manage to overtake him by year-end then it would be confirmation that he has been the player of 2013 and is once again the hunted rather than the hunter.

Without a doubt player of the year 2013 so far is Rafa, Rafa leads Djoko by close to 1500 points in the Race and that too skipping a GS and losing another one in the 1st round, had he made finals in one of them he would have had year end no.1 by his grasp by the mid of the season.   

Unlike 2012, for me 2013 has been a bit boring, the only positive is Andy Murray's resurrgence, while Rafa proved invincible on most tournament since his return the other top 4 have been highly inconsistent, to start with Djoko had so many losses to big underdogs and was competed only by Federer in this regard, even Ferrer is losing a lot of matches these days, no idea whether its due to next gen stepping up or the old war dogs finally giving it up, certainly looks the case in Federer.

Yes it looks like change of guard at Men's tennis but thats mostly due to top guns being inconsistent than youngsters stepping up, Del Po and Gulbis are the two underdogs that stepped up this year and neither of them are young.