The State of Men’s Tennis and What to Expect in 2019

The State of Men’s Tennis and What to Expect in 2019

31 Dec 2018
Charles Friesen

Will Djokovic continue to dominate?  Will Federer and Nadal win more slam titles?  Will Sascha Zverev ever win a slam?  Can Murray and Wawrinka come back?  These are the questions burning my tennis lobe.

2018 saw the surprising resurrection of Novak Djokovic.  In 2017, Wawrinka, Murray, and Djokovic largely disappeared, paving the way for Federer and Nadal to regain control of the biggest trophies and rankings. It appeared the same would happen in 2018 when Nadal and Federer claimed the first two slams of the year.  As the French Open began at the end of May, Djokovic was just 10-7 (W-L) in matches for the year.  So who could expect he would go 43-5 for the rest of the year, winning Wimbledon and the US Open?  He also completed a precedent-setting Masters 9000.  With his victory in Cincinnati over Federer, Djokovic has now won all nine Masters 1000 titles.  Ivan Lendl made a similar accomplishment in the Grand Prix era, before 1990, but Djokovic is the first since the tournaments achieved the prominence they have now.

There appears little reason to question Djokovic’s pre-eminence… except that he was beaten by Next Gen players in the final two tournaments of the year:  Khachanov in Paris, and Zverev in London at the World Tour Finals.  His immediately previous loss was also to a Next Gen player, Tsitsipas in Toronto.  The message is clear, the next generation is looming.  Will the fourteen-year freeze the Big Four has held on the top two ranking spots finally end in 2019?  I believe it will.  …

Recap of 2018

Federer began the year like 2017, with a victory at the Australian Open.  It took him to a total of 20 slam singles titles.  He then won Rotterdam and appeared to be on-script by reaching the Indian Wells final.  But unlike 2017, he did not claim it but lost to Del Potro, who, remarkably claimed his first 1000 point title.  Two weeks later, John Isner claimed his first 1000, in Miami with another surprise victory, this time over Zverev.

Predictably, Nadal surfaced for the clay season and claimed four of the big five European clay tournaments in spring, taking Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Rome, and Roland Garros.  Incredibly, it was the ninth time Nadal has won four of the five in the same year.  It’s only been done two other times, by Ilie Nastase in 1973 and Thomas Muster in 1995.  The fifth tournament fell to Zverev in Madrid.  Even more remarkable was the fact that it was Nadal’s 11^th French Open.  This is a men’s record for victories at a single slam, and ties Margaret Court’s 11 Australian Opens.  His victim in the final, Dominic Thiem, justified his reputation as the second-best man on clay for the year.

Moving to grass, Federer beat Raonic at Stuttgart and moved into the final of Halle, looking poised to claim his 99^th career title.  There was speculation he would complete the century at Wimbledon.  But Borna Coric beat Federer in Halle in what turned out to be a career-best year (so far) for the Croat.  At Wimbledon, Kevin Anderson beat Federer in the quarter-finals, 15-13 in the fifth set.  In the semis Anderson played Isner and needed 26-24 to win.  This useless rock-hurling prompted Wimbledon to institute a match-deciding seven-point tie-break in deciding sets that reach 12-12.  When the Australian Open later announced it would use a ten-point tie-break in deciding sets that reached 6-6, it left only Roland Garros with deciding, unregulated, advantage sets.

Anderson seemed burned out by his two long matches and Djokovic rolled to his 13^th slam victory in the Wimbledon final.  Nadal had his best result at Wimbledon in seven years, making the semi-finals.    He narrowly lost to Djokovic 10-8 in the fifth, in one of the year’s best matches. 

Nadal’s great form continued when he took the Canadian Open in Toronto, and then made the semis at the US Open.  All told, Nadal had only four losses during the year, two of which were retirements at slams.  He claimed five titles playing only nine tournaments, and racked up a tour-leading match-winning ratio of 45-4 or 11.25.

	Match wins	Losses	Match win ratio
AZverev	58	19	3.05
Thiem	54	20	2.70
Djokovic	53	12	4.42
Federer	48	10	4.80
Del Potro	47	13	3.62
KAnderson	47	19	2.47
Khachanov	46	22	2.09
Fognini	46	22	2.09
Tsitsipas	46	29	1.59
Nadal	45	4	11.25

Stefanos Tsitsipas made waves at the Canadian by beating Thiem, Djokovic, Zverev, and Anderson (all in the top 10) to make the final against Nadal.  The 20-year old Tsitispas finishes at a career-high #15 for the year.

Djokovic then achieved the career Masters 9000 by beating Federer in the final of Cincinnati and swept to a third US Open title, tying him with Sampras at 14 on the all-time major list.  Some argue that the so-called Pro Majors (1927-67) and the ITF majors (1912-23) should be included in tallies of major titles along with slams in the amateur era (1877-1967).  If so, Djokovic is in a four-way tie for fifth place.

	Major titles	ITF-Amateur-Pro-Open
Rosewall	23	0-4-15-4
Federer	20	0-0-0-20
Laver	19	0-6-8-5
Nadal	17	0-0-0-17
Tilden	14	1-10-3-0
Gonzales	14	0-2-12-0
Sampras	14	0-0-0-14
Djokovic	14	0-0-0-14

While I applaud the effort to include past generations, I wonder if time at yearend #1 or in the top 10 isn’t a better metric of past greatness since many of the past ‘majors’ were of dubious quality.

Regardless, Djokovic has equalled Sampras open-era tally of 14 slams and Federer’s number of yearend #1’s at five.  He says he is motivated to catch Federer’s slam record at 20.  If so, it will require several years of intense focus to overtake the man six years his senior.

Juan Martin Del Potro made his second trip to the final of the US Open, but looked helpless against Djokovic.  He equalled his career best yearend finish at #5, achieved in 2009 and 2013.  Djokovic picked up his fourth Shanghai 1000 title and Federer his ninth Basel title.  Federer has made the final there the last 12 times he has played it.  Djokovic falls one behind Nadal in the 1000 title derby.

	1000 titles (since 1970)	1000 matches won (since 1970)
Nadal	33	362
Djokovic	32	332
Federer	27	364
Lendl	22	221
McEnroe	19	195
Connors	17	268
Agassi	17	251
Borg	15	131
Murray	14	212

Grand Prix Super Series from 1970 on are included

At the Paris Masters, Djokovic overcame Federer in a fine semi-final that ended in a third-set tie-break.  Novak appeared set to add to his title haul, but was stone-walled in two close sets by Karen Khachanov’s power tennis.  Khachanov impressively beat in succession Isner, Zverev, Thiem, and Djokovic, all in the top 10, to claim his first 1000 title.  He’ll be one to watch in 2019 and finishes at #11 for 2018.

The surprises continued when Zverev waxed Federer and Djokovic in succession, both in straight sets, to claim the Tour Finals in London.  Most impressive perhaps was the way he both over-powered and out-steadied Djokovic in the final.  If he can somehow capture this form at a slam, he should be able to annex a major title. 

In the final act of the year, Cilic led Croatia to a Davis Cup title over France.  The format is set to change to a multi-nation one week tournament at the end of 2019.  At the same time the ATP announced the inaugural ATP Cup at the beginning of 2020 – a multi-nation one week tournament.  Combine that with Federer’s invention the Laver Cup, now in its second year, and one can’t help but wonder which team event is going to predominate in the future.

Rankings

The ATP rankings look perfectly reasonable to me this year and so I accept them as my own.  New to the yearend top 10 are Anderson and Isner.

	2018 top 10	(2017 rank)
1	Djokovic	12
2	Nadal	1
3	Federer	2
4	AZverev	4
5	Del Potro	11
6	KAnderson	14
7	Cilic	6
8	Thiem	5
9	Nishikori	22
10	Isner	17

This is one of the oldest and tallest top 10’s of all time with five players at least 6’6” in height and seven players over age 30.  If it doesn’t look new and dynamic, then look no further than the players ranked 11-20.   The second ten has seven players at career highs and five of the first six (11-16) are age 23 or younger, including Khachanov, Coric, Edmund, Tsitsipas, and Medvedev.  Not far behind are two nineteen year-olds, Denis Shapovalov and Alex de Minaur.

What to expect in 2019

With Nadal playing only nine tournaments for the year, Federer looking shaky in big moments, and Djokovic racking up three losses to the Next Gen, is it possible the guard at the top of the game could finally be changing?  Despite these apparent defects, it’s worth noting that the top three ranking spots are still occupied by those familiar names of Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer. 

However I expect to see a thawing in 2019.  The victories of Khachanov and Zverev at the year’s last two tournaments looked ominous.  On display was consistent power tennis for which the proven stars had no answer.  Throw into the mix the new-found determination of Tsitsipas, Coric, Medvedev, and de Minaur, and change starts to look inevitable. 

It’s probable that the Big Three (or possibly Four) will continue to claim some titles, but I expect they will be sharing more of those with the younger generation in 2019 than they ever have before.  Where the Next Gen has faltered is on the slam stage, and that is the crucible that must be overcome.

Zverev has to be considered the most likely to jump this hurdle.  With four titles already at the 1000 level or higher he is only the second man in the Big Four era (since 2008) to claim as many as four big titles.  The other was Stan Wawrinka, who won three slams. 

Zverev’s achievement of two yearend top-four rankings by age 21 is unprecedented among non-slam winners.  The only other open-era men who have achieved this are Djokovic, Nadal, Hewitt, Agassi, Becker, Wilander, McEnroe, and Borg, all of whom are multi-slam winning, yearend #1’s.  It would be shocking if Zverev did not fulfill this promise of his talent.  And like a pot about to boil, I expect he will not wait much longer.  Twenty-two is a typical age for break-through’s in men’s tennis and with Lendl added to his coaching corner, I expect significant progress in 2019.

After Zverev, the victories of Khachanov in Paris and Tsisipas’s three finals in 2018 (four if the Next Gen Finals are counted) put them at the top of the conversation.  Khachanov is already 22 and his time is now.  He’s big, he’s strong, he’s ready.  Tsitsipas, de Minaur, and Shapovalov should gain some ground this year, but they’re still young enough that their peaks could be a few years away.  Tsitsipas has size on his side (6’4”) and with a little more discipline in his game could be very formidable in the coming year. 

Shapovalov led the tour in doubles faults this year, by a significant margin.  He was an admirable 15^th in aces for the year, but a woeful first in doubles with 347.  There seems little reason he shouldn’t be able to continue to produce aces on his first serve, while learning to shore up his second delivery with a little more margin.  He will need to learn that sort of discipline to take him to the next level.

Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer will be almost equal favourites for the Australian Open.  Djokovic because of his recent slam-winning form, Nadal because he is healthy and his record off-clay in 2018 was an exceptional 19-3, and Federer because he is the two-time defending champion and will be rested.  We shall see if Zverev and Khachanov have anything to say about that, not to mention Cilic, Anderson, and Nishikori.  However this group may more likely start to make themselves heard during the spring hard court season.

At the French, Nadal will again be the favourite but could be pushed by Thiem who has beaten him three times on clay, or Zverev who has two 1000’s on clay and took a 6-1 set from Nadal in the Rome final.  And then there’s Djokovic who has seven victories over Nadal on clay.  Still, Nadal will be the favourite.

Wimbledon is where things could start to get interesting.  It’s probably Federer’s best last chance at another slam, but both Djokovic and Nadal looked formidable there in 2018.  It should also favour the likes of Cilic, Anderson, Isner, Khachanov, Zverev, and the host of big, power-hitters on the tour.

The summer and fall hard court seasons look pretty wide open to me.  Young, middle, and old could all rise to the fore, and it may be the most likely time for the Next Gen to break through.  Based on past history, Djokovic deserves an edge for this season, followed closely by Nadal.

At the end of the day, we could find the same three names at the top of the charts in 2019 as we do now.  However, I expect there will be some insertions, and at the very least, I expect some of the young names in the 11-20 range to venture into the top 10, if not the top 3, in the coming year.

Here’s my predicted top 10 for 2019:

Yearend rank	2019
1	Djokovic
2	Zverev
3	Nadal
4	Federer
5	Khachanov
6	Del Potro
7	Cilic
8	Tsitsipas
9	Nishikori
10	Thiem

Looking to the up and comers, one way I like to gauge the rising talent is to look at those ranked highest for their age.  I start with #1 Djokovic.  The first player in the rankings younger than him is Zverev at #4.  After Zverev, the next player younger than Zverev is Tsitsipas at #15.  The next younger player is Shapovalov at #27.  In fact it only requires eight players to get through the top 1000 players:  Djokovic – Zverev – Tsitsipas – Shapovalov – Auger-Aliassime – Molleker – Tseng – Draper.  These are the highest ranked players for their age.

Jack Draper is British and the youngest player in the top 1000 at #561 and 17.0 years old.  He won three Futures events in the last third of the year and his future looks bright.  Next up is Chun Hsin Tseng, who is from Taipei, 17.3 years old, ranked #486, and shares Federer’s birthday of Aug 8.  Tseng also won three futures events in 2018.

Rudolf Molleker is 18.1, German, and ranked #207.  He won a Challenger event in 2018, a whole level up from Futures events.  Lastly we have Felix Auger-Aliassime, a Canadian age 18.3, ranked #108, who has won four Challenger tournaments and has six match wins on the main tour.  Coincidentally, he also shares a birthday with Federer.  All these players will bear watching in 2019.

As to the fate of the injured like Murray and Wawrinka.  Much as I would dearly like to see them arise triumphant, it is likely to be a slow road back.  I’m slightly more optimistic for Murray than Wawrinka, but that is probably just bias.