It was as if Michael Jordan left the NBA, and Kobe Bryant and LeBron James joined the next season. The breakup of the Big Three started four years ago with the retirement of Roger Federer. Yet, men’s tennis hardly missed a beat. At the 2022 U.S. Open, a Spanish teenager, Carlos Alcaraz, took the title. The next year, Novak Djokovic, deep into his 30s, picked up his 24th major. Then Jannik Sinner got on the board in New York. And last year Alcaraz beat Sinner in the final. One generation departed, another arrived.
Maybe not so fast. This year has brought—if not the drop-off many predicted years ago—a strange and uneven season. Alcaraz is returning to action for the first time since April, but Sinner is out with a right knee injury. Jack Draper, Holger Rune and João Fonseca are also injured. So many top players—we’re looking at you, Alex de Minaur, and last year’s semifinalist Félix Auger-Aliassime, both top-eight seeds—hardly come to New York trailed by a caravan of momentum.
