The near-total domination of men’s tennis by Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic for close to two decades has had two unfortunate fallouts.
Multiple generations of accomplished players, from Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to Tomas Berdych to David Ferrer to Kei Nishikori to Kevin Anderson, have all been judged against immeasurably high standards before being deemed inadequate and also-rans.
Even those who won Grand Slam tournaments, like Andy Murray, Stan Wawrinka, Marin Cilic and Juan Martin Del Potro, have been given the short shrift, for they didn’t reach double-digit figures, and only grudgingly been admitted into the sport’s elite.
