 |
| Carlos Alcaraz |
Alcaraz's rise is the one of the fastest in the open era: he climbed to Yokozuna in just 14 tournaments - or 3 1/2 years - since his grand slam debut at the 2021 Australian Open. To date, only Jim Courier’s ascent has been as fast. Alcaraz’s compatriot Rafael Nadal needed 20 tournaments (or 5 years) to become a Yokozuna, for example, Roger Federer 22 tournaments, Novak Djokovic 27 tournaments. Yokozuna is a rank for life, hence Alcaraz cannot be demoted. He can only be declared inactive if he fails to produce sufficiently strong results.
Alcaraz’s is also the first male Yokozuna promotion since Andy Murray's in 2016, which makes this the second longest gap between Yokozuna promotions in open era history (the longest has been almost 10 years between Agassi’s promotion at the 1995 Australian Open and Federer’s at the US Open in 2004). This just demonstrates how much the 'big four' - Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray - have held tennis in their grip in the past 20 years. Not only did they prevent anybody else to rise to the very top, they allowed also only five promotions to the second highest rank of Ozeki (=Champion) between 2003 and 2020: Juan Martin del Potro, Thomas Berdych, David Ferrer, Marin Cilic, and Stan Wawrinka.
Federer has retired, while Murray and Nadal are plagued by injuries and also seem close to ending their careers. Only Djokovic is still going strong - but in this Wimbledon final, he stood little chance against a younger, faster and stronger Alcaraz.
Since 2020, Ozeki rank has already become more accessible, with Dominique Thiem, Alexander Zverev, Stefanis Tsitsipas, Daniil Medvedev, Matteo Berrettini, Casper Ruud and Jannik Sinner earning Ozeki promotions in quick succession. Alcaraz is now the first ‘new gen’ Yokozuna - an unmistakable sign that the big four era has come to an end.
No comments:
Post a Comment