It’s hard to pinpoint the precise moment when an empire starts crumbling. It happens slowly, then suddenly. You could argue that it’s imperceptible, but the signs are always there — the ageing of a ruler, internal conflicts in the manor, or the unchecked power of a new rival. But these signs were evident only in retrospect, once the disintegration was complete. The Centre Court in London is familiar with such a rise and fall of empires. Roger Federer built a figurative mansion here, winning the Wimbledon title on eight occasions and was mere inches away from claiming his ninth in 2019, when his nemesis Novak Djokovic handed him perhaps the deadliest blow of his career.  

On Sunday, 16 July, at the same venue, Djokovic (at 36), was almost certain of claiming his eighth championship. In his way stood the stormy figure of Carlos Alcaraz, who just turned 20 this May. The Djoker tried hard to hold his ground, fighting till the last moment as he always does, but still fell short of winning what could have been his third successive major of the year. In doing so, tennis’ latest young hotshot also ended Djokovic’s unbeaten streak at the Centre Court, which had lasted well beyond a decade.  

Alcaraz also became the first man outside of the ‘Big Three’ and Andy Murray to win a men’s singles title at Wimbledon since 2002. In simpler terms, three men alone — Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer — account for 17 of the last 20 Wimbledon championship titles. When Djokovic lost the game against Alcaraz, it was tempting to see this as a crucial passing-of-the-torch event. For a long time, men’s tennis has languished in an existential crisis, with the old guard getting older and the next generation showing flashes of promise before disappearing into a cesspool of mediocrity. There was no stability in the circuit, as the game continued its seemingly futile search for their poster boy in the post-Big-Three era. While the young generations had their moments of glory here and there, the gulf in quality always became apparent in the best-of-five format.  

Djokovic, 36, started the year with two consecutive grand slams; Nadal did the same last year. Federer, the oldest of the Big Three, bid adieu to the game a while ago, but not without giving a fair share of problems to the younger generation. ‘Young legs beat old legs’ might hold true for most sports, even for tennis, but not when it came to these men. The story of their surreal dominance is the story of their adaptability to different conditions and different opponents through the years. 

When Pete Sampras retired with 14 grand slam titles, tennis reached a quiet consensus that anyone who broke his record — which seemed Herculean at that point — would inherit the label of greatness. Federer was the first to achieve it; not content by merely breaking the record, he obliterated it in a ruthless fashion, racing away to 20 grand slams. Sampras may have set the bar high, but Federer uplifted it to the stratosphere, only to see his fiercest rivals raising it even further to the seventh sky.  

While the individual records might be surpassed someday, the fact that three players from the same generation completed a minimum of 20 grand slams each makes this the most decorated era of men’s tennis history. And safe to say, we’ve already entered the final episode of this glorious era. Nadal is next in line to pull down the curtains on his career. He won his 22nd major at Roland Garros last year and has been a sporadic presence on the court since then. In the only grand slam that he played this year — the Australian Open — Nadal lost to Mackenzie McDonald in straight sets in the second round. He missed the entirety of the clay and grass swings and is set to miss the US Open too. It shouldn’t come as a surprise if Nadal decides that next year’s French Open will be his farewell tournament.  

Djokovic, meanwhile, still seems to have at least a couple of years before he enters the twilight of his career. The seeds of new rivalries that were sown in the Wimbledon final might inspire him to stay longer, because if there’s one thing that Djokovic relishes the most, it is problem-solving on court; and Alcaraz did come across as an enigmatic puzzle. No doubt the Serb would like to find a genuine answer to questions posed by the young and charismatic Spaniard.  

“I haven’t played a player like him ever, to be honest,” Djokovic said after losing to Alcaraz. “I think people have been talking in the past 12 months or so about [Alcaraz’s] game consisting of certain elements from Roger, Rafa, and myself.” If Alcaraz lives up to expectations, wouldn’t it be poetic that it took a player modelled after the best elements of Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic to usher tennis into a new dawn? We certainly think so.