Wimbledon: Hallowed grass awaits change of guard

A recent promotional poster released by Wimbledon has been a topic of debate. The illustration has 15 men and women players walking down the iconic stairs of the All England Club, a trickle of legends of the past and present led by Carlos Alcaraz, 20, and Jannik Sinner, 21, at the forefront.

Andy Murray termed the pecking order strange. Also strange is Murray not being a part of it himself. For, over the last two decades, Wimbledon has been a four-men clique in singles, with the “next generation of headline acts” — as Wimbledon captioned the poster in a tweet — having had little impact yet.

Since 2003, every men’s singles trophy of the grass-court Grand Slam has been won by either Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal or Murray. The Slam stranglehold of the Big Three isn’t unusual, you’d think, but such sweep is unparalleled even on a stage they largely own.

Wimbledon, which gave the world wild scenes of wildcard Goran Ivanisevic’s triumph in 2001, has been a tranquil trail of consistent champions since. From eight-time champion Federer winning five titles on the trot from 2003 to 2007, to Nadal (2008, 2010) and Murray (2013, 2016) winning a couple each in between, to four-time defending champion Djokovic going for his eighth in this edition starting Monday, the quartet has been unabatedly exclusive. To the extent that in the 10 editions from 2006 to 2015, they even fought the finals among themselves on all but two occasions.

There’s been at least a semblance of inclusivity in the other three Slams during the same period. Before Federer and then Djokovic could fully warm up to the summer Slam Down Under, the Australian Open gave Andre Agassi and Marat Safin their last major victories in 2003 and 2005, respectively. Before Nadal could script his sport-defining legacy on the clay courts of Paris, the French Open gave Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero and Argentine Gaston Gaudio their only Slam victories in 2003 and 2004, respectively. The season-ending US Open, often hosting battered bodies and exhausted minds and thereby a more open field, gave the likes of Andy Roddick (2003), Juan Martin del Potro (2009) and Marin Cilic (2014) their moments of glory.

Among the more recent faces, Stan Wawrinka has captured each of the other three Slams beating Big Three members, but not at Wimbledon. Dominic Thiem and Daniil Medvedev have triumphed in New York and made the finals in Paris and Melbourne, respectively, but not at Wimbledon. Alcaraz has showcased his greatness-promising glimpses across surfaces, but not at Wimbledon. Not yet, anyway.

None of these Slam winners have felt comfortable or delivered results on the grass swing which, to make things more challenging for the players, hardly runs for a month.

“For me, in terms of results, Wimbledon is my worst Grand Slam by a distance,” Thiem, the 2020 US Open winner, told Eurosport.

An increasing dearth of grass-court specialists on the Tour is another glaring factor behind the recent Wimbledon hegemony. A unique natural surface that requires diverse skill sets compared to clay and hard courts, the grass is greener for players possessing a big serve and a bigger heart for baseline-abandoning play.

Those traits have diminished in the modern game, and it’s no coincidence that the rare few players who still flaunt some of those skills have been unlikely finalists at Wimbledon of late: Nick Kyrgios (2022), Matteo Berrettini (2021), Kevin Anderson (2018), Milos Raonic (2016).

No one, though, has been able to get past the four Centre Court custodians of this century. It would, safe to say, take something extraordinary to breach it this year too, despite two of them not being around and Murray coming off competing (and winning) on second-rung Challenger grass events.

Record men’s Grand Slam holder Djokovic has not lost in 28 matches at Wimbledon. His challengers — on paper, they would be Stefanos Tsitsipas, Medvedev, Sinner — have not won a single warm-up tournament leading into this Wimbledon. That shifts the focus again on Alcaraz, Wimbledon’s newest poster boy (pun intended) and Queen’s champion of last week. The new world No 1 is the first Wimbledon top seed not named Federer, Djokovic, Nadal or Murray since 2003. Never mind the trophy, the top seeding has a new name, at last.