Anarchy of Tennis Professionals

Well, that escalated quickly.

I've sensed this quiet disturbance in the men's tennis force earlier this year. There have been patches of the 2014 season that made you question, is this the year the ATP gives us something new? Even though 'something new' came very quickly with Stan Wawrinka bagging the Australian Open title unexpectedly, it was a common exercise to point to Rafael Nadal's untimely back injury as the reason Stan won. Still, there were little sprinklings of evidence signaling the arrival of new blood and the weakening stranglehold the Big Four had on the rest of the tour.

Tele-Kei-nesis

Funnily enough, it starts with Rafa's Australian Open campaign, where he was subtly pushed by Kei Nishikori and Grigor Dimitrov in consecutive rounds. In both of those matches, Rafa couldn't fall back on his B-game to get him through. It made me think that maybe, just maybe, the Next Generation was ready to start making some noise. Maybe the oft-overlooked B-Squad was about to come out of the shadows.

As the season moved forward, the results slowly became more conspicuous. In February, Grigor outlasted Andy in Acapulco when, in the years prior, "Grigor" and "outlast" didn't belong in the same sentence. Milos Raonic turned himself into a ubiquitous presence in the quarterfinals of Masters 1000 tournaments. Kei stunned Roger Federer in Miami and was blitzing Rafa on Madrid clay before coming up lame with a back injury that forced him to retire in the final. Roger lost what looked like sure titles in Monte Carlo and Toronto to Stan and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Even 19 year-old Nick Kyrgios got in on the action with his takedown of Nadal at Wimbledon.

The men's locker room was buzzing about Stan opening doors for them and their increased belief. The impossible was proved to be possible. This U.S. Open is an even bigger feather in the Belief Cap. With just one round to go before the 36th thrilling installment of Fedole, Marin Cilic routined Roger and Kei played the role of Iron Man, having enough willpower to stand the humidity and Novak Djokovic after beating Milos and Stan in two physically, and mentally, draining five-setters. Not since the 2005 Australian Open have we had both Slam finalists come from outside of the Big Four. Either Cilic or Nishikori will become the second first-time Slam winner on the ATP this season. The last year there were multiple first-time winners was 2003.

WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN? In 2003, Agassi won his last Slam in Melbourne before Juan Carlos Ferrero, Roger Federer, and Andy Roddick cleaned up the rest, beginning their own periods at the top of the game. 2003 can definitively be classified as a year of upheaval, harbinger of the Fed Era that we are still trying to wade through. Is 2014 the signal of another instantaneous shuffle at the top?

A large fact refuting this new regime is the current cream of the rankings crop compared to that of 2003. A-Rod, Fed, and JCF were the tour's Top 3 back then, a complete changing of the guard. The Top 3 now are Novak, Rafa, and Roger, and they will likely remain in their positions by season's end. The Big 3 still reign in that department. It also doesn't help that two of those three are holding Slam trophies, with the other having made a final and two additional semis.

So there is something strong in the air this year, but expect the same names to still be very relevant in the big picture of 2015 just with these new names in the mix on Sundays. The ATP is still very much the Big Four's world and they will still stand on the majority of podiums, but, as 2014 has shown, nothing lasts forever. It's about time we start to accept the idea of other champions in this sport. One will be forced upon us tonight. Nishikori in four.

What are your thoughts? Is this the first page of "The End of the Big Four" novel? Or is this a fluke? Leave a comment!

WTA Sidebar: you are ridiculous, Serena Williams. Congratulations on 18. And commiserations to Caroline. So glad to see her back near the top where she belong.

(Image from stevegtennis.com)

Time After Time

Hey tennis fans!

We are less than 48 hours into 2013, yet there is so much to talk about! Granted, the season officially began on December 30th, 2012, but we'll just wait for the organizers of Brisbane and Shenzhen to figure that out...

The top Frenchmen on the ATP circuit are known for their flair and style, but a great deal of that pizazz comes from Gael Monfils. His on-court dramatics were missed by fans and non-fans alike, so it's great to see him back and doing well at the Qatar Open after rumors surfaced last month of him calling it a career. Even greater is this exchange with the chair umpire after a time violation warning during what would be an encouraging three-set triumph over third-seeded Phillipp Kohlschreiber:

So unfair.

Let me first say this: I feel his pain. I could be standing still on a lukewarm day and I'm sweating. Not a good look. More implicative of the tour's direction, he wasn't the first to be issued a time violation warning in Doha. David Ferrer was given notice about stricter clock-watching before his first-round match and Feliciano Lopez was called for a time violation while facing triple-set point! Crazy. Still, it's hard to feel bad for a guy who looks like this, even with something splayed across his face:



Ferrer tweeted en Español in defense of his fellow countrymen, and while I agree that that particular call on Lopez was too harsh and at such an inopportune time, we need to see more of this on the ATP. These matches are just too long, especially at the Grand Slam level. Almost exactly one year ago, my favorite player of the last 5.5 years defeated his primary rival in one of the most epic matches in history, but I would never want to see it in its entirety again. Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal are the two biggest time violators in tennis history, but they hardly ever get called out for wasting precious seconds ball-bouncing and tugging out wedgies! I'm still angry at them for waking me at 3AM and keeping me up until 10:30...

So I say "yea" to stricter timekeeping. It'll move along matches and promote tennis as a sport that the casual fan would want to check out every now and again. Plus, it'll help all of us rabid fanatics who are oceans away have enough energy to sit through the occasional red-eye match. Call it the Rafaole Ruling.

What say you? Agree with the impending harshness of the umps this season? Jealous of Feli's bod? Leave a comment and let's discuss. Unlike these tennis players, we've got all day.