It’s almost becoming a foregone conclusion that the ATP Rankings will determine which athletes have the greatest likelihood of capturing a grand slam title. Nobody ranked outside of the top 8 has reached the semi-finals of any grand slam tournament throughout the previous few years. To add, the last ten years of professional tennis has borne witness to a mere three players outside of the top four rankings managing to win a grand slam tournament.
In recent times the names of Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic have dominated the men’s tennis scene; more recently, Djokovic has looked almost unstoppable in his quest to become the greatest ever. But is this factor becoming an annoyance for die-hard fans of the sport, or is it simply a reflection of elitism in Djokovic’s game?
I know one group of sports fans who aren’t complaining, and that’s the sports betting community of Illinois. Illinois sports betting has become simplistic in the tennis market without much emotion involved, especially when placing future wagers on a competition involving Djokovic.
Because Illinois hasn’t boasted a successful tennis star since Jimmy Connors in the 1970’s/80’s, sports handicappers making profits from grand slam predictions are finding their job of positive returns on investment a simple task without a home-grown star to root for. However, I can understand the frustration in watching the Croatian Djokovic clean sweep the opposition for the rest of the world, mainly Europe.
When attempting to find a sport where the championship winners are almost guaranteed, you will struggle to make comparisons. American sports are a great example, where football’s preseason top rankings rarely determine the eventual Super Bowl winner; the same can be said for professional basketball and baseball leagues.
Golf is presumably the most comparable to tennis’s expected dominance, with three new winners of their previous four majors. However, even still, nothing can trump the repeat outcomes of tennis, where the top-four ranked are usually the ones to watch.
Do these results echo a sport that generates the world’s best athletes? I don’t believe so, as the additional benefits of becoming a top-ranked player can dramatically assist in keeping them there. Tennis advertises a ranking system that is extremely biased to the top-ranked players. This system safeguards the best players from competing against one another until the tournament’s later stages. Such privileges also involve the top professionals playing on the best courts and at the most convenient times.
Top-ranked players’ advantages, as mentioned above, are seemingly detrimental to the evolution of the sport, more so than a positive. It would be difficult to expand a fan base when we witness the same final encounters repeatedly. If you’re a spontaneous viewer or a casual fan of the sport, good luck in growing interest in the sport’s prospects and those outside of the top-20 rankings. These players will rarely reach the later rounds or even grace the most prominent courts, with upsets in the sport of tennis becoming a thing of the past.
Tennis will ultimately suffer a downtrend in viewership for its naivety in propelling a new generation of fans. Imagine a grand slam final with players ranked outside of the top-10 taking part; the buzz alone would capture the hearts of a new breed in tennis fandom. The uninteresting, glaring component of tennis isn’t the sport itself but the element of influence the top-ranking players impose on each and every finals event.
Despite all of this, tennis remains one of the most popular sports on the planet. And although Djokovic remains as the king at the age of 34, we shouldn’t expect him to conquer the rankings continuously. The current top-10 ATP rankings show Daniil Medvedev, Alexander Zverev, Stefanos Sissipas, Andrey Rublev, Matteo Berrettini, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Jannik Sinner and Casper Rudd usher in youthful competitiveness that could alter the sports current course of repetitiveness. And let’s face the facts, tennis hasn’t always been this predictable; perhaps Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer are a once in a lifetime generation that won’t be replicated.