By UB Acharya
Now that the last tournament of the year is over, it has become customary for me to review the results of important tournaments as well as the performances of the main players. As most tennis fans know, in addition to four Grand Slam events and the year-end ATP Finals, there are nine Masters 1000 events. Additionally, there are more than 50 ATP 500 and ATP 250 events around the world entire, a total of 68 ATP tournaments.
Of the four Grand Slam events, the first two – the Australian Open and the French Open – were won by 36-year-old Novak Djokovic. By winning Roland-Garros, he set two new world records. The first was that he surpassed Rafael Nadal, who has won 22 major titles. The second record is that he is the only player to have won all four Grand Slam events at least three times!
The Wimbledon final pitted two seeds against each other, namely Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz. The match went to five sets ultimately won by Alcaraz. This match has been compared to two previous epic Wimbledon finals, namely Bjorn Borg vs John McEnroe in 1981 and Djokovic vs Roger Federer in 2019.
The final Grand Slam event of the year, the US Open, took place at the Arthur Ashe Stadium, Billie Jean King Arena in New York. Even though experts predicted a Wimbledon finalists rematch, it was between Daniil Medvedev and Djokovic, a rematch from the US Open 2021. However, this time it was Djokovic who won the match in straight sets. Unfortunately, the score does not reflect the competitiveness of the match as it was truly a close match.
Among the nine Masters 1000 tournaments, Djokovic, Alcaraz and Medvedev have won two each, and one each by Andrey Rublev, Jannick Sinner and Hubert Hurkacz. And the prestigious ATP final at the end of the year was won by Djokovic, a record seventh time. Thus, during the year he created three new records and extended three of his own previous records.
Special mention must be made here to our own Rohan Bopanna, 43, who found himself deep in the draw (finals or semi-finals) in many important doubles tournaments this year.
Although I have touched on the subject of the GOAT, this topic does not seem to die down among “FEDAL” fans and experts (i.e. Federer and Nadal). Until a year ago, they proclaimed that performance was the only criterion but now that Djokovic has broken all records, they say that the numbers don’t matter but that it’s the impact of a player on the world. tennis as a whole or its style of play or its popularity. player should be the criterion. As this is purely subjective, I will leave this question to the readers’ best judgment.
I would now like to address a delicate subject: the earnings of tennis players. It is well known that a few top players not only earn millions of dollars in prize money, but also earn several times more in sponsorship. For example, in 2022, Federer, after playing only two matches, earned a whopping $90 million in sponsorship and appearance fees!
While the top 20 players have decent incomes, further down the rankings the income drops exponentially and it’s really difficult. India’s top-ranked singles player, Sumit Nagal, who currently sits at No. 156 in the ATP rankings, ran out of money this summer and the AITA and Tatas had to bail him out. A good pair of tennis shoes costs Rs. 12,000 and a tennis racket costs Rs. 30,000. Taking into account the plight of lower-ranked players, the new Association of Professional Tennis Players led by Djokovic has appealed to the ATP and ITF to increase prize money for Challengers and Features tournaments. Since there is not much enthusiasm among the other top-ranked players, the lower-ranked players have to depend on either their own country’s tennis association or a benevolent industrialist.
Now let’s look at the outlook for tennis next year. The good news is that Rafael Nadal has promised to return after his operation and recovery. Since his ranking has dropped below 300, he should work hard to win another major title. Although it is difficult, in his case, it is not impossible. Meanwhile, Djokovic said he would continue to compete as long as he had a chance to win Majors. Players in the 24-28 age group like Medvedev, Tsitsipas, Zverev, Hurkacz, Rublev and Sebastian Korda could still win a Major or two. However, my hopes rest on youngsters like Alcaraz, Sinner, Holger Rune and new find Ben Shelton to give the old guys a run for their money.
Recently, a new outdoor game called pickleball (a combination of table tennis and tennis) has become widespread among middle-aged citizens of the United States, which may have a negative impact on spectator numbers during tennis tournaments. However, the attendance (number of spectators) during the US Open for two weeks was almost 9,60,000, the maximum ever recorded. This shows that tennis will still prosper for a few more years.
