The Scot has been out for a year but Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic remain the players to beatThe tennis jungle Andy Murray is preparing to re-enter – possibly next week at Queen’s Club – will not be noticeably different to the one from which he hobbled away a year ago.Roger Federer will be easing back into shape at Halle, having again chosen to skip the clay to save his 36-year-old legs for the grass of the All England Club he finds so suited to his game. Novak Djokovic – despite an uncharacteristically short-tempered exit from Roland Garros, mumbling about uncertainty over his future – will be desperate to get his career back on track where he has...
Former world No 1’s latest French Open win suggests he is in comparable shape to Alexander Zverev and Grigor DimitrovOn a day of rapidly swirling weather and fortunes, Novak Djokovic emerged from a second perfunctory win against a qualifier to stay in the conversation about who is good enough to stop Rafael Nadal winning his 11th French Open. He could get to the quarter‑finals; once there, he might even find another gear or two, which was his trademark in his pomp.Certainly the former champion is in shape comparable to that of younger contenders in Alexander Zverev, who took five sets to defeat the world No 60 Dusan Lajovic, and Grigor Dimitrov, who survived a tempestuous battle over four hours and 19...
Laid low by a chronic elbow injury, the former world No1 must rebuild his game like Roger Federer to have hope of climbing back to the topFading in recollections of Roger Federer’s barely believable progress to his 20th major at the start of the year is a 35-shot rally in the fourth round of the Australian Open between the bristling Hyeon Chung and the genius who had flickeringly in the past consigned the Swiss to the margins of greatness, Novak Djokovic.It was the most memorable exchange of the season’s first slam, a confection of exquisite skill by the Serb and the 21-year-old South Korean prodigy, who would then snuff out the challenge of Tennys Sandgren but could do little to...
The world’s top five arrived at the 2017 Australian Open with realistic title aspirations. This year there is no guarantee they will even reach the starting lineIn the year since the five top‑ranked men’s players – Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Milos Raonic, Stan Wawrinka and Kei Nishikori – arrived in Melbourne with reasonable expectations of challenging for the first grand slam title of the season, the tennis world has been tumble-dried like a 20-foot wave.Djokovic – once so dominant at the Australian Open – fell in the second round, Murray and Nishikori reached the last 16, Raonic got to the quarter‑finals and only Wawrinka reached the semi-finals. More significantly in a wider context, though, not one of them made it...
With Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Roger Federer struggling with injuries, can the next generation, led by Dimitrov, Thiem and Zverev, finally step up?What to make of the state of men’s tennis? For the best part of a decade a quartet of hall‑of‑famers have transcended their sport by lifting it to hitherto untouched heights with their titanic struggle for supremacy while below them a host of challengers have strained to swell the numbers of the elite club known as the Big Four. Plenty have tried, most have failed. Some have offered flashes of impertinence but only Stan Wawrinka has provided a sustained threat to the established order. The entry requirements are gruelling. The top players ally astonishing skill with an...