The new generation of elite men’s tennis players is a small, tight-knit group. With a pro tour that stretches from January through November, and from Melbourne to New York, Tokyo to Monte Carlo, they spend a lot of time together, shooting the shit in locker rooms, ice baths, and hotel restaurants—and in group chats that date back to their early teenage years. They talk about tennis, mostly. And lately, the conversations have revolved around a new line of speculation: Which one of them is up next? In other words, as the 25-year-old American rising star Frances Tiafoe put it to me recently, “Who’s going to be the guy out of our group to win a grand slam, and then continue to win grand slams and be at the top of the game?”
The crop of players in contention to be that guy has arrived like an answered prayer. For the better part of the past two decades, tennis was dominated by the so-called Big Three: Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, and Novak Djokovic. From 2004 to last year’s US Open, the trio won 62 out of 75 grand slams, the historic and moneyed quartet of tournaments that make or break legacies. But by the end of last year, Federer had retired, Nadal had begun to grapple with ever-more frequent injuries, and an unvaccinated Djokovic’s major appearances had become contingent on travel rules and restrictions.
Consequently, there’s something of a vacancy at the top of the sport—an opening for a superstar (or a few) to set himself apart, just as a dynamic mix of creative young players are coming into their own. To survey that new bevy of talent, GQ traveled last fall to the Paris Masters, one of the tour’s most prestigious tournaments outside the slams, where the game’s top players were vying for one of the last trophies of the year. Gathered in an athletic club in the city’s Left Bank on the eve of the event, seven of the draw’s hottest talents joked and gossiped and discussed the year their generation broke out—and what might be ahead. “2022 was one of the first years where I felt like, going into the really big tournaments, anyone could win,” Taylor Fritz, a 25-year-old baseliner from San Diego, told me. According to Tiafoe, the gap between the top players and the rest of the field has all but vanished. “It’s getting wild, man,” he said. “If you don’t come correct, you can get it from anybody.”
Tiafoe knows this better than anyone. At last year’s US Open, he had the misfortune of drawing a fourth-round match against Nadal. Going into their contest, Nadal, despite his injuries, was still undefeated in major matches in over a year, and he’d dusted Tiafoe in two previous meetings. Then Tiafoe, the son of a janitor at a tennis academy in Maryland, took the Spaniard down in four sets of furious shot making. “I never knew if I was going to beat one of those dudes,” Tiafoe said of the Big Three. Now, Nadal might be entertaining similar doubts. A few months after the Open, Tiafoe and compatriot Jack Sock vanquished Nadal and Federer in a match that sealed the Swiss legend’s retirement. Said Tiafoe, “I don’t believe in flukes.”
Fans of the Big Three might argue that seeing their favorite players destroy the competition since the beginning of the George W. Bush administration has been plenty exciting. But the ATP Tour and tournament organizers have recognized a need for new energy, as evidenced by the camera crews filming the emerging stars for Break Point, a Netflix series produced by the same company behind Drive to Survive, which transformed Formula 1 into a global phenomenon (Box to Box Films is also at work on a series inside the world of pro golf, see here). The young players certainly see an upside to letting Netflix into their lives: “Hopefully, it can do for tennis what it did for F1,” Fritz told me as a boom mic hovered a few feet above his head. Added Tiafoe, “How are we going to get younger fans to tune in? I think the game needs different faces and personalities to be shown.”
Casper Ruud, a 24-year-old Norwegian forehand specialist who reached two major finals last year, pondered how much tennis has changed of late. “When I was younger and looked up to the best players on tour, there was a period where there was no teenager inside [the top 100] in the world rankings,” he said. Now, there are two in the top 15, including Carlos Alcaraz, 19, the Spanish world number one, who downed Ruud in the final of last year’s US Open.
What some younger players occasionally lack in maturity—the ATP is considering whether to raise fines to curb a spate of on-court tantrums—they make up for in their speed and shot making. “Everyone is getting physically stronger and harder to play,” said Holger Rune, the second--most highly ranked teen, a week before he dispatched Djokovic with an ice-cold three-set comeback in the Paris Masters final. “We needed to get our asses kicked by them in order to learn and grow, and be much more complete in what we do,” said Stefanos Tsitsipas, a philosophical 24-year-old from Athens with Björn Borg hair who routinely dives for otherwise untouchable drop shots and volleys.
“You can’t just run around there and push it back,” said Ruud, who plays like a one-man highlight reel, bending physics with angled forehands that are often hard to fathom. “There are 20 to 30 guys [on tour] that can produce incredible winners at an incredible level.” Others have perfected tweeners and behind-the-back shots that rival the swaggiest NBA dunks, or brought back the surprise underhand serve—and even that tactical relic of the McEnroe years, the serve-and-volley. (If you thought aggressive net play was dead outside your local pickleball league, you haven’t watched these guys play.) According to Rune, who was born in 2003: “It’s like the old days.”
Heading into this year’s Australian Open, everyone would seem to be chasing Alcaraz, who’s been billed as the second coming of Nadal. But most guys see the race to the top as an open field. “I don’t see any of the new generation being as dominant,” said Matteo Berrettini, a 26-year-old hunk from Italy who roared into the 2021 Wimbledon final with his booming forehand and crushing serve. One factor might be how hungry these guys are for hardware, and how fiercely they’re training for it. In the Big Three era, high rankings were a coveted consolation prize for most players. “At first, I was that kid, like, I want to be number one in the world,” Tiafoe told me. “Now, I just want to win a slam.”
And with Federer having proved you can play into your 40s, some are making extra room in their trophy cases. “I feel the next generation will play as long as those guys are, if not more,” said Félix Auger-Aliassime, a polished 22-year-old from Canada who trains in Monaco and has a taste for high fashion. The night before, he’d won the Swiss Indoors, his third tournament victory in as many weeks.
Aware that a historic opportunity is finally here, Auger-Aliassime is pacing himself. “I’m in it for the long game, staying calm, and not getting too excited when things are happening right now,” he said. “I’m like, Okay, this is great, but I’m 22 and I’m going for a long career. This is just the beginning.”
Félix Auger-Aliassime
Nation: Canada
Age: 22
Don’t let his gentlemanly demeanor fool you. Auger-Aliassime has a reputation for ferocity on court, hitting the fuzz off every ball that comes his way. At the end of the 2022 season, he rode a streaky stretch to win three straight tournaments; he clinched the third, at the Swiss Indoors, without dropping a single service game, and fell to the baseline in exhausted bliss after opponent Holger Rune hit the final point long. Said the Canadian, “When I saw the ball go out, for a second I didn’t feel my legs under me. It’s tough to describe, but it’s a moment in time where you just don’t know where you are anymore. You lose yourself and you feel like you’re floating. Then, of course, you get up and shake hands. But those few seconds, when you see the ball go out, it’s special.”
Matteo Berrettini
Nation: Italy
Age: 26
Having gone to high school rather than a tennis academy, and having almost played college tennis in the States, Berrettini is considered one of the more well-adjusted players on tour. “Maybe I would have been a nice engineer,” he said, if he had ended up going to college as he once planned. Now, he’s a perennial major threat with a Wimbledon final appearance under his belt and a Hugo Boss modeling contract in hand. So, what’s more taxing: a five-set match, or a 12-hour Boss campaign shoot in the Dubai desert? “Five sets,” he said. “It’s the most stressful.”
Frances Tiafoe
Nation: USA
Age: 25
Some players melt under the bright lights of center court, especially during grand slams. Not Tiafoe, who provided one of the 2022 season’s most indelible highlights when he defeated Rafael Nadal in front of 23,000 fans in the US Open round of 16. “I’ve always loved high-stakes moments,” said Tiafoe. “I like being front and center.” The child of immigrants from Sierra Leone, Tiafoe grew up playing at a tennis academy in Maryland where his father was on the maintenance staff; a young Tiafoe sometimes slept in his dad’s office after beating balls against a wall for hours. Following the retirement of his friend Serena Williams, Tiafoe sees it as his duty to carry on the GOAT’s mission. “I want to change the way the game’s looked at. You get this, ‘Tennis is posh, prissy, a country club sport’…. I want to bring some flavor to the game.”
Stefanos Tsitsipas
Nation: Greece
Age: 24
A phenom with wanderlust, Tsitsipas carries a handheld video camera everywhere he goes to record travel vlogs, and posts his landscape photography on Instagram in between tennis clips. To a greater degree than most players, he keeps to himself. “I would love to have friends on tour,” he said. “I just don’t feel like I relate to a lot of them, in terms of how I approach life.” Before getting elbow surgery in late 2021 to deal with nagging pain, Tsitsipas wasn’t sure if his career would extend beyond his mid-20s. But he quickly returned to his top form, playing, as he said, “with lots of desire, with lots of passion, with lots of dexterity and no feeling of doubt—just pure me out on the court."
Taylor Fritz
Nation: USA
Age: 25
The SoCal native delivered one of American men’s tennis’s most heroic moments of the century at last year’s Indian Wells tournament (the most prestigious non-slam on the calendar), when he defied his coaches’ wishes and played on a bum ankle in the final against Rafael Nadal, beating him in a straight-set stunner. “That was probably one of the best, if not the best, moment in my life,” said Fritz, whose mom was also a top-10 player. Now, along with Tiafoe, Fritz is his country’s best hope for its first men’s victory at a major since Andy Roddick in 2003. “I want to be the American to end the grand slam drought,” he said. “I want to be the first one to do it. And I do feel like it’s more reachable now than it’s ever been.”
Casper Ruud
Nation: Norway
Age: 24
A second-generation pro who made two grand slam final appearances in 2022, Ruud is still adjusting to life as one of his generation’s most elite players. It’s a new status that’s led to novel experiences, like attending New York Fashion Week—“I had no idea how long a fashion show would be!”—and realizing that, more often than not, he’s the guy on court to beat. “It’s always going to be tough, I think, to consider yourself a top player,” the Norwegian said. “For the moment I’m still new, I’m still fresh to everything, and I have a lot to prove still. But when people are playing me, I hope that they maybe are a little bit afraid of the results that I have had in the last few years.”
Holger Rune
Nation: Denmark
Age: 19
Rune may still be a teenager, but he’s already one of the fiercest competitors on tour. Days after this photo shoot, he KO’d Novak Djokovic in a come-from-behind blitz in the finals of the Paris Masters to win his biggest tournament yet, running through fellow teen sensation Carlos Alcaraz along the way. What separates Rune and other youngsters like Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner from the rest of the next-gen pack? “Mindset,” Rune said. “The will to get better every day. And on court, even if you play bad, you dig deep, you find solutions, you do everything you can to win.”
Samuel Hine is a staff writer at GQ
A version of this story originally appeared in the February 2023 issue of GQ with the title “Searching for a Slam”
PRODUCTION CREDITS:
Photographs by Ilya Lipkin
Styled by Jay Massacret
Hair by Alexander Soltermann using Bumble and Bumble
Grooming by Karla Garza
Tailoring by Anh Duong
Produced by Wknd
