U.S. Open: Major tennis awaits next great wave of rivalries
Novak Djokovic (left) and Carlos Alcaraz during the Paris Olympics on Aug. 4, 2024. Credit: Sipa USA via AP/Dmitry Lebedev
Great players, great people watching and great (but really expensive) food.
While this year’s U.S. Open again has all of this, it is missing something big.
Something that has been the lifeblood of the sport since its inception.
Something that drives interest in the game like nothing else.
Both the men’s and the women’s bracket are suffering from a lack of rivalries.
Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer are gone. So are the Williams sisters. Both the men’s and women’s tours are rife with young talent, but no two young players have stepped up to establish the type of rivalry that has long been the heart and soul of the game. And that is a problem.
“I think rivalries are extremely important for our sport, the one-on-one game. I think it’s absolutely huge,” said ESPN analyst John McEnroe, whose rivalries with Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg were two of the greatest in the history of the sport. “We’re waiting for who can step up. A lot of people are trying to figure it out as we speak, but the short answer that I could give is that rivalries I think are critical for our sport.”
Familiarity breeds foes
Rivalries, of course, are important in every sport. New York vs. Boston. Lakers vs. Celtics. Michigan vs. Ohio State. A history of competition guarantees that fans get pumped up every time rivals meet, even if one team or both are down or the stakes aren’t terribly high.
Tennis’ reliance on rivalries to drive fan interest transcends all other sports simply because of the intimate nature of the game. Two competitors, two gladiators, face each other one-on-one over and over again with only a net to divide them. Great tennis rivals get to know one another as well as they know their spouses and family members. They have the potential to push one another to greatness and drive interest in the game to new heights, engaging general sports fans as well as the hard-core tennis faithful.
Right now, tennis is in a weird transition phase. There are plenty of great and likable players — for the first time since 1996, five American men and five American women are ranked in the top 20 — yet tennis is waiting for the next great rivalry to take shape.
“I feel like tennis has been at its peak form when there’s been a great rivalry or when there’s been a great dominance of a player, like when Serena Williams dominated,” said ESPN analyst Chris Evert, whose rivalry with Martina Navratilova defined an era.
“Those two [circumstances], I think, are going to get more eyeballs than the situation now where there’s so many good players but there’s not that many rivalries and nobody’s really dominating. Hopefully we’re in a situation where we’re working toward that right now.”
Djokovic hanging on
The fact that a rivalry hasn’t emerged in the men’s game has a lot to do with Novak Djokovic’s staying power. A truly great rivalry usually involves two players of approximately the same age. Djokovic, 37, has outlasted his contemporaries and is competing with players who were in diapers when he turned professional.
Even though Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz have had intense battles over the past two- plus years — including Alcaraz’s win in the title match at Wimbledon this year and Djokovic’s win in the gold-medal match at the Paris Olympics — theirs is more a fight between generations, with Djokovic stubbornly refusing to pass the torch.
Alcaraz versus Jannik Sinner is being pushed as the next great rivalry. It’s true that the third-ranked Alcaraz and the top-ranked Sinner have delivered some thrilling matches, most notably their-five set quarterfinal match at the 2022 U.S. Open, which ended just before 3 a.m.
Sinner and Alcaraz are positioned to meet in the semifinals next week, a match that will be one of the most anticipated of the tournament. However, they have yet to meet in the final of a Grand Slam tournament, the place where true rivalries are really born.
And while Sinner and Alcaraz have very different on-court temperaments — which is great from a rivalry point of view — they seem to like each other just a little too much to be rivals.
Can you imagine McEnroe and Borg ever hugging at the end of a match?
Though many rivals learn to have great respect for one another and even become close friends as they grow older — such as Evert and Navratilova — it usually doesn’t start off that way.
“I think the best rivalries are rivalries where the style of play is different, the personalities are different, so you’re bringing two new sets of fans to the table,” Evert said. “I look at John and Bjorn, I look at Martina and I as unbelievable rivalries. We were all so different in our style of play — serve-and-volley, baseline. John was emotional. Martina was emotional. Bjorn and I were a little more quiet. We were from different parts of the world. They were the most exciting matches.”
Serena’s baton available
On the women’s side, no one has stepped forward to replace the excitement that Venus and Serena Williams brought to the game. Though the two played similar styles and Serena eventually separated herself from her sister by winning 23 major singles titles, their matches were must-see TV.
Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff all seem to be in the mix to be the next great female player. Though some might argue that a rivalry has emerged between Swiatek and Gauff, it seems pretty one-sided, with Swiatek having beaten Gauff in 11 of their 12 meetings.
Gauff, who won her only Grand Slam title in New York last year, could meet Sabalenka in the semifinals and play Swiatek for the title. A Gauff win there might nudge the pairing into near-rivalry status.
Both McEnroe and Evert believe it’s only a matter of time before things shake out.
Said McEnroe: “We’re all waiting to see who can step up.”
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
