Roger Federer Confident Men’s Tennis Will Thrive Beyond The Big Four Era

Swiss maestro Roger Federer believes the addition of ‘cool events’ in recent years will help secure interest in men’s tennis in the long term.

The 20-time grand slam champion spoke about the subject following his opening win at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. The 20-time grand slam champion is considered as one of the star attractions of the men’s tour. Alongside rivals Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. Between them, they have won 52 grand slam titles and 92 Masters 1000 trophies since 2003. The group, which also includes Andy Murray, are known as the ‘Big Four’ of tennis.

“I’m a strong believer the game will be fine. Whatever problems we are facing now on the tour or whatever void you’re talking about, we have so many cool events on the tour, maybe Masters 1000s or World Tour Finals, slams, Laver Cup, Davis Cup, ATP Cup, there is so many cool events to attend that it always generates new superstars, either in the local market or internationally.” Federer said during his press conference.

In recent years the ATP have been heavily promoting the next contingent of young players through their Next Generation campaign. A group of players aged under 21 that are ranked in the top 200. Alexander Zverev and Stefanos Tsitsipas are both current top 10 players. Meanwhile, 18-year-old Felix Auger Aliassime recently broke into the top 100 to become the youngest player in that group.

“I think a lot of guys have a very interesting story to tell, but right now they (the media) focus — they choose to focus on still our story, that Rafa is still going, I’m still going, Novak is dominating.” Explained Federer.
“All these things, it’s very cool. That new wave is coming through. That new wave is inevitably going to win slams and tournaments, and then we will hear more about them.”

Whilst optimistic, the 37-year-old admits that it is hard to make everybody happy when it comes to the sport. Recalling a similar situation the sport found itself in following the departure of Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras.

“When Pete and Andre started to go away and we had a lot of different Grand Slam champions at that time, which I thought was quite exciting. But people said, like, Where is the guy that wins all the time? And then when you have a guy winning all the time, then they say, Where are the guys winning separately?” He said.
“It’s never quite right, but I think we will be totally fine.”

Federer will play Stan Wawrinka in the third round at Indian Wells in what will be a rematch of the 2017 final.

Next Gen players in top 100 (as of 11/3/2019)