Carlos Alcaraz, among others, is the future of tennis.
That is an undeniable notion, given the blistering start to his young career he has already enjoyed.
However, there are fears that with each revolution of the game, as new generations are ushered in, the increased influence of technology is perhaps sucking the soul out of the game.
That is at least a notion hinted at by Sky Sports commentator Chris Bowers…
What was said about Carlos Alcaraz and the future of tennis?
Speaking on the Tennis Channel Inside-In podcast, via Tennis 365, the commentator would outline why he is excited for Alcaraz’s future, but not the future of the sport.
He claimed: ‘I would say, the person I’m most excited about now is Alcaraz. And as I say that it’s easy to say that now because his trajectory is slightly on the down at the moment, he may well come up, win Roland Garros this year.
‘At the moment he’s slightly at the down, doesn’t seem to play too much, partly because he got to the top artificially early because Djokovic wasn’t allowed to play two of the four majors and four of the eight Masters in 2022 because of his vaccine status.
‘So I think Alcaraz was slightly thrust into the limelight a little too early, but he is that kind of exciting player that we need, and we were to have in three years time a top 10 including Alcaraz – I suspect Djokovic will be gone by then – [Nick] Kyrgios, [Denis] Shapovalov, [Sebastian] Korda, [Lorenzo] Musetti, that to me would be exciting.
‘I have a slight fear there will be players… hang on, I will be honest with you, I found the Djokovic-Murray Grand Slam finals were massively interesting because they were like chess matches, they were cancelling each other out.
‘For me, tennis lives off contrasting styles and you need players who play tennis in different ways and I worry that the increased physicality and the technology means that we are getting to a point where everyone plays the same way.’
An era somewhat skewed by Novak Djokovic?
Whilst the desire for an idyllic tennis landscape in which anyone has the opportunity to win any tournament is nice on paper, it just simply is not the reality we face.
And that lust for a more open playing field is likely born from the monotony found in watching Novak Djokovic claim almost every single major title in recent memory.
We have witnessed greatness, and his 24 Grand Slam titles is a male record which is unlikely to ever be beaten.
But, at 36 years old, he cannot go on forever.
Someday soon the legendary Serbian must retire, and only then will Bowers likely get the future he dreams of.
But someone will always take that place as top dog, with the ATP rankings indicative of this. Jannik Sinner and Alcaraz have every chance of achieving a similar level of domination in his absence should they find consistent form over the next decade, and then the problem will persist.
Regardless of who wins the big trophies though, as long as we keep getting great matches to watch as well as a few fairytale stories, I think we fans will be happy enough with that.
The greatness of Djokovic might have skewed our expectations of what a real tennis landscape looks like without a freak of nature to contend with. And that’s without mentioning Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer…
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