Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Iga Swiatek, American young guns backed to fill void left by tennis greats

Shahida Jacobs
Iga Swiatek celebrates

International Tennis Federation (ITF) President David Haggerty is not concerned about the future of the sport once the current tennis greats have all tired from the sport.

Tennis has enjoyed a golden few decades with Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray leading the way on the men’s tour while Serena Williams, Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova dominated on the women’s side.

But 20-time Grand Slam winner and 22-time major champion Serena Williams both retired last year while Sharapova called it quits in 2020.

The rest of that golden generation is likely to follow suit in the next couple of years with Nadal, Djokovic and Murray all in their late 30s and Venus Williams in her early 40s.

The eternal question in tennis is: Will the sport be okay once these greats have all retired?

Haggerty has no doubt that the likes of Carlos Alcaraz – who won the US Open last year and rose to No 1 in the ATP Rankings – and Italian youngster Jannik Sinner will fly the flag in men’s tennis.

“I go back to when I was younger and would hear some of the same concerns that were raised when Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier … when that generation was retiring and moving on,” he told Reuters.

“And we’ve seen that the void that people thought might be there was filled with top players. I say the same thing today.

“We have had good matches on the men side with Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. In the Australian Open we saw some of the young American players come through to the quarter-finals.”

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American tennis has also enjoyed a resurgence over the past year with Taylor Fritz a regular feature in the top 10 while Sebastian Kodra, Tommy Paul and Ben Shelton all reached the quarter-final of the Australian Open.

And things are also not looking too bad on the women’s side, according to Haggerty, as he feels Iga Swiatek has now taken over from three-time Grand Slam winner Ashleigh Barty, who retired last year.

Swiatek was the dominant player last year as she won eight titles, including the French Open and US Open.

“People were concerned with who’s going to be the top woman player,” Haggerty added. “And Swiatek went on a great streak of wins and showed the world she was the one.

“Tennis has some great stories and personalities as well that will continue to grace the stage and make it the important sport that it is.”