‘Tennis will be fine when Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer retire,’ says Daniil Medvedev

Daniil Medvedev antics

Tennis “won’t be over” when Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer hang up their rackets, according to Daniil Medvedev with the Russian adamant that it won’t be “shameful” if the next generation is not as successful as the Big Three.

Djokovic, Nadal and Federer have dominated the sport the past two decades with each winning 20 Grand Slams and setting numerous records along the way.

However, with Federer 40 years old, Nadal 35 and Djokovic 34, many are wondering how many years they have left at the top of the game and whether or not tennis will be the same without them.

US Open champion Medvedev, though, does not worry about a future without the Big Three.

“When there was [Bjorn] Borg and [John] McEnroe, when they were close, finished their careers, everybody was like, ‘tennis is over, we won’t ever have any great players, it’s finished’,” the world No 2 said.

“We did have some. [Pete] Sampras, [Andre] Agassi, they were at the top. [When] Sampras retired, [it was like again people were thinking] ‘Okay, tennis is over.’

“Then we had Novak, Roger and Rafa. If you asked just before they came, everybody would say, ‘Well, tennis will not be interesting anymore.’

“It’s the same here. Tennis is a great sport, so I don’t see why our generation would miss on something. Of course, maybe we don’t [win] 20 Grand Slams [each], yet nobody did before Roger, Rafa and Novak, so they were [all in a way] also worse than them… It’s definitely not going to be shameful [if we win less].”

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