Alexander Bublik’s curious rant on today’s tennis

“Mohamed, but do you remember when tennis was an easy and simple thing in the past? Five years ago it was not like that. It was all too easy: a lot of players who happened to be in the top 50, who hardly moved from there. Now this player is not even top 5, or even top 10. Come on what does that mean?” So Alexander Bublik says to Mohamed Lahyani, a historic chair judge in the tennis world, at a change of courts in the round of 16 against Czech Jakub Mensik.

The Russian-born Kazakh exaggerates, as is his wont. But the joke contains less trivial analysis than it might appear, and it concerns Jakub Mensik, a 19-year-old Czech talent who took the title in Miami this year at Novak Djokovic’s expense. Mensik who today is No. 23 Atp, with much still to learn but with a repertoire already complete to compete at the highest level. Bublik ended up losing the match, also rather sharply. But Mensik’s is not an isolated case. In the same part of the scoreboard Sascha Zverev also suffered from a tennis player who perhaps does not fully reflect his ranking. In fact, he came out in two sets from Francisco Cerundolo (21 Atp).

Let’s shift our gaze, from Madrid to the rankings. Outside the top 20 today are Korda, Khachanov, Hurkacz. Not in the top 30 we find Berrettini. Dropping below the top 50 are Jarry, Marozsan, Medjedovic, Nishikori, Fonseca. Bublik is 75, Norrie (former number 4) 91, Coric 104. The objection to be made is that the trend toward an increasingly upwardly shifted balance is not new, but has been well established on the Tour for years.

The change is given by a generation of phenomena. 20-year-olds who are truly from another planet and who in the future can really have their say. In the era of the Big 3, a steady advance in average age was evident; now the situation is back to smiling 20-year-olds. World No. 1 Jannik Sinner is 23, but at the top are also Alcaraz, Draper, Rune, Musetti, Shelton, Fils, Mensik. Players, on the other hand, such as Korda and Auger-Aliassime now seem hiserati, yet they are only 25 years old. Tennis certainly used to leave much more time to blossom, but now the bar has definitely been raised, and no one is 100% sure of winning a tennis match anymore.