DarthFed said:
I'm not high on Thiem either but I'm not sure I'd say he won't get quite a bit better. But the problem is he isn't nearly good enough now and if Zverev reaches full potential and you have a couple more standouts break onto the scene he won't be good enough in the future. With that said he is going to be at worst the 3rd favorite at RG behind Nadal and Roger if Fed plays. Yes there is no way I'd include Djoker or Murray ahead of Thiem on clay at this moment as crazy as that sounds.
I agree that Thiem will improve, but the question is how much: I don't think it will be that much, although possibly enough to win a Slam or two as the Big Four fade.
I'm also inclined to agree that he's probably third favorite behind Rafa and Roger at RG. That doesn't speak well for the current state of the tour, however.
Kieran said:
Yeah, I kind of agree. I don't buy the late-peak theory, by the way, because so many of these youngsters don't lack physically - they lack something between the ears. And although that's something they can learn, it's also something that many young great players of the past had down pat from the off, more or less. So it's not recent. Thiem at 23 is now on the cusp of tennis middle-age. He has this season to make some big mark in the sport, or he's no longer a prospect, he's heading into Missing Link territory...
When we talk about young players, we're now looking at two generations, with a third teasing at the edges (Aliassime, in particular). Unless something radical changes, the 89-93 group looks to be the worst in Open Era history, or at least since Ashe's group (39-43), especially if we narrow both to four years and take out Thiem (93) and Ashe (43) and add them to the later generations. I suspect "NextGen" (94-98ish) will be a bit similar to that very interesting generation of talented underachievers born between Sampras/Agassi and Federer: Kuerten, Moya, Rios, Kafelnikov, Corretja, Enqvist, Medvedev, etc. Lots of very good players, but no truly great ones. It is important to remember that Kuerten, born in 1976 and with only 3 Slams in his trophy case, was the best player born between Sampras (71) and Federer (81). That's a ten-year gap with no truly great players born. As I've written about before, we can see a similar gap after Novak born in 1987, and unless Zverev (97) becomes great, the gap may be even longer.
That said, the difference between that generation and NextGen, is that NextGen is two generations removed from a great one, with its elder generation (89-93) being anemic. Kuerten's Krew peaked between one great generation and a very good one with a GOAT, so didn't have a lot of time to shine. They also declined very quickly, and should have dominated in the early 00s, but were looking rather old - except for Moya and one or two others.
So imagine that Kuerten generation, but with several players winning 2-4 Slams, and half a dozen winning a Slam, and I think that's what we'll probably see from NextGen. Actually, they might be more similar to the 1944-48 generation, that was two generations removed from the Greatest Generation in tennis history (1934-38: Laver, Rosewall, Hoad, Emerson, etc), and just ahead of a new excellent generation (1949-53) that included the first superstar born in the Open Era (so to speak): Jimmy Connors. That group had Newcombe, Nastase, Smith, Kodes, Okker, etc; Newcombe is a bit historically underrated and deserves to be in the Becker/Edberg group, but in that sense is more of a lesser great than one of the truly best.
NextGen is still young enough that someone can separate from the pack, but right now there is no clearly dominant player. I think we'll have a better sense of the generation a year or two from now. Maybe someone emerges as relatively dominant, but I think it will be somewhere on the Kuerten-to-Newcombe spectrum, and thus more of the first among near-equals rather than the Borg or Federer of their cohort.
Can I say this within the rules - ASS TALK. That is all. :lolz: Federer even said he played like crap in Dubai because he was still tired from Australia and that it wasn't until IW that he felt back to normal. BUT - 6 weeks to recover from 7 matches would be normal for a 24 year-old Federer - or even a 30 year-old Federer? I don't think so. He pretty much said he played the Miami final on auto-pilot because he was tired. So there's ridic - and then there's stupid. And the idea that Fed is getting help from one of Sharapova's little Russian pills or anything else is beyond stupid. The guy has 14 sportmanship awards voted to him by his fellow players for a reason. BUT - he's suddenly going to throw away his reputation and his legacy at 35? I take it back - that's not stupid...it's ludicrous and just abut the dumbest sports "resurgence" theory I've ever heard - and I've been following sports for a real long time and heard some doozies...
