Oh, I know we're not disagreeing, just discussing. I can't remember who all was in the Lost Gen I, but it was a weak field.
If we define Lost Gen I as those players born
after Cilic/Del Potro in late 1988 and
before Domonic Thiem in late 1993, the "Big Three of Lost Gen" (LOL) are: Nishikori, Dimtrov, Raonic. The next group would include (in no particularly order) players like David Goffin, Pablo Carreno Busta, and Jack Sock. This group blends into solid journeymen like Diego Schwartzman, Bernard Tomic (remember him?), Benoit Paire, Martin Klizan, Marco Cecchinato, Nikoloz Basilashvili (has to check the spelling), Martin Fucsovics, John Millman, Joao Sousa, Daniel Evans, the infamous Tennys Sandgren and more.
Carreno Busta is sort of an outlier, because he snuck in a Masters much later, in 2022, when most of the other guys had faded.
When I first started putting together blog posts back in the day (2011ish) I wrote a pieced called "Donald Young Guns" - when it started to become clear that this was a very weak generation. Donald Young, born in July of 1989 and a few months older than Kei Nishikori, sort of was the harbinger of this generation. He reached the year-end top 100 at age 18 in 2007 due to winning a couple matches at the US Open, but then stagnated for a few years and only briefly broken into the top 40. Young, and his fellow American Ryan Harrison, sort of symbolized the weakness of both this generation and American men's tennis at the time.
You love to use Berdych as an example, and he is kind of a good one, in terms of "solid, constant, but not massively talented," and in the era of greater players, but he doesn't line up against everyone. Two quibbles I have with the above is that you wonder if Nishikori was better than Berdych, or if Dimitrov was. Nishikori I think was a much more interesting and talented player than Tomas, but he was unlucky with injuries. I don't think he had ATG in him, but he caused trouble. His window of best years was unfortunately narrow. Because he also had a good head. As to Dimitrov, even you have wondered recently if he had a resurgence in him, when looking at big tournaments. To me, he is the poster boy for the Lost Gen. Lots of talent, so much potential, but so much distraction or who knows what. To me, Zverev and Tsitsipas are the inheritors of his ignominious mantel. So, I see why you compare Kei and Grigor unfavorably to Berdych, in terms of overall results. but I don't think he's a good fit, in terms of playing style or general ceiling/floor. I do think the comparison with Rublev fits, though.
Absolutely - totally agree. I posed it as a question mark, though, because when all is said and done, their results were somewhat similar, if quite different. Berdych was more consistent, but Nishikori was clearly a better player at his best. But when I compare players, and ask "who is better," I'm considering
both talent/upside and results, and part of that is injury and mentality. As an aside, Kei is in the running for best player never to win a big title - and he was signficantly better than a lot of big title winners.
Dimitrov is interesting, because he didn't have Kei's injury struggles but also showed flashes of quasi-brilliance that were more profound than Berdych, but he was less consistent. Berdych finished in the top 10 for seven straight years, and the top 20 for twelve straight years; Dimitrov finished in the top 10 only once (albeit #3), with a five-year run in the top 20 (and a few more years outside of that span in the top 20). In a way, Grigor is more similar to someone like Richard Gasquet (or Gael Monfils), if Gasquet had ever put together a really good year like Grigor's 2017.
I agree that Dimitrov is of a similar category of player to Zverev and Tsitsipas in terms of "ignominousness." But Zverev and Tsitsipas have been significantly better - especially Zverev, who I currently rate as the best overall Slamless player of the Open Era.
I won't repeat my above, but I see the point that Lost Gen II has more depth, even if they can't get over the hump. I think that some of those guys, like Khachanov, make the list because they snuck out a big title when the Big 3 were caring less about them, late season, esp. Berrettini having so many injury/illness issues is a bummer, but he'd still be running more or less where these guys are.
Berrettini is...a shame. I think in terms of talent, he's at least as good as Rublev - or at least comparable - and thus his results are far below his talent level. In a way he's like an even more disappointing Thiem, in that just when he started to look like he might become at least a perennial top 10 guy and even Wimbledon contender, he suffered with repeated injuries. He's sort of bouncing back a bit this year...sort of. But yeah, I hear you about Khachanov. Hurkacz is kind of similar, but a bit better, imo.
Fair points, and yes, I know that Fiero is a hysteric. He mostly sits on his porch tells everyone to get off of his lawn. Everyone sucks, including Nadal. So we take that with a salt mine full of salt.
But we love him! And he's the master of the random historical anecdotes and hot takes, some of which are just golden.
