Exactly two decades ago, the collective dominance of the Big Three in men’s tennis began to take shape, when Rafael Nadal captured his first Grand Slam title at the 2005 French Open.
Roger Federer, the early starter as the 2003 Wimbledon champion, won the next two Slams of that season. The trio — Novak Djokovic joined a couple of years later — would gobble up all but one Major over the next six years.
As the 2025 season begins to roll, the Big Three has one man left standing: Djokovic, staring at two younger, fresher champions who split the four Slams of 2024 between them.
He has some heavy lifting to do.
Coming off a surprisingly quiet Slam-less year in which Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz bossed it over him, the 37-year-old Serbian will be itching to strike back, starting at the Australian Open in January, where he is a record 10-time champion.
How Sinner and Alcaraz stand up to that will be interesting to watch. More interesting, however, is the guy who will be in Djokovic’s box. In what was the most talked-about coaching announcement of 2024, the men’s record 24-time Major winner recruited three-time Grand Slam champion Andy Murray as his coach.
Murray, a week older than Djokovic, retired from professional tennis at the Paris Olympics in August. At his peak, he was the most prominent challenger to the Big Three, even occupying the World No.1 spot for 41 weeks.
What can the Brit with no previous coaching experience offer a man who is arguably the world’s most complete tennis player, now in the final stages of his career? Perhaps not as much in the skills department as in the navigation of the mind and heart.
Djokovic has admitted a big part of him was flattened with the departures of Nadal and Federer from the tour. Having Murray, a contemporary, former rival and fellow Slam champion, beside him might be the spark that reignites the torch, allowing him to turn the tables on the young brigade and reclaim his throne.
“Andy knows a lot about Novak, knows a lot about the players who Novak is going to be chasing,” renowned coach Brad Gilbert said in an interview with the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) Tour website. “But I think more than anything, where Novak is, you’ve got these two, huge young guys now who have just really elevated, and I think Novak probably feels like he needs a little bit… needs that motivation.”
Sinner, 23, and Alcaraz, 21, have indeed elevated their level and stature in the previous season, with the Italian sizzling on the hard courts of the Australian and US Opens and the Spaniard flaunting his all-court flair as the French Open and Wimbledon champion.
Sinner now has a doping cloud hanging over his head as the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) presses for a two-year ban after he tested positive in March. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is expected to arrive at a ruling early this year.
Should the World No1 evade punishment, the Sinner-Alcaraz rivalry could potentially acquire more defining chapters through the season. Could they, then, replace the Big Three? Or will Djokovic, with Murray in his corner, hold his ground?
India abroad
In other coaching news, India’s two-time Olympic medallist Neeraj Chopra has teamed up with Czech javelin legend Jan Zelezny ahead of the new season. Zelezny, regarded as the greatest javelin thrower in history, also holds the world record (98.48m; set in 1996), and joins forces with Chopra at a time when the Indian is happy about the global medals he is winning but not entirely content with his distances.
Chopra has a World Championship title to defend in September. And he is still searching for that elusive 90m throw. He and Zelezny will look to build towards the World Championships in Tokyo where, should the Indian win another medal to add to his 2023 gold and 2022 silver, the legend of Chopra will only grow.
World championships are scheduled across several other Olympic sports this year, including, significantly for India, boxing, table tennis and weightlifting. The likes of two-time world champion boxer Nikhat Zareen and 2023 Worlds bronze medallist Nishant Dev will have points to prove after a disappointing Olympics. Weightlifter Mirabai Chanu, the Tokyo Olympics silver medallist who finished fourth in Paris, will have to move to a new weight category leading into this year’s Worlds, with her 49kg weight class being scrapped. So there will be plenty of activity to keep an eye on, overall.
Keep an eye out also for Lewis Hamilton. The seven-time Formula One champion will race for Ferrari this season after putting the brakes on his time at Mercedes.
With its high-profile new beginnings and dramatic coaching partnerships, this post-Olympics year has you covered.
