Men’s tennis and the real-world consequences of its Big Three era

Can a thing feel entirely impossible and entirely inevitable all at once? This, perhaps, was the paradox of the most recent Greatest Comeback In The History Of Tennis: once it began you could already glimpse how it ended. We’ve all been doing this for 15 years. The muscle memory is too strong, the emotional liturgy too deeply ingrained. This is why, from the moment Rafael Nadal started to claw back his Australian Open final against Daniil Medvedev from two sets down, it never really crossed my mind that he would lose.

At the moment of victory the crowd roared and the commentator hailed the “miracle of Melbourne” and Medvedev paid tribute to an “amazing champion” and this, too, felt comforting, hypnotic, agreeably familiar. It had been another great match, probably the greatest, definitely the greatest. Nadal, with his 21st grand slam title, was now definitely the greatest, along with the other two who were also the greatest. Up in the press box, the world’s greatest sportswriters flexed their typing fingers and once again applied themselves to the pointless but highly lucrative question of legacy.

None of which is intended as a slight on the players themselves, or the level of skill required. Nadal said his career should be remembered for moments and not mathematics, but out there in the great beyond, the world was quickly proving him wrong. This was, after all, a seismic development in the “Goat debate”. A decisive move in the “Goat race”. Nadal’s victory, we were told, had pushed him to the forefront of the “Goat conversation”.

With just a modicum of distance, it’s possible to observe what a strange and diminishing state of affairs this is: the men’s half of an entire sport reduced to the level of a pub debate, a