Indian Wells 2021: Top tournament without the Big Three - and Zverev causes excitement on the boulevard
The Indian Wells Masters tournament in 2021 gives a glimpse into the near future of tennis - a big event without Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
by Jörg Allmeroth
last edit: Oct 08, 2021, 08:14 am
Even these days, the honorable gentlemen have not completely disappeared from the headlines. Roger Federer, for example, recently appeared in the flash of flashlights at Paris Fashion Week. Before he stepped on the red carpet with his wife Mirka and posed for the army of photographers with a smile, the maestro, who had an injured knee, left the aesthetically annoying crutches in the car.
Meanwhile, Rafael Nadal, Federer's eternal opponent, was working rather discreetly in Mallorca on a comeback in an indefinite future, from time to time you saw pictures of the matador on the tennis court, but also sometimes while relaxed fishing or on his luxury yacht. The fact that he has now been placed in the top ten of the world rankings 6,000 days in a row was recently worth a side note.
For the first time since 2000, no Federer, no Nadal, no Djokovic
When the largest ATP tournament begins in Indian Wells in the first few days of October, in the so-called tennis paradise in the Californian desert, the former Masters regulars Federer and Nadal will not be at the start. And the man who dictated the pace and rhythm of the tour in recent years, a certain Novak Djokovic, will be missing in the entertainment realm of billionaire Larry Ellison - on the home stretch of a demanding season, the 34-year-old Serb apparently still needs to recover from his failures the Olympic Games and the US Open. For the first time since 2000, none of the dominant players in men's tennis who have shaped the past two decades will start in the desert - no Federer, no Nadal, no Djokovic.
Indian Wells, the much-vaunted fifth Grand Slam, grants the tour company and its fans a glimpse into the not too distant future. In a world in which the long-standing alpha animals in the industry, the crowd pullers and cup winners are missing - and in which a new pecking order has to be established. Because this is also clear: the golden era of the Big Three is already a thing of the past, a complete return of Federer to the tour's treadmill is illusory. And Nadal, too, should only consider a few worthwhile goals in his already complicated comeback and strictly dose his work assignments. Only Djokovic still seems capable of aiming for the big wins on the biggest stages, 2022 and beyond.
Behind the once so powerful management trio, the group of candidates for future top positions has already been sorted in the last 18 months, characterized by the complexity of the corona pandemic. Daniil Medvedev (Russia), the US Open winner, is of course one of them. But of course also players like the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, the Italian Matteo Berrettini, the South Tyrolean Jannik Sinner, the Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime, the Norwegian Casper Ruud and the currently injured Austrian Dominic Thiem. And then there would certainly be Alexander Zverev, the German front man, the Olympic champion. The man who, however, often has to deal with too much background noise at work.
Alexander Zverev keeps the boulevard busy
The 24-year-old from Hamburg is currently keeping the newspaper boulevard on its toes again. After Zverev had to welcome an internal ATP investigation into allegations of domestic violence by his ex-girlfriend Olya Sharipova and said that the investigation would be a year too late and that it would hopefully lead to his name being “washed clean”, there were now reports of a fresh liasion TV and film star Sophia Thomalla .
Allegedly, the 32-year-old from Berlin even visited him last week at the training facility in Miami. Zverev's brief information on the suspected education box was in Indian Wells: "She's very nice." By the way, Zverev had lost in a TV duel - "Beat the Star" - to Silvio Heinevetter, the ex- Friend of Simone Thomalla, the mother of his allegedly new partner in life.
For the majority of professionals, Indian Wells is one of the last highlights of a grueling season with the extra effort of the Olympic tournament. In California, and later in the European indoor competitions, points are also about for the World Cup at the new venue in Turin (November 14th to 21st). It is there that the last major title of the possible year of upheaval 2021 will be awarded.
iwmap