Once you enter the Hall of Fame, then you are already invited to that act every year
Manuel Orantes, from the booth to the podium
---------------------------------------------
Before, in another time, Australian tennis flew over the world. It had happened in the seventies, in the days of Rod Laver and John Newcombe.
Then the Americans grew up: Stan Smith was succeeded by Jimmy Connors.
A Connors, John McEnroe.
A McEnroe, Andre Agassi.
And then came Jim Courier, and Pete Sampras, even Andy Roddick, unbeatable puncher in his most inspired days: with him we broke into the 21st century.
And finally, the current void.
(Along the way, other applicants were left: reader, I recommend that you recover Exposed: Point of Break, the story of Mardy Fish. It is on Netflix; John Isner, nor Taylor Fritz, nor Jack Sock, nor Frances Tiafoe have not been traced either ...).
(...)
It is convenient to rewind to those times of Australian and American splendor, perhaps already distant, to assume that what is happening today is not normal, since Spanish tennis has closed 2022 with two players at the top.
Carlos Alcaraz (19) has done it as number 1, the youngest leader ever seen on the ATP circuit. And Rafael Nadal (36), as no. 2.
The news is magnificent for Spanish tennis, for the fans, for the little ones who run around and hit backhands, looking for inspiration in their references, and also for the chroniclers, like the one who signs this summary of the year.
The chronicler admits that, in part, he had been born in the days of the first-time Nadal (disorderly hair, tank top, pirate pants, posed as a bull in the bedroom, before going out into the ring), and possibly he will retire narrating the exploits of Alcaraz, still a teenager who just got his driver's license: that's how long-lived the careers of tennis players are today, who disappear from the scene in their 40s, or close to there, or hasn't it been like that in the case of Roger Federer? (41), Juan Martín del Potro (34), Tommy Robredo (40), Serena Williams (41) or Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (37), all of them retired in 2022?
No tennis player leaves in their twenties anymore (honorable exception is Ashleigh Barty, fed up with the pressure, perhaps also bored with winning and winning and winning), and that is why we have to understand that we have Alcaraz for the long haul.
His speech, full of illusions, and the freshness of his game say it, a generational leap that has taken the Next Gen (Medvedev, Zverev, Tsitsipás, Kyrgios) ahead to face the autumnal Nadal and Djokovic and also the gifts that 2022 has brought us: Casper Ruud, Holger Rune, Jannik Sinner, Lorenzo Musetti, Felix Auger-Aliassime...
