According to Lloyd Harris, No. 31 in the world, cracks are appearing in the Big-3’s games. At the Citi Open in Washington a month and a half ago, Harris, 24, stunned Rafael Nadal. Daniil Medvedev also beat Novak Djokovic in a more high-profile tournament by winning his first Grand Slam title at the US Open.
“Absolutely, it’s been coming for a while. It’s been hard for the younger generation to just crack into those Grand Slams. Novak’s just been unstoppable until this very last match… I just think he came up against an extremely difficult opponent on the day.
Daniil played some really good tennis throughout the whole summer and [he] just kind of reflects this newer generation.”
Harris talks about upcoming generation
Alexander Zverev defeated Novak Djokovic to win the Tokyo Olympics before the summer hard court season began.
Harris advanced to the quarterfinals of the US Open before losing against Zverev.
“There was Zverev winning the gold medal, Medvedev winning the other (Canadian) Masters in the summer… so this young generation is really coming through,” Harris said.
“If you look at the top 50 now, I think there are more young guys in there than there’s been in the last 20 years
“It just shows you… Felix (Auger-Aliassime) had a tremendous run as well as (Hubert) Hurkacz got a Masters win in Miami, (Casper) Ruud winning three titles…
“So, this new generation is really coming through nicely and these are all the guys that I grew up with. It’s incredible how we’re all within one year from each other, [born] between 1996 to 1998 almost, which is pretty incredible.
“So, yes, I’ve known these guys for a long time, we’ve been competitive in the juniors already and it’s nice to see all of us progressing and now I think it’s time to kick out that ‘Big 3’ and let the younger generation take over.”
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