Sideline Cut: Tennis’s golden era has lost its shine

There’s always a next generation but tennis desperately needs its next generation to step up quickly as the sport has rarely if ever looked quite as beleaguered as it does going into this Sunday’s French Open

Since the last grand slam, in Australia at the end of January, its most financially bankable face, Maria Sharapova, has done her doe-eyed Diana bit to camera about medication, mostly convincing only those with a stake in being convinced.

Andy Murray seemed particularly unconvinced, articulating how in the past he had faced players and thought “they don’t seem to be getting tired,” tip-toe terminology that nevertheless had other tennis heavyweights immediately circling the wagons.

Boris Becker, coach to the world number one, Novak Djokovic, responded with perhaps the most depressingly defensive 'nothing-to-see-here' quote of the year, arguing that "unless cheating is proved, players are 100 per cent innocent." To which one can only mutter Gott Im Himmel.

Rafael Nadal is suing a former French sports minister for alleging he had absented himself from the tour in 2012 to hide the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

There have been dramatic stories about match-fixing, bent umpires, hooky betting, claims that dope-testing is too intrusive or not intrusive enough, spats about sexism, gender-equality, prizemoney, sledging and locker-room brawls, which have made 2016 a PR nightmare.

The net effect is that this most middle-class of sports can never be as smugly assured of its righteousness ever again.

Poison

Like it or not, it has acquired a hint of sleaze that no doubt will make it more attractive to those who think hanging around the Monaco Grand Prix is the height of sophistication but is poison to genuine fans who despise and distrust the game’s more gimmicky instincts.

It has certainly been a profoundly depressing 2016 for those of us who've long regarded tennis as one of sport's purest tests. It may still be boxing without the bloodshed in terms of a physical and psychological challenge but there's a sulphurous feel too now which isn't going to dissipate. Time was when Roger Federer could be relied upon to provide a vital element of grace under pressure. But time waits for no one, not even the blessed Fed who is nearly 35 and on the way out with a bad back, four kids and a financial Alp to console himself with.

Serena Williams is only six weeks younger than Federer, famously doesn't have as big a financial pile as the Swiss, or Sharapova, yet despite having won her first slam in the last millennium still possesses an A-game no other woman can come close to.

Now if the reality is that properly airing a lot of dirty laundry is a painful prerequisite in the fight for tennis’s future, there still remains a sense that what tennis urgently needs is something new.

Jim Morrison once took time out from examining his bass-free navel to declare how each generation must have new symbols, new people, new names: except in tennis the only way Elvis appears likely to leave the building is when physical decrepitude eventually takes its toll.

Admittedly this is in the context of the men’s game in particular having experienced the greatest and most sustained period of excellence it has ever witnessed.

The troika of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic in particular, with Murray and Stan Warwinka in the role of plucky underdogs, have served up a golden era of achievement which is comparable quality-wise to anything in the past, and incomparable in terms of longevity.

However, it is possible glory in their accomplishments while simultaneously pointing out that while the game is in dire need of new standards, new mindsets and new politics, it is also in desperate need of some new stars.

If nothing else, time will ultimately do the job, although Djokovic’s hegemony shows no sign of fading anytime soon.

But it surely says a lot about the uncertain current mood that the Serb is odds-on to complete a collection of grand slam titles in Paris and the game is abuzz with indifference.

Vast swathes

That’s partly due to there being no correlation between the scale of Djokovic’s achievements and warmth towards him from vast swathes of the tennis public such as there is with Federer and even, to a lesser degree, Nadal.

But it also reflects an absence of any new meaningful challengers. At this stage we can read Djokovoc like a stop sign, every tick, gesture and angle. And while many watch him with reverence, sport’s greatest events are supposed to be challenges, not coronations.

Where are the new challengers, those young-bloods to regenerate the game: tennis really is in bad shape if Nick Kyrgios – that font of haemorrhoidal charm – represents its future.

Kyrgios has a champion’s talent and athleticism but little of the grit, the substance to back up the bullshit, which those eager to draw comparisons with McEnroe and Connors in their foul-mouthed pomp appear willing to dismiss as irrelevant when it is in fact all that counts.

Then there’s Kyrgios’ compatriot, Bernard ‘ The Tank Engine’ Tomic, who at least had the virtue of straight-forwardness when explaining why he didn’t bother trying on match point at the recent Madrid Masters – “I don’t care about that point . . . Would you care if you were 23 and had $10 million?”

Tomic has a snappy point now but his head is going to be an interesting spot when he’s 40 and wondering ‘if only’.

Maybe Dominic Thiem might progress, or Borna Coric, maybe even the German Alexander Zverev, although he couldn’t beat Federer in Rome when the old master was barely half-fit.

Nevertheless, the game desperately requires a new generation to break on through.