Aussie Update
Thirty-eight-year-old Roger Federer defeated American Tennys Sandgren in an exhausting five-set match and one that included the storied Swiss native saving seven match points in the fourth set, sore groin and all. Now all he has to do is dispatch a guy named Novak Djokovic and he will contend for his seventh Australian Open title. Unfortunately, “that guy” is a living legend and one very well known to Federer after having lost to him at Wimbledon last year in an epic five-set finals match and preparing for his 50th career meeting with the reigning Aussie Open champ.
On the other side of the bracket, No. 1 seed Rafael Nadal is slated to meet Austrian Dominic Thiem while 22-year-old Alexander Zverev will take on veteran Stanislas Wawrinka in the quarterfinal matches yet to play, as of this writing. If we take a gander at the tennis odds at the Australian, we will see that the oddsmakers did their job well as evidenced by installing Nadal as a -110 favorite while noting that six of the players remaining were among the top 10 favorites entering the tournament according to the odds at all of the best online sportsbooks.
Over on the women’s side, we see that hometown queen Ashleigh Barty has lived up to her lofty billing as the No. 1 seed and is ready to battle 21-year-old American Sofia Kenin in the semifinals while fourth-seeded Simona Halep is the highest-seeded player, not named Ashleigh Barty, still in the tournament and will face Anett Kontaveit in the quarterfinal matchup. The winner between Venezuelan Garbine Muguruza and Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova will meet either Halep or Kontaveit in the semis.
Big 3 Love
Tennis fans have seen Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors and Johnny Mac grace the court in the ’70s, while Ivan Lendl largely dominated the 80’s, followed by a torrid run of stellar play courtesy of Pete Sampras in the ’90s. However, nothing compares to today’s holy trinity of Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, and Novak Djokovic all plying their trade to the delight of worldwide audiences over the past decade. If tennis is your thing then you were born at the right time because we may never see three better players in their primes simultaneously operating at such a superior level again.
But which of the Big 3 gets the most love from fans? Well, if we’re in the business of ranking icons then let’s get down to it. Below are the resumes of the talented triumvirate and when their respective careers are over, our bet is that Roger Federer will reign supreme but there’s always room for debate. Let’s take a look at their career accomplishments and rank them accordingly.
1. Roger Federer – At 38-years-old Federer is getting a bit long in the tooth but his accomplishments will be forever young. Whether he remains at the top of the heap is highly questionable as Nadal and Djokovic are several years his junior. However, right now Federer is the best of all-time… arguably.
- 20 Grand Slam singles titles
- 6 Australian Open titles (2004, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2017, 2018)
- 1 French Open title (2009)
- 8 Wimbledon titles (2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012, 2017)
- 5 US Open titles (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008)
2. Rafael Nadal – The 33-year-old Spaniard may love his homeland but there is no question that he has a special place in his heart for Paris, home of the French Open, where he has won a whopping 12 titles. Nobody has been so dominant at Roland-Garros than the King of Clay himself, Rafael Nadal.
- 19 Grand Slam singles titles
- 1 Australian Open title (2009)
- 12 French Open titles (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019)
- 2 Wimbledon titles (2008, 2010)
- 4 US Open titles (2010, 2013, 2017, 2019)
3. Novak Djokovic – At age 32, Djoker is the baby of the bunch but the Serbinator is no slouch when it comes to racking up the dough as evidenced by his over $140 million in all-time earnings to date. That’s approximately $10 million more than Federer and $20 million north of Nadal.
- 16 Grand Slam singles titles
- 7 Australian Open titles (2008, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2019)
- 1 French Open title (2016)
- 5 Wimbledon titles (2011, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019)
- 3 US Open titles (2011, 2015, 2018)
