Sometime in 2009 or 2010, after yet another loss to Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal, I distinctly remember feeling sorry for Novak Djokovic. He was clearly a very good tennis player, but he was just as clearly doomed to have played in the wrong era.
Federer and Nadal had won 25 of 30 Grand Slam events between Wimbledon 2003 and the 2010 US Open, and while Djokovic had managed to snag one of the five strays when he took the 2008 Australian Open crown, he obviously wasn’t going to get many other opportunities. In a different era, he could have won maybe five or 10 Slams!
My numbers turned out to be a little bit off. Over time, Djokovic mastered his fitness, his flexibility, his backhand and his serve and slowly became the best in-match problem solver the game has ever seen. He won three of four Slams in 2011 and forced the Big Two to become a Big Three.
We never completely know how the future is going to unfold. We get a lot of the details right but whiff horribly on others. Federer and Nadal indeed combined for 42 Slam titles, each crushing the previous record of 14. That, we expected. But we didn’t expect Djokovic, after spotting them both enormous leads, to zip by both of them to 24.
Right now, it appears the men’s game has entered another Big Two era, with Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner having split the last seven Slams and nine of the last 12. (The other three, of course, were all won by Djokovic in 2023.) They’ve met in each of the last two Slam finals, and heading into the second round of the US Open, they were a combined 87-10 on the year — 4-4 against each other and 83-6 against everyone else. In Slams, that’s 2-2 against each other and 37-1 against the field. With Sinner only 24 years old and Alcaraz at 22, it’s easy to envision a world in which these two each have 15 or more Slam titles before they turn 30 and they spend the 2030s inching closer to Djokovic’s record.
Just as Djokovic’s surge sneaked up on us, however, it’s conceivable that this two-elites world is usurped, just as Federer’s and Nadal’s was. Again: The future is blurrier than we tend to think. While it’s possible that a future Sinner or Alcaraz usurper is some 16-year-old only the hardcore fans have even heard of, let’s talk about the 10 players — all 23 years old or younger — who are most likely to raise their game to meet the ridiculous standard Alcaraz and Sinner are currently setting. How have they done against the biggest names thus far? And what’s most likely to hold them back?
Current ATP ranking: 5 | Tennis Abstract Elo ranking: 11
Record vs. Alcaraz and Sinner: 3-5 (1-2 in 2025) I Record vs. top-10 opponents: 8-16 (2-3 in 2025)
Draper has already enjoyed one big surge: He was 53rd in the ATP rankings following a second-round exit at the 2024 Australian Open, but he won two titles and reached the US Open semifinals (where, predictably, he lost to Sinner) to finish the year in the top 20. When he beat Alcaraz (and the next two players on this list) to win Indian Wells, he rose to seventh. Now, despite missing two months with injury, he’s in the top five.
Draper has a big serve, lefty spin and a return that’s well above average. Better yet, he doesn’t have any obvious holes to fill in his game. He’s remarkably well-rounded, he’s reached the second week of three Slams (only his home-country Slam, Wimbledon, has eluded him), and his record against the Big Two is nearly .500. If his body cooperates, he could contend in many Slams in the coming years. About that …
Biggest limitation: Health. He’s suffered seven injury retirements in the last three years, including three in Slams, and he just had to withdraw before the second round of the US Open. He battled shoulder and abdominal injuries in 2023, and he missed most of the last two months with a hand issue — it felt like it was “shutting down a little bit,” in his words. You can only rise to the Big Two’s level if you can stay on the court and build a rhythm, and Draper’s still trying to figure out his body.
Current ATP ranking: 6 | Tennis Abstract ranking: 6
Record vs. Alcaraz and Sinner: 1-9 (0-3 in 2025) I Record vs. top-10 opponents: 7-18 (2-6 in 2025)
The onetime Florida Gator had to learn to grind on tour after bursting onto the scene in 2023. And after an up-and-down 2024, it’s been mostly ups this year. He’s reached a pair of finals, winning his first 1000-level event in Toronto, and he’s 12-0 in Slams against players not named Sinner or Alcaraz. After starting the year 21st in the ATP rankings, he’s up to sixth.
Biggest limitation: Returning serve. Another big-serving lefty, Shelton has ramped up his consistency this year, but he hasn’t yet figured out how to dent the Big Two. Since beating Sinner in Shanghai late in 2023, he’s dropped 15 consecutive sets to the Italian, breaking serve just four times in that span and losing six mostly uncompetitive tiebreakers. Against Alcaraz, it’s a similar story: He’s dropped seven of eight sets and has broken only twice.
The stats quickly lead you to the main issue. Among the ATP top 50, he’s sixth in service points won this year at 67.3%, right between Draper (67.8%) and big-serving Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard (68.7%). But he’s 47th in return points won, at 33.8%. He has therefore played in 41 tiebreakers this year, most of any top-50 male or female, and while he’s won 24 of them, he’s lost all three against the Big Two. Until the return game improves, he’s ill-equipped to either better avoid or actually win tiebreaks against Sinner and Alcaraz.
Current ATP ranking: 11 | Tennis Abstract ranking: 16
Record vs. Alcaraz and Sinner: 4-5 (1-1 in 2025) I Record vs. top-10 opponents: 20-24 (4-2 in 2025)
He’s the same age as Alcaraz and has five career titles with 20 months spent in the top 10. That’s a solid ascent, even if it pales in comparison to the Big Two. Rune raises his game in big moments as well as virtually anyone, too: The 10 players on this list have 10 combined wins over the Big Two, and he has nearly half of them; he’s also played and won more matches against top-10 competition than anyone here.
Biggest limitation: Winning when you’re supposed to. “My problem is not beating those guys,” Rune told Donald McRae in a recent Guardian profile. “My problem is being consistent in going deep in every tournament to get a chance to play them more often.” That almost undersells it. Entering the US Open, he was 6-3 against top-20 opponents in 2025 and 2-3 against players ranked outside the top 100!
He pulled away from Alcaraz in the Barcelona final, winning 7-6, 6-2, but he lost to No. 137 Emilio Nava and No. 143 Nicolas Jarry at the French Open and Wimbledon, respectively. He began a consulting relationship with Andre Agassi this summer, but until he can properly focus in every match, his ceiling will be limited. A straight-set win over occasional giant-killer Botic Van De Zandschulp in the first round was a good start.
Current ATP ranking: 16 | Tennis Abstract ranking: 29
Record vs. Alcaraz and Sinner: 0-0 I Record vs. top-10 opponents: 8-5 (4-1 in 2025)
In March, Mensik became the fifth-youngest player ever to win a 1000-level event, beating Draper, Taylor Fritz and Djokovic to take the Miami title — winning six tiebreakers against them in the process. He followed that up with a straight-set thumping of Ben Shelton in Madrid soon after. He’s risen from 67th to 16th in the ATP rankings over the last year, and he doesn’t turn 20 until next week. He’s 6-foot-5, he serves the most aces of anyone in the ATP top 50 (16.3%), and he creates more break points than Shelton, Fritz or Rune. His upside is immense, but a post-Miami slump has kept him under the radar a bit.
Biggest limitation: Adjusting to adjustments. When you enjoy breakout success, it gets the tour’s attention. Everyone takes you a bit more seriously and learns how to take you down. The best players are the ones who adjust to that, but it can take a while.
Mensik is in that adjustment period. Since the win over Shelton, he has played five opponents ranked 31st or better, and he’s gone 0-5, dropping 11 of 13 sets. In all, he won just 12 matches in his first 10 post-Miami tournaments, and things didn’t really improve when the tour returned to hard courts, his favorite surface — he fell to 184th-ranked qualifier Ugo Blanchet in the second round. He has loads of time to figure things out, but growing pains are real.
Current ATP ranking: 45 | Tennis Abstract ranking: 26
Record vs. Alcaraz and Sinner: 0-0 I Record vs. top-10 opponents: 1-2, all in 2025
With one of the most wicked forehands in the game, Fonseca appeared to be on the fast track to success, starting 2025 with 22 wins in 26 matches; he swept Andrey Rublev in the Australian Open first round and beat No. 28 Francisco Cerundolo to win his first ATP title in Buenos Aires in February. As with Mensik, however, the grind caught up to him a bit. He entered the US Open having lost 10 of his last 18 matches, and since the win over Rublev he’s 0-6 against top-15 opponents.
Biggest limitation: He’s still studying the tactics textbook. Fonseca is a highlights player for the social media era. Here — let’s watch a video entitled “10 Minutes Of SUPERSONIC Joao Fonseca Forehands”:
Delightful stuff. He hits more forehand winners per point than even Alcaraz, and it seems his potential is limitless because of it. But he’s still learning how to actually play tennis at this level — he doesn’t serve and volley, he doesn’t come to the net much, he doesn’t use enough variety, and he doesn’t mix in many drop shots as many players have learned to do in recent years. He fell in straight sets to Tomas Machac (who would have made this list had he been slightly younger) in the second round on Wednesday. He’ll develop further, but right now he’s finding out that even the best forehand in the world will only take you so far.
Current ATP ranking: 10 | Tennis Abstract ranking: 9
Record vs. Alcaraz and Sinner: 1-9 (0-3 in 2025) I Record vs. top-10 opponents: 13-29 (5-5 in 2025)
Musetti has a beautiful, almost old-school game, combining a diverse forehand with a Federer-style, one-handed backhand. When he finds a rhythm he can be devastating, as anyone who watched him take two sets from Djokovic at the 2021 French Open can attest. He’s reached Slam semifinals on both grass and clay, and a great clay court season this year pushed him up to seventh in the world.
Biggest limitation: “Old school” can also mean “not modern enough.” Thanks in part to Nadal’s work against Federer, the tour has learned how to negate a one-handed backhand with pace and height. At 6-foot-1, he also has the least effective serve of anyone in the top 10 — he’s won only 64.4% of his service points this year, 33rd among top-50 players.
The world’s elite players have also learned that Musetti isn’t necessarily the most physical player around either. He’s retired or withdrawn from six matches since 2022, and since dropping their first two sets in 2021, Djokovic adjusted to win 21 of the 24 sets that followed between them. Alcaraz has won 17 of 21 sets, Sinner four of four. The grace and retro qualities that make Musetti fun to watch also seem to have affixed a pretty hard ceiling to his game.
Current ATP ranking: 20 | Tennis Abstract ranking: 23
Record vs. Alcaraz and Sinner: 0-3 (0-2 in 2025) I Record vs. top-10 opponents: 7-11 (2-4 in 2025)
With titles in Bordeaux, Hamburg and Tokyo last year, Fils surged into the top 20 at age 20. Like Fonseca and others, he still has room to grow from a tactical standpoint — he’s just 2-6 against top-15 opponents this year (and 10-14 all-time). But with dynamic athleticism and the requisite big serve and big forehand, he’s got all the obvious tools to rise into the top 10 or top five in the future. He’s beaten Zverev twice and nearly took down Alcaraz in Monte Carlo this year, and he’s focused enough to avoid upsets (10-1 against players outside the top 70 this year). All he needs is for his body to cooperate.
Biggest limitation: His body isn’t cooperating. He retired in the fourth set of his third-round match at the Australian Open, and after a five-set win over Jaume Munar in the second round of the French Open, he had to withdraw with what turned out to be a stress fracture in his back. He’s played only two matches since and missed both Wimbledon and the US Open, meaning he’ll strangely finish 2025 without having dropped three sets in a match at any Slam. Proper fitness will take him far, but that’s hard to achieve sometimes.
Current ATP ranking: 50 | Tennis Abstract ranking: 52
Record vs. Alcaraz and Sinner: 0-0 I Record vs. top-10 opponents: 4-3 (4-2 in 2025)
If my own group texts are any indication, Tien is already a hipster favorite. He is the anti-Fonseca in some ways — he already seems to know most of the tricks of the trade. Few are better at varying the height, speed and depth of their groundstrokes and just frustrating the hell out of top players; of the players on this list, only Mensik has a better record against top-10 opponents. He beat Daniil Medvedev in five grinding sets at the Australian Open, he beat Alexander Zverev in straight sets in Acapulco the next month, he swept both Shelton and Rublev in recent months,and he briefly had Djokovic sucking wind in a first round loss this week.
Biggest limitation: Power and athleticism. If Tien had any power in his game relative to other top players, he would be a surefire future top-10 player. But his limitations are painfully obvious. He wins only 61.5% of his service points, fifth-lowest of any top-50 player, and while he can generate some forehand winners at times, his backhand is a neutral weapon at best. He’s good at forcing mistakes, but you can’t always count on that to carry you through, and Tien doesn’t create nearly enough easy points for himself.
Current ATP ranking: 21 | Tennis Abstract ranking: 15
Record vs. Alcaraz and Sinner: 1-6 (1-2 in 2025) I Record vs. top-10 opponents: 8-21 (3-5 in 2025)
Lehecka turns 24 in November, meaning he just barely qualified for this list. But he has a great serve, his forehand is big and spinny, he’s willing to serve and volley and diversify his tactics at times, and he can beat big names — he outlasted Alcaraz in Doha in February and Draper at Queen’s Club in June. He even beat Nadal on clay, even if it was in 2024, near the end of Nadal’s career. He’s reached the second week of three Slams, too, including the quarters at the 2023 Australian Open.
Biggest limitation: An elusive next step. At 6-foot-1, he isn’t a commanding presence, and his backhand is merely decent, so maybe that alone limits his ceiling. But at some point you run out of chances to break through, and he’s been held back by both injuries — seven retirements, plus a few months on the sideline with a stress fracture in his back in 2024 (not an unfamiliar issue for this list) — and missed opportunities. This year alone, he’s lost deciding-set tiebreakers to Fritz in Toronto, Alexandre Muller in Rome and Gael Monfils in Miami. He’s obviously not ancient at 23, but you can’t afford to drop the ball a countless number of times.
10. Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard (22)
Current ATP ranking: 37 | Tennis Abstract ranking: 62
Record vs. Alcaraz and Sinner: 0-1 (0-0 in 2024) I Record vs. top-10 opponents: 0-4 (0-3 in 2025)
If you’ve watched even five minutes of any Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard match, you know why he’s on this list.
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Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard sets Wimbledon record on 153-mph serve
Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard delivers a 153 mph serve against Taylor Fritz in the first round at Wimbledon.
The man can absolutely obliterate a tennis ball, and his power allowed him to surge from the 160s in April 2024 into the top 40 just six months later. His rise has stagnated over the last year, but he’s just 22, and his serve and forehand offer him quite a bit of margin for error if he can strengthen his weakest links just a little bit.
Biggest limitation: The worst return game imaginable. Only Sinner and Fritz have held serve more than Mpetshi Perricard (89.7%) over the last year. But among top-50 players, only one has won fewer than 33.0% of his return points in that same span: Mpetshi Perricard, at 27.2%. He breaks serve only 8% of the time, meaning just about the only serve more effective than his is that of whoever he’s facing. Until he improves in that regard, he’s destined to function only as an annoying servebot an eventual champion has to beat in a series of tiebreakers early in a given Slam.
