John McEnroe expecting great things from fearless young stars at Australian Open and beyond - Legends' Voice

As a new tennis season begins, I’m excited to see how the young generation of players, like Carlos Alcaraz, Holger Rune, Jannik Sinner and Felix Auger-Aliassime, will fare in 2023.

It’s unfortunate Alcaraz will miss Australia because of an injury, but I expect great things from these guys and I think they're going to be an incredible group. It looks like they may just bypass the other guys that we were waiting for, like was it going to be Alexander Zverev or Stefanos Tsitsipas? We were discussing how many Grand Slams they were going to win and then it seemed like the 'big three' kept compiling more majors, particularly Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. It felt like, is anyone else ever going to win one? Every now and then, we’d see one new champion, like Daniil Medvedev or Dominic Thiem. But we kept waiting to see who was going to make that big breakthrough, and to me at this stage, it looks like Alcaraz and Rune, I believe – if they stay healthy – are going to win numerous majors and that maybe could provide an incentive for the guys that haven't won before.

Sinner is in that group as well and Felix Auger-Aliassime has really made some great headway in the last few months and I anticipate him winning multiple majors too. It’s a really interesting time to see if some of the mid-to-late 20 guys can dig deeper and find another gear so that they can compete with these kids that are just 19, 20, 21 and in the case of Felix, 22. So for me, you’re looking at the players that are going to start taking over and will dominate for the next 10 years.

You can sense that these younger players are fearless. At that age, you can do that, you sort of don't know better and it actually works to your advantage for a while. This is why this year for Alcaraz is going to be very interesting when he returns from this injury setback, because he’s the youngest guy to ever finish the year ranked world No. 1, that’s an incredible accomplishment, but the weight of expectation now is so much higher than it was a year ago. I think Rune got a little bit ahead of himself when he made the run at the French Open in June and sort of went into a slump and I think the pressure got to him. But then he regrouped and you saw what he was made of again; so it’s going to be interesting to see what happens there.

I also think the American players have pushed each other and helped each other believe they can compete close to that level. If I had to pick one, I’d probably pick Sebastian Korda, he’s the youngest of that current top group of Americans, and the one with the most upside right now. Frances Tiafoe made some great improvements as well, Taylor Fritz is a phenomenally superior ball-striker, and he’s a legit top-10 player and a threat to make a deep run. To go all the way, that’s going to be a taller order for him, but I think he's pushed the other guys, so I think you're going to see a couple of Americans in the top 10.

Looking at some of the other guys; Zverev has been hurt for a long time so that makes it interesting to see how he bounces back. Medvedev, to me, never recovered from losing that match against Rafa in the Australian Open final last year after leading by two sets. He’s got to have a whole new mindset as well because he went from that stage where he was ranked No. 1 earlier in the year, and now he comes in at No. 7; that’s a fairly dramatic drop off for someone that was so close to winning the Australian Open.

A defeat like that can really linger in your mind sometimes. I lost to Ivan Lendl in the French Open in ‘84 and I’m almost over it now! I’ve got a feeling that for Daniil it was a tough one; when you’re that far ahead and when it’s right there in front of you, it’s tough to move on. I was fortunate I was able to win Wimbledon right after that, so that eased the pain, but you never forget it. Still, you've got to learn from it. He has enough experience that he can use that as fuel.

What is going on in Ukraine and the fact that the Russians weren’t allowed to play at Wimbledon, that’s got to be affecting him; it’s affecting everyone, but in particular, the Ukrainians and the Russians, and that makes it even trickier. It’s been a weird year and horrible in certain aspects because of that, and so that weighs on him. Andrey Rublev is another guy, he has been saying all the right things and preaching peace when he’s playing and it’s a beautiful thing that he’s doing that. But obviously, you’ve got to think it’s affecting all those guys and girls from those countries.

I think 2023 will be a real test for Alcaraz who is only 19 and is already at the top of the rankings. He’s a great kid and he’s just got a great spirit about him, which makes people gravitate towards him. It wasn’t quite the same with me when I was young. I loved working my way to the top, I think that was the most fun couple of years I ever had on the tour, but obviously, when you’re the target and you have that on your back and everyone is trying to beat you because you’re the best, it’s a whole different mindset, not only from the players you’re playing but also yourself. So that element of expectation and pressure you put on yourself, and then the feeling that you want to back up what you did, make it far more difficult. Because now a win over Alcaraz is a lot bigger than it was a year ago, for anybody.

The key is to try and embrace the idea of being able to enjoy it, while at the same time looking for ways to understand what it’s going to take to stay there. Because it’s one thing to get there but I believe it’s far more difficult to maintain that. That’s what makes these three guys, Djokovic, Nadal and Roger Federer, so great; they lifted each other's games and were able to continue to improve. I think they've done that better than anyone, better than me, better than almost any player I’ve ever seen play.

Carlos seems like the type of player that’s got an incredible all-around game already, so he’ll hone his skills a little bit, emotionally as well as the technical part of the game, and then continue to believe in the team around him. I think having Juan Carlos Ferrero as his coach seems to have been a godsend for him, someone that understands what it takes, the type of guy he needs. It’s going to be very interesting to see how he handles it.

I worry a little bit because it’s a lot to put on some kid's shoulders at 19. I became No. 1 briefly at 21 and then I lost the ranking again, it was another year, year-and-a-half before I got it back and hung onto it for a while. I’m curious to see what happens with him if he’s able to maintain his progress. They talk about a sophomore slump and it’s hard to imagine something like that won’t happen to a certain degree. Hopefully, the main thing for me is that he continues to have that joy of playing and figures out a way where he bottles that and stays healthy. He’s an incredible athlete and one of the most refreshing players I’ve seen in the last 10, 15 years.

Another big question entering 2023 is: How much longer can Rafa and Novak go, really? Because to me, these guys are just battling each other and they’ve got some real incentive to try and win another couple before they call it quits, and I wouldn’t put it past either one of them.

I honestly don’t know if Novak or Rafa will settle the GOAT debate once and for all this season. I continue to be amazed by all three of them. I mean, Roger Federer has just stopped playing and Rafa, what he did in Australia last year and then backing it up at the French… It seems like it’s impossible to bet against Novak in Australia, and Rafa at the French. So I would go into this next year with the same feeling.

Novak has won Melbourne nine times and after what happened last year it’s going to be very interesting to see how the fans react to him, and how he reacts to being back. But I'd put him as the favourite, and I’d still put Rafa as the favourite in Paris; lord knows the guy has won the French Open 14 times, so you can’t say he’s not the favourite until he stops playing.

And I’m hearing Rafa still really wants to play, he’s hungry to play and absolutely loves it, and Novak is committed. So even though these younger guys are up and coming – obviously Alcaraz is right there now and Rune is not far behind and you would hope a couple of these other guys will take their game up another level; it shouldn't be easy for Novak and Rafa to win more, but you sure wouldn’t want to bet against it.

I think Novak is particularly hungry, he’s the one that embraced, more than the other two, the idea of, ‘I want to be the GOAT, I want to hold the most Grand Slams’, so he seems to be the hungriest of the three.

Whatever happens, I feel like we’re in for a fun clash of generations these next 12 months.

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