After “The Big Three”, Is It Now The Era of Naomi Osaka and Novak Djokovic?

Four times a year, after every Major, the tennis world resets and recalibrates, assessing where it now is.

After the Covid-affected first Major of the year, the Australian Open, the temptation is to regard the winners of the Women’s and Men’s Singles, Naomi Osaka and Novak Djokovic, as having emerged from the tournament as the undisputed Queen and King of tennis.

Indeed, as the era of “The Big Three” – Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer – finally seems to be coming to an end (Federer did not even make it to Melbourne and Nadal lost in the quarterfinal to Stefanos Tsitsipas), it is just possible that we are entering the time of “The Two Ns” – Naomi and Novak.

If so, it will be the first time for a while – roughly since Serena Williams began her long, slow and ultimately sad decline (although no-one knew it at the time) after winning the 2017 Australian Open – that there has been a really dominant World No.1 in both the men’s and women’s game, so dominant that there is no need to use their surnames to identify them.

Osaka’s decimation of Serena Williams in the Australian Open semifinal (in effect, doing to Williams what Williams has done to so many others) proved conclusively that she is finally ready to leave her childhood heroine in her wake.

Equally, the two women who might prove her greatest rivals in the years to come, Bianca Andreescu and Iga Swiatek, endured relatively miserable Australian Opens, and perhaps even more importantly are a few years younger than Osaka, who is now 23.

If Djokovic can somehow defeat Nadal in Paris (and at the moment that is the biggest if in tennis history), then the way would be (relatively) clear for him to make a serious attempt to win the Grand Slam. That is, the actual – i.e. calendar –

Grand Slam of winning all four Majors in the same year, rather than winning them in succession but over two calendar years, as he managed to do in 2016 when he won the so-called “Nole Slam”.

If he could do that, becoming only the third man in tennis history to completely dominate one 12-month period at the Majors (after Don Budge and Don Laver), then his own case for being considered the greatest of “The Big Three” would be given a huge boost. Indeed, if he were to win all four Majors this year, then he, rather than Nadal or Federer, would make it “21 in ‘21”.

For the moment, that is obviously a long way off. However, if Djokovic can somehow complete a clean sweep of this year’s Majors, and if Osaka can win either the French Open or Wimbledon to consolidate her position at the top of women’s tennis.

Then 2021 can legitimately be said to be “The Time Of The Two Ns”, when one great champion (Novak) finally pulled clear of his two greatest rivals and another (Naomi) showed that she was the Alpha Female of her own era.