FeDal's twilight: Reasons why retirement of these two will bring down tennis viewership
After the early months of last year, when Roger Federer conquered the Australian Open over his bitter rival Rafael Nadal, it became evident that the Swiss maestro would skip the entire season of clay to focus on the pretty grass of Wimbledon.
While it raised certain eye-brows instantly, it also dawned upon the people that the king was slowly aging on his throne and the dusk was only getting closer. Rafael Nadal however, has been a terrific fighter throughout his career but injuries have plagued his progress time and again.
His knee has been weakening as the years have rolled by and the aggressive nature of his tennis has also played a part in hampering his sustainability. While Federer skipped clay again this year, there have been numerous ATP events that the duo have snubbed alternatively in order to keep themselves fresh.
While Nadal pulled out of Cincinnati after winning the Rogers Cup in Toronto, Roger Federer lost in the fourth round of the US Open, an incident that would shock and resonate across the world. Nadal too buckled with an injury in the semi-finals against Juan Martin Del Potro.
These two legends who have 178 career titles combined along with 37 grand-slams have entered the twilight of their career and the end is very near. For the sporting world of tennis which draws humongous attention due to these two players, it is not so hard to fathom that the viewership will come down eventually after these two retire.
Here are three reasons as to why the audience won't be hooked to tennis after Federer and Nadal's departure.
1) No prominent successor
If we look at Tennis through its recent history, there's a pattern in every decade. Be it Pete Sampras in the last decade of the twentieth century or Roger Federer in the early part of the twenty-first century or the entry of Rafael Nadal and his dominance for a good amount of time in this decade until it became a three-way battle between Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, Tennis has produced an able successor to take the throne repeatedly.
The big three especially, if not the big four which includes Andy Murray, have been really consistent across the years and have delivered their style of tennis with high quality. It's been increasingly felt nowadays that it's about time that the sport brings forward a player who will step up to match this quality and slowly take the reigns by competing against arguably a few more players who will try to match the level.
A few names indeed have jumped ahead on the lips of the audience like Dominic Thiem or Alexander Zverev but both the youngsters have not made strides ahead consistently and they've failed in ousting the big three. Perhaps it will take some more time to bridge the quality gap but it all looks too foggy at the moment. No prominent successor has come forward and it might take a few more years at the very least for someone to get there.