'They pushed each other to the limit': Carlos Moya shares why 'Big Three' reign is unlikely to be repeated

Former world number one Carlos Moya believes that it is near to impossible to achieve with the original ‘Big Three’ consisting of the former world number one Switzerland’s Roger Federer, Spain’s Rafael Nadal and Serbia’s Novak Djokovic.

The three players dominated the world of tennis for a good part of the last two decades. Federer, who was the first one to retire out of the three, became the first player in the history of men’s tennis in the singles category in the Open era to win more than 15 Grand Slam titles. He also became the first to win 20 major titles in men’s tennis in the singles category.

Nadal, on the other hand, who is also known as the ‘King of Clay’, became the first player to overtake Federer and finished his career last year with 22 major titles. Djokovic, who remains the only active player out of the three, has won 24 Grand Slam titles in his career. Ever since two out of the three players have retired and Djokovic has started struggling with consistency, there has been talk of the emergence of a possible new ‘Big Three’ or ‘Big Two’ featuring Italy’s Jannik Sinner and Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz. However, former world number one Moya has spoken to AFP and stated that he does not believe that such a feat can be repeated in men’s tennis again.

"To achieve what these guys have been doing these last 15, 20 years, that's something that I don't know if we are going to see in the future," he said. "I can tell that in the next couple of years, this rivalry is going to be there. Then maybe five years, seven, but so many things can happen. Injuries and family problems. Mental health issues, you don't know what's going to happen in three, four, five years' time. They pushed each other to the limit. Without the other guys, Rafa, maybe he would have retired four or five years ago with 16, 18 Grand Slams."