The big three have faded. Who will dominate next?

In mid-September, just two weeks after Jannik Sinner won the U.S. Open to secure a 2-2 win-loss record with Carlos Alcaraz at the major championships in 2024, Alcaraz was asked if he envisioned his rivalry with Sinner ultimately replicating that of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.

“Well, a lot of people talk about it,” Alcaraz said during the Laver Cup in Berlin. “I like hearing it, I’m not going to lie. I hope that our rivalry is going to be or almost like the Big Three had during their career. This is the first year that we shared all the Grand Slams. Hopefully, it’s going to keep going like that, sharing great moments, fighting for the great tournaments.”

Sinner, the world No. 1, and third-ranked Alcaraz have played three times this year — at Indian Wells, in the semifinals of the French Open and in the Beijing final in September — with Alcaraz winning all three matches. They could meet again in the ATP Finals, which begin Sunday in Turin, Italy. The two have yet to face each other in the ATP Finals.

Sinner and Alcaraz will be joined in Turin by Alexander Zverev, Daniil Medvedev, Taylor Fritz, Casper Ruud, Alex de Minaur and Andrey Rublev.

Zverev, runner-up to Alcaraz at this year’s French Open, is a two-time ATP Finals champion, in 2018 and 2021. Medvedev, who reached the final of the Australian Open in January before falling to Sinner, won the ATP Finals in 2020 and was runner-up to Zverev in 2021.

This is the first time in 23 years that none of the Big Three, Novak Djokovic, Federer and Nadal, will compete in the eight-man year-end championships. Federer, who won the championships six times from 2003 to 2011, retired in 2022, and Nadal, who is retiring after representing Spain in the Davis Cup Finals in Malaga this month, did not play enough tournaments this year to qualify.

Djokovic, who put himself in contention for the ATP Finals with a runner-up finish to Sinner at the Shanghai Open last month, has opted not to play. After recently withdrawing from the Paris Masters, Djokovic posted a picture of himself vacationing in the Maldives.

Having captured seven titles in 2023, including his 10th Australian Open, the French Open and the U.S. Open for his 24th major, Djokovic — who fell one match shy of the Grand Slam when he lost to Alcaraz in the Wimbledon final — this year has played in just 11 tournaments.

A seven-time winner of the ATP Finals, Djokovic, 37, won last year over Sinner and took the title in 2022 over Casper Ruud. But Djokovic has played just seven matches since the U.S. Open in September and is not scheduled to play again this year. He has said he plans to go to Malaga to witness Nadal’s departure.

This is the first year in more than two decades that none of the so-called Big Three won Wimbledon or the Australian, French or U.S. opens, and the tennis universe is finally accepting the transition. Even Andy Murray retired earlier this season.

“I feel like we’ve been discussing this for a few years now, answering the question of what happened to the Big Three,” Stefanos Tsitsipas, who won the ATP Finals in 2019 but fell just out of the qualifying field this year, said in an interview in September. “These things keep changing all the time. Right now it’s Carlos and Jannik who are doing the biggest amount of damage and winning the most titles. So it’s up to us to try and defend our sport and get some titles, too.”

This year Sinner won the Australian and U.S. opens, while Alcaraz captured the French Open and Wimbledon. Sinner beat Djokovic in the semifinals at the Australian Open, and Alcaraz defeated him in the Wimbledon final. Djokovic then ousted Alcaraz to win the gold medal at the Paris Olympics, a title he said he coveted more than any other.

Medvedev knows that no tournament, and no tour, is wholly reliant on its past stars, even if they are among the greatest in history.

“It’s still going to be the eight players who got the most points in the season, so it’s still going to be eight amazing, strong players,” Medvedev, the 2021 U.S. Open champion, said in September. “It’s our only tournament where the first match you play is against a top 10 player, so I think the feeling is going to be the same, and let the best one win.”

Sinner and Alcaraz may be main attractions in Turin, but Sinner, after beating Djokovic in Shanghai, was forced to pull out of the Paris Masters because of a virus. Alcaraz, who beat Medvedev and Sinner to win the Beijing Open last month, was upset by 33rd-ranked Tomas Machac in the quarterfinals in Shanghai and then by 18th-ranked Ugo Humbert in the round of 16 at the Paris Masters.

Fritz, who reached the final of the U.S. Open before falling to Sinner, is appearing at the ATP Finals for the second time in three years. In 2022, he beat Nadal en route to the semifinals, where he lost to Djokovic.

“I feel like going into each year since 2022 it’s been a goal of mine to be in the top eight and qualify for the ATP Finals,” Fritz said in an interview in September. “I’m someone who plays better when I play better players. It’s nice for me because I can get straight into it. I love playing top guys, and I play better tennis when I’m in those situations.”

Although Sinner, Alcaraz, Zverev, Medvedev and Fritz were early qualifiers for the Finals, the last spots were up for grabs until the very end. At the Paris Masters, Alcaraz, Fritz, Ruud and Rublev all lost early. With Sinner’s withdrawal, there was a scramble for the coveted points awarded at the event.

Ruud, ranked No. 2 in the world in 2022, the same year he reached the finals at the French and U.S. opens, achieved his ATP Finals entry largely on his results on clay this year. He won tournaments in Geneva and in Barcelona, Spain, was runner-up in Monte Carlo, Monaco, and was a semifinalist to Zverev at the French Open. He recognizes that indoor hard courts aren’t necessarily his forte.

“Indoors has not been historically where I have produced my best results,” Ruud, who was runner-up to Djokovic in Turin in 2022, said. “But I’ve reached the finals and the semifinals here, so somehow I’ve been able to save the best for the last.”

In the end, the ATP Finals may well come down to Sinner and Alcaraz, the two who have produced the most this year. As there was with Djokovic, Federer and Nadal, there is mutual respect between them.

“He pushes me to be better,” Sinner told ATP Media last month. “I wake up in the morning trying to understand the ways how to beat him.

“We are different,” Sinner added. “He is the one who brings the firepower, the hotshots, he involves the crowd.” It’s like “fire and ice.”

As for Alcaraz, he relishes the competition with Sinner.

“Let’s see how it’s going to be in the future,” Alcaraz said. “Hopefully having him here on the tour for a long time because he pushes me to be a better player every day. He pushes me to practice 100% just to try to beat him in the next matches. So it’s great, hopefully having that great rivalry that the Big Three had in their career.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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