SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
There are some athletes who redefine a sport. It's hard to imagine what it will look like with them gone. It's fair to say tennis great Rafael Nadal fits that description. He retired this past week after appearing in his final Davis Cup tournament being held in his native Spain. Here he is speaking on Wednesday after his final match.
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RAFAEL NADAL: Well, I just want to be remembered as a good person and a kid that follow their dreams and achieved more than what I ever dreamed.
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DETROW: Nadal clearly passed that bar. He won his first of a record 14 French open tournaments. He went on to win a career Grand Slam. Nadal and fellow greats, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, who's also retired, were known as the Big Three. The trio dominated the game for two decades. And now with just Djokovic still playing, a new generation occupies the top rankings. We caught up with sports journalist Reem Abulleil just one day after she watched Nadal's final match at the Davis Cup to discuss his impact on the sport, and she began by explaining what really made him stand out.
REEM ABULLEIL: When he burst onto the scene, he was this teenager wearing sleeveless shirts, capri pants, which we've never seen in tennis before, with a massive left bicep because he's a lefty, playing top spin like we've never seen before, and pulling off these impossible comebacks, running down every single ball. And he had this infectious energy that we had never seen before. So that combination for us - and add to that that he's coming in an era where Roger Federer, who has a certain polished look, is dominating, and he was able to beat Roger in the very first time they ever played in Miami. And just the way he broke onto the scene, winning all those clay titles but also managing to win on grass and then managing to win on hard courts - he's just so unique, and he brought this competitiveness that we'd never ever seen in tennis before.
DETROW: When it comes to the casual fans, when it comes to the broader pop culture conversation, how important were these big personalities, the Big Three? How important were they to just the tennis ecosystem over the last decades?
ABULLEIL: I think they took tennis to a completely different level in terms of - they transcended the sport in so many different ways. You didn't need to be a tennis fan to know Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. We've never seen that because before they came along, the record for Grand Slam wins was Pete Sampras, who had 114.
DETROW: Yeah.
ABULLEIL: And then you get three of them who got to 20 and then passed it, which is something inconceivable (laughter).
DETROW: Yeah.
ABULLEIL: And I think the fact that they were all together at the same time, very different personalities and just exceptional in different ways, they changed tennis forever, I think.
DETROW: So now two of the three are retired, though, so how do you see the current landscape? What are the big trends to watch over the next few years?
ABULLEIL: I think what we've seen, especially this year, 2024 was the first year since 2002 that none of the four slams was won by one of the Big Three. We hadn't seen that in 22 years. So the slams this year, the four Grand Slams, were split between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, who are the obvious heir apparents for those Big Three. However, I will say that because of the charisma and just how legendary those other three were, we still feel like as much as we think that those two are special...
DETROW: Yeah.
ABULLEIL: ...It's kind of impossible for them to live up to what came before them. And I think that for a while, people are just not going to be as interested in tennis because they fell in love with the Big Three more than they fell in love with tennis.
DETROW: Well, that is sports journalist Reem Abulleil joining us from the Davis Cup in Malaga, Spain. Thank you so much. And I guess good luck in this new era of tennis.
ABULLEIL: Thank you very much.
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