With the early exits of Murray and Djokovic, perhaps it’s finally time to dismantle the ‘Big Four’

Consider these stats: No man besides Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic has been ranked world number one or two since 2005. From the 2005 French Open through to the 2016 US Open, one of them has won 42 of the last 47 Grand Slam singles titles on the men’s side. During the last 12 years, only three players outside this group have won a Slam – Juan Martin Del Potro, Stan Wawrinka and Marin Cilic.

The four have also won 12 of the last 14 year-ending championships, as well as the last three Olympic gold medals. Since 2005, they have together won 88% of the events in which all of them have participated in. The domination of world tennis by one or more of these four men from 2005 until the end of 2016 led to a new, if somewhat unoriginal, name for the quartet – the Big Four. The group evolved in phases.

The Federer-Nadal rivalry

First, it was Federer who attracted the attention of tennis fans and the media around the world in 2001, when he defeated four-time defending champion Pete Sampras in the fourth round of Wimbledon. Between 2004 and the end of 2007, he won 12 Majors and, with his elegant game, established himself as a phenomenon. Those years also witnessed the beginning of one of the greatest sporting rivalries of all time, that between Federer and Nadal.

Initially a clay-court specialist, Nadal gradually improved all aspects of his game to become Federer’s nemesis. In August 2008, the Spaniard took over the number one ranking. That was around the time when both Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray also rose to the top. All four players reached the semi-finals of a Grand Slam for the first time in 2008, thus beginning the era of the Big Four.

For a few years, it seemed that Djokovic and Murray were destined to remain at the third and fourth spots, firmly behind Nadal and Federer. Despite their challenges and their occasional victories, they were unable to unseat the top two from their positions. But that changed as Djokovic suddenly erupted in 2011 as an almost invincible player, winning three Majors and five Masters titles.

The emergence of Djokovic and Murray

Over the next five years, while the rankings did change hands a few times between Djokovic, Federer and Nadal, it was the Serb who proved the most dominant, and at times even seemed downright superhuman as he collected Majors, completed the Career Slam, and distanced himself in the rankings from everyone else.

But all streaks come to an end. In the second half of last year, Murray won Wimbledon and the Olympics, and took his place at the top for the very first time. It felt poetic that each of the four players, who had worked so hard and competed so fiercely over the past decade, had claimed his turn at the helm.

And yet, eight years after the group emerged, by the time 2016 drew to a close, the aura around the Big Four seemed to have dimmed just a little. For one thing, Roger Federer, the 35-year-old veteran and the one who started it all, was laid off for six months. Following surgery earlier in the year, he skipped the latter half of the season, as a result of which his ranking dropped down outside the top 10.

It was also the first year since 2004 when Nadal failed to reach a quarter-final at any Grand Slam. A wrist injury forced him to withdraw from the French Open and skip Wimbledon. With injuries plaguing both these players and their rankings dropping to well outside the top four by the end of the year, came opportunities for other players to step in.

Who will step up?

At present, the third and fourth spots in the world rankings belong to Canadian Milos Raonic and Swiss Stan Wawrinka. Raonic is one of those players who has been hailed as an heir apparent to the Big Four for a few years now, but it was finally at Wimbledon last year that he broke through to make the final.

Many have predicted that once the Djokovic-Murray era ends, it will be the 26-year-old Canadian who will take over. With his massive serve that has given him the nickname Missile, the six-feet-five-inch Raonic is literally bearing down on the top two.

However, it is the Swiss number one who has really ruined the party for the Big Four of late. With his US Open victory last fall, Wawrinka raised his Major tally to three, which is really a remarkable number considering that they have all come during the Big Four’s reign. As a result, not only does Wawrinka believe that he is more than capable of beating absolutely anyone one any day, but more importantly, his wins in Grand Slams against Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray, have surely injected a dose of confidence and motivation in the other players as well. He proved that the Big Four were not unbeatable.

At the end of last year, it seemed that Federer and Nadal were becoming more fragile, and that it was their decline that had caused the cracks in the Big Four. Those two had been playing the longest of the four after all. Federer’s age and Nadal’s injuries over the years had to begin taking their toll. They looked increasingly vulnerable, with their best years obviously behind them. On the other hand, even if Big Four looked frail, the Big Two seemed to be fine for the moment.

But this past week in Melbourne has witnessed shock defeats for defending champion Djokovic and world number one Murray. Seeded to play the final they were the top favorites to take the title. One of them wanted to reclaim the number-one ranking while the other wanted to finally win his first Australian Open. Their shocking losses to 117th-ranked Uzbek Denis Istomin and 50th-ranked German Mischa Zverev means that for the first time since the French Open in 2004, the top two seeds are out.

The fact that neither of them will feature in the quarterfinals is almost surreal. The last time that happened was in the Australian Open 10 years ago. Their defeats have sent shockwaves around the tennis world and not just because of unexpected results. Upsets happen in sport. But here appears to be a larger issue. If Djokovic and Murray falter, then perhaps it’s really time to dismantle the Big Four.

No doubt they will individually continue to defeat opponents, win titles, and perhaps even dominate the rankings for a little while longer. But like the Beatles, they have disbanded into separate players with different narratives. What this means, above all, is that all the other players on the tour, both young and not so young, now have a chance. Men’s tennis has suddenly, and refreshingly, split wide open.

Oindrila Mukherjee tweets here.