To echo and expand upon what
@MargaretMcAleer and
@Kieran said, it is one thing to beat one of the top dogs in a best-of-three, quite another in a best-of-five, mainly because the former format is more volatile, and secondarily (but also quite importantly) because one area that the Big Three have excelled at--and younger generations fallen short--is the physical and mental fortitude of the five-setter.
Rafa actually went 22-1 in best-of-five matches in 2022, with one walkover, losing only to Tiafoe. He was 9-2 last year, with his two losses being to Novak and Tsitsipas. Novak was 11-1 this year, losing to Rafa, and 27-1 last year, losing to Medvedev. Meaning, 2021-22: Rafa 31-3, Novak 38-2 in best-of-fives, or 69-5 together, a 93.2 W%...which is a peak year for any of the Big Three. During that same timespan, they're 93-22 in best-of-threes, an 80.9 W%....a bit below career averages.
As far as generational dominance, I have a handy little metric which I call "title shares" which gives 10 points to a Slam, 6 to the TF, 4 to Masters, 3 to Olympics, 2 to ATP 500, and 1 to ATP 250. I then convert the totals into percentiles for a given year, and look at both generations and individual players (meaning, every year has "100 Title Shares" to divide up between generations and players...for context, the best single season TS for any player in the Open Era was Novak in 2015, with 42%...Roger in 2006 was 40%, Laver in '69 and Mac in '84 were 38%).
The thing I like about this metric is that it teases out actual titles, ignoring late-round appearances, so it is good for illustrating actual
dominance rather than mere "presence."
From this metric (and others would yield similar results), I've found that the 1984-88 generation rose to dominance in 2008, peaked in 2011-16, and has been steadily declining since. Its best year was 2013 with 83%; from 2016 on it has fallen from 78% to 39, 54, 49, 43, 33, 35. Meaning, a steep decline after 2016, though 2017 was largely due to Roger's great year and Novak's fall, so we can really see the more "natural" curve from 2018-22: 54, 49, 43, 33, 35. But you can see 2018 (54%) still being far behind the peak range, and in 2021, Next Gen (50%) actually was the most dominant.
But I say that with a caveat and to further the point above, as this is ALL titles, not just Slams. Meaning, the dominance of Rafa-Novak (and Roger) has slowly eroded overall, but still held strong at Slams. We've seen one Slam go to a non-Big Three (and younger players) in each of the last three years, but it hasn't been more than one. While I suspect that will change in 2023, and we'll see Rafa-Novak only win 2 Slams between them, the times they are a changin (gods, I hope so).
As I said, though, this is mostly showing up in non-Slams. We can look at the "second tier" tournaments, the Masters, to see this more clearly. The 1984-88 generation won all 9 Masters in 2016--four by Novak, three by Murray, 1 each by Rafa and Cilic--and then 2017 saw not only Roger win three, but Zverev win two, Dimitrov and Sock one each. The Masters were largely reclaimed in 2018, with only two going to Next Genners, and but then it has fallen off since. Here are non-Slam big titles from 2016-22:
Check out those last two years: Only two big titles by Rafa-Novak (and older gens in general) in each of the last two years, with 7 going to younger players in each year.
Anyhow, I'll be sharing more in another thread about this shift in generations, both recently and over time.
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