Sports
ATP Tour Finals without the ‘Big Three’ brings hope and frustration to tennis’ sandwich generation
TURIN, Italy — This is what they have been waiting for.
Some really good tennis players have congregated here in northern Italy for the ATP Tour Finals, the most exclusive men’s tournament in the sport. Only the best eight players available receive an invitation.
Novak Djokovic, the greatest player of his era, and maybe any era, isn’t here. He’s 37, a combination of injured and exhausted, and trying to save himself for next year’s Grand Slams.
For the generation of players born in the middle and late 1990s, Djokovic’s absence represents a void they have dreamed of for most of their careers. For the first time since 2001, no member of the sport’s Big Three (Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal) is in the field for this event.
It is a harbinger that will before too long spread to the rest of the tennis calendar, removing the top layer of the sandwich that for years squeezed all those hot shots born in the years leading up to the 21st century out of Grand Slams and Masters 1000s. When Djokovic won the 2023 U.S. Open, he racked up the Big Three’s 66th title in 79 majors. They played each other so often in finals and semifinals that players born in the 1990s barely got the chance to lose in the late stages of tournaments, let alone imagine winning them.
“I think the mental coping that I was doing was, well, every time I was in the quarters I played Djokovic,” said Taylor Fritz, 27, at this year’s U.S. Open. Fritz would reach his first Grand Slam semifinal there, then his first final. He lost to Jannik Sinner, who, along with Carlos Alcaraz, is the avatar of how Djokovic and Nadal (who is retiring this month, at age 38, after the Davis Cup) have stuck around just long enough to complete their wreckage of the sandwich generation’s tennis lives.
Just when they thought the Big Three were going to stop hogging all the oxygen, a 19-year-old from Murcia and a 21-year-old from the Dolomites stepped onto Arthur Ashe Stadium in 2022 and played five sets of computer-game tennis that left the 1990s group breathless once more. In the two years since that quarterfinal, Alcaraz and Sinner have won six majors between them and both spent time as world No. 1, a position the latter currently occupies.
Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz have become used to holding trophies (Lintao Zhang / Getty Images)
Djokovic won the other majors. The sandwich squeezed once more.
“Those guys are I guess younger, but they have done better than, let’s say, the ’90s kids, whatever you or I want to call them,” Casper Ruud, 25, a three-time Grand Slam finalist, said in a news conference on Monday. Ruud lost to Alcaraz in the final of that fateful 2022 U.S. Open; Nadal and Djokovic annihilated him at Roland Garros in successive years.
“They have been, this year, almost in a league of their own.”
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‘I don’t need the lights on me’: Casper Ruud steps out of the shadows in Turin
This isn’t how tennis usually goes.
There was an interregnum between the Pete Sampras/Andre Agassi dominance of the 1990s and the emergence of Federer, and then Nadal and Djokovic. There was time for the Patrick Rafters and Marat Safins and Carlos Moyas and Juan Carlos Ferreros to get a slice of the limelight. Later, Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka fought their way to major titles; Juan Martin del Potro and Marin Cilic grabbed opportunities when they came.
There is unlikely to be another interregnum for some time, but there are slivers of that kind of light. Ruud registered his first win over Alcaraz in five attempts on Monday here, taking advantage of an under-the-weather opponent playing in his worst environment — indoors, on a fast court. After, he acknowledged that Alcaraz’s error-strewn match contributed mightily to his success as he tries to play more aggressively to rise to the heights that the Spaniard and Sinner have taken tennis.
“It’s not the nature of my game,” Ruud said. “I’m hesitating a little bit when I need to be too aggressive. But I’m trying.”
“Try again. Fail again. Fail better,” Samuel Beckett famously wrote.
That’s about what tennis has become for Ruud’s generation, which also includes Fritz, Alexander Zverev, Daniil Medvedev, and Andrey Rublev, all of whom are here in Turin.
Andrey Rublev is among the group of players trying to step out of the shadow of the Big Three (Marco Bertorello / AFP via Getty Images)
Some appear to be managing the process better than others.
Medvedev, the most successful member of the group, is in the midst of an intense struggle to find motivation. Mentally and physically exhausted, he has reached the end of his strings. “Every practice is a struggle, every match is a struggle,” the six-time Grand Slam finalist and 2021 U.S. Open champion said in a news conference on Sunday, after losing to Fritz in straight sets.
Not so long ago, Medvedev was blowing even Sinner away, racking up six straight wins with his beguiling defense and serve. Since then, a shoulder issue, changes in balls, and the Italian’s development have knocked him back. Alcaraz’s ability to dominate the front of the court has negated the deep return strategy that Medvedev used to put so many opponents out of joint.
Medvedev, 28, is a former world No. 1. Zverev, 27, is the current world No. 2 and has won this tournament twice, but he says he knows that he holds that position on the ATP computer alone.
Being at the top of their sport can make them feel like also-rans. Tennis will do that to you.
Zverev took on another leading member of the sandwich generation on Monday night in Rublev, who is 28 and is always teetering on the edge of another unpleasant incident of self-flagellation. He has bloodied himself multiple times in the past year. Like salt being rubbed into wounds, the match was delayed by about 20 minutes while the ATP awarded Sinner the trophy for finishing the year as the world No. 1.
There probably was no good time for the ceremony to happen. This Tour Finals is basically a sandwich generation convention. It was going to be awkward no matter what.
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Like Ruud and Fritz, Zverev has embraced the challenge of trying to match Alcaraz and Sinner, if not every week or every season, but at least during a single two-week stretch of seven matches when he can win a so-far elusive Grand Slam. He is an Olympic gold medalist but has said all the other tournaments he has won will ultimately mean nothing unless he ticks off one of the four majors.
To that end, Zverev has effectively let go of any results he might achieve this fall. Last month, he practised for an hour every day after his matches as he rolled to the title in the year’s last important big tournament, the Paris Masters.
He said he was happy with the outcome. He’d rather win than not. Who wouldn’t? But he remains focused almost singularly on improvement, and if that meant taking to the court in Paris on weary legs, so be it. The 2025 Australian Open was a little more than two months away then and is closer now; Zverev wants to be playing the kind of tennis the game demands by then.
Alexander Zverev remains in search of an elusive Grand Slam (Marco Bertorello / AFP via Getty Images)
Like Ruud, he believes he has to play more aggressively to have a chance to stay on the court with Sinner and Alcaraz.
“When they get an easy ball, when they’re in an attacking position, 90 percent of the time the point is over, whether it’s a winner or an unforced error,” he said. “That’s how hard they hit the ball, that’s how aggressive they are. I think in that aspect, I can improve. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
After the Sinner show, he did it very well yesterday against Rublev to win 6-4, 6-4, pushing into the court and practically throwing his racket at the ball nearly every time he got the chance to put away a point, even sometimes when the chances weren’t there.
None of this is to suggest that all hope is lost and that Sinner and Alcaraz will win everything important for a decade. That just doesn’t happen. As Ruud noted on Monday after his win, “They’re also human. I mean, they will lose matches, just not that many during a year.”
Sinner may yet be stopped by off-court forces greater than any player. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is seeking a ban of one or two years in its appeal of his doping case, which it submitted to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in September.
GO DEEPER
Jannik Sinner’s doping case explained: What WADA appeal means and what is at stake for tennis
Earlier this year, Sinner twice tested positive for clostebol, an anabolic steroid. Three tribunals convened by the tennis anti-doping authorities accepted his explanation that the substance inadvertently ended up in his system after his physiotherapist used it to treat a cut on his own finger, then gave Sinner a massage. WADA, too, accepts this explanation but believes he should bear some responsibility for the actions of his support team.
Until then, the players will have to keep trying to figure out how to topple him and Alcaraz on the tennis court.
Today (Tuesday), it’s Fritz’s turn, as he and Sinner will duel in a rematch of September’s U.S. Open final, in which Sinner won by doing what Fritz does, but doing it a bit better — and by tweaking his return position when his opponent gathered some momentum.
Fritz hasn’t been hanging around the top 10 since the late 20-teens, like his European peers. He’s only recently become a serious threat with a ticking clock, trying to max out his potential before it’s too late.
(Top photo: Nicolo Campo / LightRocket via Getty Images)
Sports
Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit
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A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue.
Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June.
Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male.
Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling.
“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.
Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case.
(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital.
“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13.
Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters.
With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.
Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice.
Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”
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SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)
SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.
“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said.
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Sports
Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush
Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.
“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.
Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.
On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.
The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.
Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.
Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.
(Lindsey Wasson / AP)
The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.
Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.
His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”
Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.
Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.
A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.
Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.
A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.
The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.
He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.
“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”
Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.
“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.
“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”
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Former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann once again incited backlash on social media Wednesday after he called late legendary college football coach Lou Holtz a “legendary scumbag” in an X post on the day Holtz was announced dead.
“Legendary scumbag, yes,” Olbermann wrote in response to a clip of Holtz criticizing former President Joe Biden in 2020 for supporting abortion rights.
Olbermann received scathing criticism in response to his post on X.
“You’re a scumbag that needs mental help,” one X user wrote to Olbermann.
One user echoed that sentiment, writing to Olbermann, “You’re the real scumbag here. Lou Holtz had more class, integrity, and genuine decency in his pinky finger than you’ll ever show in your lifetime.”
Another user wrote, “You’re a grumpy, lonely, Godless man. All the things Lou Holtz was not.”
Keith Olbermann speaks onstage during the Olbermann panel at the ESPN portion of the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel July 24, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Olbermann has made it a pattern of sharing politically charged far-left statements that are often combative and ridiculed on social media, typically resulting in immense backlash.
After the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win, Olbermann heavily criticized the team for accepting an invitation from President Trump to the State of the Union address. Olbermann wrote on X that any members of the men’s team who attended the event were “declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny,” while praising the women’s team for declining the invitation.
In January, Olbermann attacked former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler for celebrating a women’s rights rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for two cases focused on the legality of biological male trans athletes in women’s sports.
Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz listens before being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec, 3, 2020. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“It’s still about you trying to find an excuse for a lifetime wasted trying to succeed in sports without talent,” Olbermann wrote in response to Wheeler’s post.
In 2025, Olbermann faced significant backlash after posting (and later deleting) a message on X aimed at CNN contributor Scott Jennings, that said, “You’re next motherf—–,” shortly after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
Holtz was a stern supporter of President Donald Trump, even saying in February 2024 that Trump needed to “coach America back to greatness!”
Near the end of Trump’s first term, shortly after former President Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Trump awarded Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States.
After Holtz’s death was announced Wednesday, several top GOP figures paid tribute to the coach on social media.
Those GOP lawmakers included senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; representatives Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Erin Houchin, R-Ind.; and Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Indiana Gov. Mike Braun; U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon; and Rudy Giuliani.
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Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit at the Marriott Marquis July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
At the time of publication, prominent Democrat leaders have appeared silent on Holtz’s passing, including prominent Democrats with a football background.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who worked as an assistant high school football coach; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was a recruiting target for Holtz in 1986 as a college prospect; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who played in the NFL; and Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Ill., who played football for the University of Illinois, have not posted acknowledging Holtz’s death.
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