I just saw the con­clu­sion of the 2025 Mi­a­mi Open and it brought back great mem­o­ries. I was lucky enough to at­tend the fi­nal of the men’s sin­gles last year at the Hard Rock Sta­di­um, nor­mal­ly a col­i­se­um for the grid­iron war­riors of the Mi­a­mi Dol­phins, trans­formed in­to a tem­po­rary are­na for the glad­i­a­tors of the ten­nis world to do bat­tle.

The 2024 fi­nal was be­tween the Ital­ian Jan­nik Sin­ner and the Bul­gar­i­an Grig­or Dim­itrov, who at the time had knocked out my tour­na­ment favourite, Car­los Al­caraz. I was hop­ing for a Sin­ner ver­sus Al­caraz fi­nal. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the 2024 fi­nal was as com­pet­i­tive as a race would be be­tween me and Us­ain Bolt, on­ly last­ing two sets, with Sin­ner win­ning com­fort­ably.

So, see­ing the tour­na­ment seem­ing­ly get­ting big­ger and bet­ter this year, with all the top play­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing, felt a bit nos­tal­gic, as it would have been great to be in the stands to take in the at­mos­phere. This year, alas, I was rel­e­gat­ed to the so­fa, a mere spec­ta­tor in the dig­i­tal are­na while the dra­ma un­fold­ed in the Florid­i­an sun.

Ten­nis is one of the most pop­u­lar sports world­wide and con­tin­ues to cap­ti­vate au­di­ences, both young and old. I must ad­mit, grow­ing up, I just glanced at the tele­vi­sion when ten­nis was on, as I was fo­cused more on crick­et and foot­ball, how­ev­er, I played ten­nis in the club tour­na­ments just for fun, with­out ever hop­ing to de­feat the more sea­soned cam­paign­ers. My mem­o­ries of the great Bjorn Borg tus­sling with John McEn­roe and Jim­my Con­nors will al­ways re­main with me, es­pe­cial­ly the wood­en rack­et used by Borg in those days. What a dif­fer­ence from the in­stru­ments of pre­ci­sion used to­day by the play­ers.

In re­cent times, the courts were graced by the big three—Roger Fed­er­er, Rafael Nadal, and No­vak Djokovic—who dom­i­nat­ed the sport with one or the oth­er win­ning the four Grand Slams at stake for the bet­ter part of the last 25 years. Fed­er­er and Nadal have since re­tired, but at age 37, Djokovic con­tin­ues to de­fy time and play at the high­est lev­el and is still very dif­fi­cult to beat, as each op­po­nent con­fess­es af­ter play­ing him. There­fore, it was no sur­prise he reached the fi­nal at the 2025 Mi­a­mi Open, try­ing to cap­ture his 100th ca­reer ATP ti­tle, an achieve­ment com­pa­ra­ble to hit­ting a hole-in-one on a dif­fer­ent golf course. What an in­cred­i­ble ca­reer Djokovic has had; love him or loathe him, he will for­ev­er be one of the GOATs (Great­est of All Time) of the game.

His op­po­nent was an un­seed­ed 54th-ranked play­er in the world, 19-year-old Jakub Men­sik from the Czech Re­pub­lic, who was on­ly ten months old when Djokovic won his first ma­jor ti­tle. This should have been pret­ty straight­for­ward for No­vak, es­pe­cial­ly as the mo­ti­va­tion to win his 100th ti­tle was loom­ing large. Men­sik, on the oth­er hand, came close to with­draw­ing with a knee in­jury hours be­fore his first-round match. He went to the ref­er­ee’s room to in­di­cate he could not play his first-round match but the ref­er­ee was out to lunch. He then pro­ceed­ed to the phys­io­ther­a­pist to ask them to fill out the pa­per­work con­firm­ing his with­draw­al, in­di­cat­ing to the physio that he could not run or walk and was tak­ing painkillers, but noth­ing was help­ing. The physio deemed the in­jury not to be too se­ri­ous and be­gan treat­ment to en­able him to com­pete.

In his own words, Men­sik some­how won his first-round match, and the next day he had a rest day and as the say­ing goes, the rest is his­to­ry. He de­feat­ed the British num­ber one, Jack Drap­er and third-seed­ed Tay­lor Fritz on his way to the fi­nal. Imag­ine that—a ca­reer launched by a ref­er­ee’s lunch break and a phys­io­ther­a­pist’s de­ter­mi­na­tion! It is a clas­sic ex­am­ple of what is for you, no mat­ter what, will be for you! It’s sto­ries like this that re­mind us why we are all sports fans.

What is most in­ter­est­ing to me is that Men­sik is just one of sev­er­al ris­ing stars in the world of men’s ten­nis. We have al­ready men­tioned the names of Al­caraz and Sin­ner, now you can add Men­sik to that list, and I have no doubt that those young­sters will dom­i­nate ten­nis over the next few years. Men­sik is now ranked 24th in the world, but I ex­pect by the end of the year he is go­ing to be in the top ten, and who knows what else he can achieve.

Men­sik, Sin­ner, and Al­caraz—they’re the new van­guard, the new big three, the young li­ons poised to in­her­it the king­dom. The old guard, like Djokovic, may still roar, but the tide is shift­ing. When you look at the top five ATP rank­ings—Alexan­der Zverev, 27 years (2), Tay­lor Fritz, 27 years (4) and Djokovic, 37 years (5). Sin­ner is on­ly 23 (1), Al­caraz is on­ly 21 (3), and Men­sik is 19. I can see them win­ning many ti­tles just as Fed­er­er, Nadal, and Djokovic did once they all stay fo­cused and fit.

In the women’s sin­gles, the world num­ber one, Ary­na Sa­balen­ka, con­tin­ues to dom­i­nate, hav­ing tak­en over the num­ber one spot from Iga Swiatek. Just like the men’s game, a few women are push­ing Sa­balen­ka and Swiatek. Jes­si­ca Peg­u­la, ranked num­ber four, got to the fi­nal but Sa­balen­ka, who wears her emo­tions on her sleeve and seems very charm­ing in her in­ter­views, hits the ball as if it per­son­al­ly of­fend­ed her, and when she is on song, she is dif­fi­cult to beat.

Madi­son Keys, who de­feat­ed Sa­balen­ka at the US Open, is not even ranked in the top ten, but it goes to show how, on any giv­en day, when a seed­ed play­er high­er in the rank­ings drops her lev­el, she can be de­feat­ed by a de­ter­mined un­der­dog. Co­co Gauff, who a cou­ple of years ago seemed to be head­ing for a world num­ber one rank­ing, is ranked at num­ber three and no doubt she is train­ing hard to try to win a Grand Slam ti­tle just like she did when she won the US Open.

Mir­ra An­dree­va, a 17-year-old Russ­ian, is poised to be one of the next stars in the Women’s game, but the com­pe­ti­tion is very stiff. Two of my favourites are for­mer Wim­ble­don cham­pi­on Ele­na Ry­bak­i­na from Kaza­khstan and the USA’s Em­ma Navar­ro, they are ranked ninth and tenth re­spec­tive­ly, and they have a lot of ground to make up on the top three, but hard work and de­ter­mi­na­tion, as they say, is the on­ly way. The women’s game is a ver­i­ta­ble gar­den of ris­ing stars, each vy­ing for their mo­ment in the sun. It’s a fierce com­pe­ti­tion, prov­ing that the on­ly thing more dan­ger­ous than a woman with a rack­et is a woman with a rack­et and a dream. Rank­ings are mere sug­ges­tions in the women’s game!

We are now in April and as we ap­proach the clay courts of Roland Gar­ros (from May 25), the hal­lowed lawns of Wim­ble­don (from June 30), and the con­crete bat­tle­grounds of the US Open (from Au­gust 24), the an­tic­i­pa­tion is pal­pa­ble. I am con­fi­dent the world is look­ing for­ward to the re­spec­tive Grand Slams.

To my fel­low Trin­bag­on­ian ten­nis afi­ciona­dos, pre­pare for a sea­son of thrilling match­es and un­ex­pect­ed up­sets. It should be an ex­cit­ing and scin­til­lat­ing year of ten­nis. And re­mem­ber, in ten­nis, as in life, some­times, one lucky (lunch) break can change every­thing! En­joy!

Ed­i­tor’s note:

The views ex­pressed in the pre­ced­ing ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion in which he is a stake­hold­er.