Greatness breeds Greatness!

Innovators are people who are well beyond their time.  Often they study other's work and add to it producing an occurrence that has never been done before.  Their work often transcends into other aspects of life making them tangible people who are admired by all people.  Innovators don't come alone though.  They are often pushed by other innovators creating a "Golden Age".  We have seen this in The Renaissance with Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello (not the Ninja Turtles).  In the 70s Steve Jobs and Bill Gates came up with revolutionary ideas on computers.  Athletes are no different and tennis players fall in that category.  We are in our Golden Age now and have seen examples of this type of grouping before.

I could spend hours discussing the evolution of tennis and how the players changed the game but today I will just focus on two groups the American 90s and The Golden group. These are a bit more fresh in our memory but don't forget the following:

Laver, Rosewall, Newcombe, Emerson, Stan Smith, and Pancho Gonzales

Bjorg, Connors, McEnroe, and Lendl

The American group of the 90s; Pete, Andre, Todd, MaliVai, Wheaton, Chang, Courier.  Wow!  What a collection of talent.  Besides the remarkable 27 Grand Slam titles this generation brought back to The US, they helped transcend tennis into what we know today.  

Pete's Big Serve is now something we see in most of the top players today.  Of course, not all of them could serve like Pistol Pete, but they now hit harder and locate their serves better than ever before.  

Agassi's return of game has been regarded as the best ever.  Novak Djokovic is now taking away some of those opinions and putting them in his corner.  The return of Agassi has now been copied by pro players today and some would argue it has become the most important shot in tennis.

Courier and Chang were grinders on the court.  They would not let anyone beat them when it came to fitness.  Courier's work with Etcheberry took him levels beyond what most thought he would reach.  Players today from top to bottom are, without question, better conditioned then EVER before.

We have now seen how these players changed the way the game was and is played.  We are now lucky enough to have the Big 3 (sorry Andy but you need a major to qualify, or minimum 5).  Nole, Rafa, and Fed have taken our game to new heights where players in the past would struggle to keep up without adapting.  The service game that Federer has is better than any on tour making players push themselves to return better.  The return game that Djokovic has has pushed players to serve better.  The baseline rally prowess of Rafa has pushed other to improve their baseline game along with their fitness.  In other words, these three have changed the rules for the rest of the players.  The game is not the same now that it used to be and will never be the same.  This "golden" group has shaped our game and will continue to do so making the players below them and future players rise to new heights.