This was especially apparent during the ATP World Championships in Hannover, which was hurt by the absence through injury of Pat Rafter, Richard Kraijecek, and later Andre Agassi and Marcelo Rios.
The final was contested between Spaniards Carlos Moya and Alex Corretja. Now these 2 are undoubtedly class players, as reflected by their high rankings. However, it seems amazing that these 2 clay-court specialists were able to contest the final of the World Championships, played on a normally fast indoor court. This was, it seems mainly, a result of the absence of the aforementioned stars.
But even if all of the top 8 players had been available for the tournament, men's tennis still seems to be lacking in superstars. Pat Rafter and Pete Sampras are undoubtedly that, but the other players are still somewhat unproven in that department. A good example to help determine those of superstar quality is the number of grand slams they have won.
Here is a list of the number of grand slam wins and finalist results for each of the current top 8 players.
1) Pete Sampras - WON: 11 FINALIST: 1
2) Marcelo Rios - WON: 0 FINALIST: 1
3) Alex Corretja - WON: 0 FINALIST: 1
4) Pat Rafter - WON: 2 FINALIST: 0
5) Carlos Moya - WON: 1 FINALIST: 1
6) Andre Agassi - WON: 4 FINALIST: 4
7) Tim Henman - WON: 0 FINALIST: 0
8) Karol Kucera - WON: 0 FINALIST: 0
9) Greg Rusedski - WON: 0 FINALIST: 1
10) Richard Kraijecek - WON: 1 FINALIST: 0
At this point, apart from Sampras only Agassi has an impressive grand slam record. And he hasn't contested the final of a major since the 1995 US Open!
Although I still enjoy men's tennis, I yearn for the days when we had a number of established superstars. Just a few years back we still had Becker, Stich and Edberg challenging Sampras for tennis supremacy. It wasn't so long ago that Jim Courier was still a force to be reckoned with, and Michael Chang was pushing for the number 1 spot.
But as I said, perhaps this is just transitional phase for men's tennis. Given time, the class players will emerge from amongst the current crop of players.
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