Roger Federer says he never expected the success he, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic would go on to achieve. 51 of the past 59 Grand Slams have been won by Federer, Nadal and Djokovic in an era of unprecedented dominance.
And despite being in their thirties, they have shown few signs of slowing down as they continue to get the better of their younger rivals.
Federer is the oldest of the group at 38 and naturally closest to retirement.
It means his record of 20 Grand Slams is under major threat from the Nadal and Djokovic, who won 19 and 16 respectively.
But their stranglehold over the sport could have its greatest test this year with Daniil Medvedev, Dominic Thiem, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alexander Zverev all with wins over them.
In an interview with Associated Press, Federer reflected on his own career and spoke of how he didn’t expect the success he and his great rivals would have.
“I didn’t predict I was going to have this many majors. I was hoping to maybe have one, to be quite honest, at the very beginning of my career. When I played Novak, I thought, ‘Yeah, he’s good. He might win a major.’ You know? ‘Rafa, he’s probably going to win the French. Maybe once. Or a few times.’ But you don’t go 12 times there. Or, you know, streaks of not having lost matches on hard or clay for, I don’t know, nine months. It’s just stuff that eventually builds,” he said.
“So, hard to tell, but there’s a … group of guys that I see now probably winning at least, like, four or five majors — which then can lead to 15 or more, of course.”
Speaking at the draw ceremony for the Australian Open on Thursday, Djokovic gave his thoughts on his rivalry with Nadal and Federer and spoke of how they inspired each other to be better.
He said: “We’ve helped each other a lot to evolve as players and I think on and off the court as well to understand how we can get better and the things that we can improve so that when we face each other we can be the best versions of ourselves so we can pull out the best quality of tennis that we can.
“That’s what is take to win against each other because we always require the best tennis from our opponent and between the three of us I think the intensity, the anticipation before the match just obliges us in a way to step it up and play our best because otherwise we’re going to lose a match.
“That kind of rivalry has been special between the three of us has brought us to these tennis heights where we are at the moment.
“We still look at each other’s games, careers and we still compare our career to the other guy and I think that’s the beauty of the rivalry and we are contributing in a way to the evolution of the sport.