Becker on the Big 3 Era: "It's the Greatest Generation in History, But the Gap Between Them and the Rest Was Too Big"

© AFP

Adrien Guyot

le 06/05/2025 à 16h00

2 min to read

Becker Djokovic Federer Nadal

Boris Becker continues to follow tennis news. The German legend, who won six Grand Slam titles (two at the Australian Open, three at Wimbledon, and one at the US Open), three Masters titles, and two Davis Cups, among other achievements in his career, gave an interview to the media outlet *El Mundo* in which he was asked about the Big 3 generation.

For twenty years, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic overwhelmingly dominated the tour, winning nearly all the major titles and leaving only crumbs for the rest of the competition. A significant portion of those crumbs, however, were picked up by two players: Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka.

Each member of the Big 3 has won at least twenty Grand Slam titles, and legendary matches involving these three giants have left their mark on tennis history.

According to the former world No. 1, the Big 3 era is one of the greatest periods in the sport, though he doesn’t overlook the 1980s and 1990s, which featured other great names (Borg, McEnroe, Connors, Lendl, Becker, Edberg, Sampras, and Agassi, who also left their mark on the game).

"I don’t know if our generation and the Agassi-Sampras era was the golden age of tennis, and I wouldn’t say that out of respect for the others, but it was certainly one of the best periods.

Perhaps another great era is the one with Federer, Djokovic, and Nadal. It’s the greatest generation in history because it had three 'GOATs' at the same time. But the gap between them and the rest was too big. On our side, we had ten top-level players at that time," Becker stated.