The Golden Age of men’s tennis is NOW!

Juan Martin del Potro’s place in tennis history may not be what he thought it would be after he won the US Open in 2009.

Instead of it being a victory propelling him to the top of the game, he became the only man in the last 29 grand slam tournaments to have won who is not named Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic.

This week, Nadal won his seventh French Open in eight years stopping Djokovic’s streak of three straight majors.

Federer has not won a slam title since 2010 but he remains in the hunt winning the year-end championships the past two years and the prestigious Indian Wells tournament in March. He also briefly reclaimed the number two ranking last month before Nadal overtook him the week before the French Open.

Wimbledon, which begins in two weeks, will no doubt be won by one of the big 3. Djokovic is the defending champion while Nadal has won there twice and reached the finals three other times. Federer has been the most successful with six Wimbledon crowns and is keen to add to his record haul of 16 grand slam titles.

There have been comparisons to a previous golden age of men’s tennis from more than 30 years ago when Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe were competing for tennis’s big titles and had Jimmy Connors breathing down their necks at every turn. All three are considered among the greatest players in history.

”They are doing something to one another that hasn’t been done before,” three-time French Open champion Mats Wilander tells the Associated Press. ”Borg made (John) McEnroe a better player, but Borg quit. And Federer made Nadal a better player, and Federer didn’t quit. And Djokovic has beaten the hell out of Nadal, and Nadal didn’t quit. So I think they’re a very special three players that are not afraid of one another. They’re not mentally really disturbed by one another. They just tactically, technically can’t handle the other guy. It’s very interesting.”

Steffi Graf, whose rivals during her career included rivalries with such all-time greats as Martina Navratilova, Monica Seles and Chris Evert, said in the same AP article: ”To just watch these top players push each other, I don’t think there’s any much further to push. ‘Men’s tennis, definitely, is at the highest it has ever been.”

My two-cents is this: These three are not only superb athletes who are great at playing tennis, they are also complete professionals show up each time ready to play and who have appealing and contrasting personalities. Most of all, they have all kids of courage and heart out there on the tennis court.

I love how the AP article concludes: Like musketeers, they’re even more glorious as a trio. By building this golden era of tennis together, they share in its glitter. … To beat each other, they have to lift their game to the highest of standards. All three have been made bigger and stronger by their rivalry, not diminished by it.