Big 3 Fitness levels vs Other players
Sinner's withdrawal from Cincy made me wonder how often the Big 3 missed M1000s at around the same age. For Nadal even when he was missing slams between 2005-2011 (19-25 yrs old) he played between 71 and 93 matches every year, Federer played similar numbers but did miss significant M1000s in 2004 & 05 and Novak consistently played the same number between 2011-2016. Murray who tried to compete with them had to get a new hip after 8 years. I know M1000s are longer today but they used to play 5 sets in the finals before and the fifth sets at AO, RG and Wimbledon didn't have tiebreakers. Could the big 3 have been on something that is banned now? The level of consistency for such a sustained period of time seems impossible, we've seen Alcaraz and Sinner suffer (I know the game is slower and the balls are slower so its more physical today) but even Lendl and Sampras didn't last as long and weren't as consistent.