Time to stop whistling past the graveyard... Tennis, like pretty much any other sport, has a big PED problem. There was a time when the men noticeably started declining at 30, and the women much earlier. There was something like a physical speed limit on dominance; no one, however great, could defy the laws of biology, which was a great equalizer. Those days are gone, and what you’re left with is a situation where those that truly distinguish themselves are not just the ones who have mastered their craft, but have (along with their trainers and doctors) also mastered the new sciences of performance. I know a lot of people don’t care about this, but I do. It’s getting ridiculous.
This is probably 20-30% true, but I'm not sure it's as simple as saying "these all-time greats are hoarding all the best PEDs for themselves", rather than wondering about
why the next generation of great tennis players never really broke through:
Dominic Thiem is the only men's player born in the 90's to have won a single Grand Slam. Up until last year's US Open, only three players born in the 90's had even made it to the Finals:
2016 Wimbledon: Milos Raonic
2018 French Open: Dominic Thiem
2019 US Open: Daniil Medvedev
(There's an asterisk here: in that Kei Nishikori made it to the 2014 US Open finals and he was born on December 29th, 1989, so he very nearly counts)
Obviously the 2020 US Open was between Thiem and Zverev, but that is very much the exception, not the rule.
To put it in more wild perspective: a woman born in the 2000's won a Grand Slam before a man born in the 90's did.
The Big 3 have won 59 of the past 70 Grand Slams (including Wimbledon 2020, which was cancelled due to COVID). By the end of the year it could very easily be 61 of 72. That's absolutely insane, and you can't put it all down to PEDs.