Five names and none of them will be too happy. It’s time to review those players on the men’s circuit who did not make the grade in 2023, in fact, they were far from shining like they did in the past. Five players with pending accounts for next year.
The word failure has become a taboo concept in recent years, although we should not have so much respect for it. After all, the RAE defines it as an adverse result, nothing serious. Transferred to the world of sports, the example would be a player who sets goals that later, for whatever reason, fails to meet. This is what we are here to talk about today, about those players who closed the 2023 season with the feeling of not having met their objectives, achieving a disappointing balance regarding their interests. Let’s see what you think.
CASPER RUUD
A man who has made two Grand Slam finals and is one match away from being No. 1 in the world championship cannot be satisfied with a season like this. And neither do we, from the outside. From finishing course No. 3 to, a year later, falling out of the top 10. Yes, it is true that he repeated the final at Roland Garros, but in the rest of the tours he did not give the grade at any time. Where was the step forward on fast surfaces? And the confidence that he always delivered on clay? His only title, in the small tournament in Estoril, leaves us with a dish with little power, lacking in ingredients. Of course, we all thought twelve months ago that this possibility was more than likely, although we also thought about it with Alcaraz and it did not happen.
CAMERON NORRIE
What happened to this man? Why this feeling of having completely disappeared from the scene? At the ranking level, it can be argued that the fall has not been that bad – from #14 to #18 –, it is in the aspirations that had been built around his figure where there were differences. The best Briton in the world dreamed of ruling on the big stages, something complicated if you have a record of 36-25 and your greatest achievement in the ATP 500 in Rio, where he beat a limping Alcaraz in the final. The good thing is that anyone has a difficult year, he has many seasons ahead to show us what his true potential is.
LORENZO MUSETTI
I admit that I am not the biggest fan of the Italian and, everything must be said, not because I don’t like his style and I am attracted to his charisma. It’s all very well, but I see him more in a Dimitrov or Shapovalov profile than in a much larger boat. Has your season been bad? It hasn’t been a disaster either, he can even boast of having beaten Djokovic. With a very discreet balance (31-29) he has gone from being #23 to being #27, nothing too notable. Semifinals in Barcelona, Bastad, Chengdu… but no super result that comes to mind when we hear his name. Perhaps what comes to mind are the 12 tournaments in which he was eliminated in his debut match, that irregularity that did not allow him to unlock the next level.
FÉLIX AUGER OTHERWISE
Here we come to the flagship of the article, the example where we are surely all in agreement. Because yes, we were all excited to see his 2022 season, that indoor tour that crowned him champion in so many places, he was even dressed as a direct rival of the Alcaraz, Rune and Sinner. Man, I still think so, but this will not be achieved with calendars as disastrous as this last one. From No. 6 he went to No. 29 in one of those falls that reverberate for a while, totally lacking in confidence and unable to add two victories in a row from March to October. Obviously, such a deep hole is not saved by the revalidation of the throne in Basel, so we will have to wait for the New Year to see what version of Felix awaits us in the coming months.
DOMINIC THIEM
Maybe it doesn’t make sense to continue putting the Austrian on the list of disappointments, but we forget the status that Dominic had on the circuit, a kind of prince who arrived to take the baton of the Big3, an idea that was reinforced after seeing him win the US Open 2020. But that was the beginning of the end, although no one could have imagined it at the time. This year Thiem started at #102 and finishes at #98 in the ranking, that is, he is still in exactly the same box. It wouldn’t be fair to suddenly ask him to return to top 3, but a final in Kitzbühel is extremely little for the potential he still has. In short, a disappointment that has been dragging on longer than it should.
2023-12-14 08:00:30
#ATP #Disappointments #season
