The arrival of a new set of challengers to tennis’ top five.

However you backhand-slice it, the past decade has been a golden age for men’s tennis, with three of the game’s greatest-ever players pushing themselves to ever-giddier heights. Between them, Messrs Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have amassed an astonishing 43 Grand Slams (singles) over the past 13 years, with barely anyone else getting a look in.

While age and injury appear to be catching up with Mr Federer (17 titles) and Mr Nadal (14 titles), Mr Djokovic is very much in his prime with 12 Grand Slams and counting, despite the best efforts of Mr Andy Murray, the leader of the pursuing pack, with two titles of his own. But a strong generation of emerging young players is now snapping at these old stagers’ heels. They’ll be making their presence felt at Wimbledon this month – and one day, just maybe, tallying up the trophies among themselves.

No one could ever accuse the 18-year-old Californian, the youngest player in the top 100, of being a dawdler. On a trip to Paris last month for the French Open – which was the first time he had gained direct entry to a Grand Slam – he proposed to his girlfriend Ms Raquel Pedraza, also a tennis player, with the illuminated Eiffel Tower as the backdrop. “Sometimes when you know, you just know,” beamed Mr Fritz after she (luckily) said yes. Things are also moving fast on the professional front. At the ATP World Tour in Germany earlier this year, Mr Fritz found himself staring down his childhood idol, Mr Roger Federer, in their first competitive encounter. Mr Fritz wasn't at all unnerved by the experience and took a set off Mr Federer, who would later observe, perhaps through gritted teeth, “Taylor has a wonderful future ahead of him.”

Whether he’s on a modelling job – he’s done shoots for Vogue and Paris Match – or sending up a topspin lob, Mr Borna Ćorić always keeps his cool. You would look at the 19-year-old Croatian for a long time before the words “crippling self-doubt” sprang to mind – he has the phrase “there’s nothing worse in life than being ordinary” tattooed on the inside of his bicep. Mr Ćorić has good reason to be so self-assured: he has already scored victories over Messrs Nadal and Murray, and has broken through into the top 50 in the rankings. Mr Djokovic considers Mr Ćorić – included in Forbes’ “30 under 30” sports list this year – to be a younger version of himself. “I try to help him because in a way I see myself in him,” Mr Djokovic said recently. “I’ve never felt this way about another player before, but when I have practised with him, it’s like playing against myself.”

Tennis hasn’t been this excited about a young Germanic player since the emergence of Mr Boris Becker in the 1980s. The 22-year-old Austrian made his name by reaching his first Grand Slam semi-final at this year’s French Open, where he was beaten by eventual victor Mr Djokovic. Like Mr Becker, Mr Dominic Thiem has plenty of power in his game. Unlike Mr Becker, Mr Thiem isn’t the bombastic boom-boom type. He somehow managed to combine a short and compulsory stint in the Austrian army with his progression through the tennis ranks, and showed how dangerous he could be on grass when he defeated Mr Federer in Stuttgart earlier this year. He has already won tournaments on all three surfaces (hard, clay and grass), has beaten Mr Nadal on clay, and established himself firmly in the top 10.

It's fortuitous that Mr Frances Tiafoe’s love of hip-hop led to a backstage pass at a Jay Z concert – and a personal invitation from the American rapper to sign for his Roc Nation Sports agency. “I thought it was pretty cool that he wanted me on the team,” says Mr Tiafoe. Clearly, Jay Z  believes that the 18-year-old, a promising prospect ranked in the top 200, could be the future of American men’s tennis. But he was also attracted by Mr Tiafoe’s backstory and how his family, who emigrated from Sierra Leone, have overcome great hardship. While their father was working in a maintenance job at a tennis facility in Maryland, Mr Tiafoe and his brother taught themselves the game during the day and slept on one of the massage tables at night. Other players speak of having been immersed in the sport from a young age, but no one else on the circuit can say, as Mr Tiafoe can, that he quite literally grew up in the tennis world.

In Paris this spring, Mr Alexander Zverev showed total commitment to adidas’ zebra stripe, competing at the French Open in “dazzle camouflage” shirt, shoes and headband, but at 6ft 6in and with great touch for a big man, he’s more star than stripes. Weeks later, he knocked top seed and reigning champion Mr Federer out of the Halle Open grasscourt tournament in Paris, eventually settling for second place. Mr Zverev, 19, and Mr Thiem (a fellow adidas zebra) are close friends, but over the coming years, the pair could also become rivals. Already in the top 40, Mr Zverev also has great skill and imagination to go with the prodigious power in his racket-arm. As Mr Nadal has noted, “He is amazingly talented, and he’s a clear possible future number one. He has all the shots.” Tennis is a family rallying cry – Mr Zverev’s father represented the Soviet Union on the world stage, while his older brother, who also plays under a German flag, has been in the top 50.

Once a tennis superpower – this is the nation that produced Messrs Björn Borg, Stefan Edberg and Mats Wilander – Sweden has recently drop-shotted from prominence. But much is expected of Mr Elias Ymer, a 20-year-old of Ethiopian heritage, and the only Swedish man ranked in the world’s top 200. His father was a professional marathon runner, but Mr Ymer’s sporting icons are boxers: “I like Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson because they are fighters, they have that killer instinct. You need it.” Mr Ymer showed plenty of fight himself last year in qualifying for all four Grand Slams in the same season and is shooting up the rankings towards the top 100 with the help of Mr Edberg, who “sponsors” and informally advises the young protege.

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