Nick Kyrgios, Carlos Alcaraz and Frances Tiafoe have brought a needed, crowd-pleasing explosiveness to this year’s US Open

Tennis Channel Live: Tiafoe defeats Nadal in four-set fourth-rounder

NEW YORK—Just when you think Arthur Ashe Stadium can’t get any more packed, or the fans can’t get louder, this year’s US Open ups the ante again.

Serena Williams started the trend with three star-studded evenings. Rafael Nadal filled in nicely on her off-nights. Nick Kyrgios played the match of his life to beat Daniil Medvedev. Carlos Alcaraz finally beat Marin Cilic at 2:24 in the morning. And Frances Tiafoe topped them all by out-gunning Rafael Nadal in front of the home-country faithful on Labor Day.

Serena, 40, and Nadal, 36, are out. Kyrgios, 27, Tiafoe, 24, and Alcaraz, 19, are still in. In a era of ever-aging champions, it may be hard to remember that this is the normal order of things, in tennis and everywhere else. Tiafoe doesn’t have Nadal’s 22 Grand Slam titles, but he does have the explosiveness of youth, and at some point that should be enough. Kyrgios doesn’t have Medvedev’s ranking, but he does have an unmatched talent for brazen shot-making.

The upset wins by Kyrgios and Tiafoe raise a question that has been in my mind since the spring: Is the ATP going to get a relatively smooth transition from one generation of champions to another, the way many of us thought it would 12 months ago? Or is it going to be something wilder, something closer to a free-for-all?

This spring I wrote an article for TENNIS Magazine about how the men’s game was gradually—very gradually—moving from the Big Three to a new generation. I wrote mainly about Medvedev, Alexander Zverev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Andrey Rublev, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Matteo Berrettini, Jannik Sinner and Taylor Fritz. They had paid their dues, and looked ready to fill the Big 3’s shoes—or at least their ranking spots.

Even then, though, the ground was moving under our feet. Carlos Alcaraz had to be shoehorned into the article at the last minute after his showings in Indian Wells and Miami. By the time I finished, he looked like the one true heir to the throne.

At the same time, Medvedev wasn’t living up to his No. 1 ranking, and Tsitsipas, Zverev and Auger-Aliassime were treading water at best. At Roland Garros, a player I had barely mentioned, Casper Ruud, made the final. Then a player I had frankly written off, Nick Kyrgios, made the Wimbledon final.

If this year is any guide, the Spaniard, American and Australian won’t be in the ascendant forever.

After that, things went from surprising to downright random when Pablo Carreño Busta and Borna Coric won Masters 1000 titles in Montreal and Cincinnati. A new Brit with a good name, 20-year-old Jack Draper, served notice of his own potential when he beat Tsitsipas in Montreal. Meanwhile, by July, Alcaraz himself had come back to earth. One of his losses was to young Italian Lorenzo Musetti, who won his first title in Hamburg, and seemed ready to add his name to the list of potential Top Tenners.

As the quarterfinals get underway at the Open, a new day appears to be dawning: None of the eight men left in the draw is over 27, and none of them has won a major title. On the one hand, the upheaval has continued in New York; on the other, there has been some stabilization. Tsitsipas and Fritz went out within minutes of each other in the first round. Auger-Aliassime fizzled badly against Draper, and Medvedev was something less than the world’s best against Kyrgios. At the same time, Berrettini, Rublev, Sinner and blast-from-the-Next-Gen-past Karen Khachanov have made the quarters.

All of which leaves us in a more unsettled place than we were at the start of the season. But I’d say it’s a more exciting place, personality-wise and game-style-wise. After nearly 20 years of Big Three hegemony, the ATP could use a period of suspense and surprise, when everything is in flux and different players are bubbling up at different times.

I’m not talking about chaos, which is what PCB’s and Coric’s wins pointed toward. But I am talking about electric athletes and showmen like Alcaraz, Tiafoe and, on his sane days, Kyrgios. Each moves the sport forward by playing a dynamic, attacking, all-court game. Alcaraz and Tiafoe are two of the fastest players in recent memory, and Kyrgios is one of the most uncanny shot-makers the sport has ever seen. Each has a big fan following and knows how to orchestrate a crowd.

If this year is any guide, the Spaniard, American and Australian won’t be in the ascendant forever. Various players will continue to jockey for position as we wait for Nadal and Djokovic to—eventually, someday—cede the highest ground. But Tiafoe, Alcaraz, and Kyrgios have added a needed burst of novelty and daring to this Open, and made the ATP’s future look a little wilder, and a little more fun.