There is No Big Four in Men's Tennis!

This is going to be a rant about tennis, and unfortunately Andy Murray is on the receiving end of two separate rants.

First of all, I am sick and tired of ESPN sticking to their nomenclature that there is a “Big Four” in men’s tennis, those being Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, and Andy Murray.  The problem is that there is no “Big Four,” there is a Big Three and everyone else.

The definitive piece on this was written by the FiveThirtyEight website four years ago.  Of course things have changed since then, Andy Murray has now won three majors, not two.  So, does that make him one of the four?

Well, the Big Three all have double digit wins in majors, and Murray . . . doesn’t.  He has three, which last time I checked (and I do have a graduate degree in mathematics) is not anywhere close to ten.  So when Murray has won 7 more majors, let me know and we can talk about a Big Four. 

The other problem is that Murray isn’t alone in 4^th place among active men’s tennis major winners.  Stan “The Man” Warwinka also has three major titles, having won the 2014 Aussie Open, the 2015 French Open, and the 2016 US Open.  Since Murray has won Wimbledon twice and one US Open, that also makes Stan closer to a career Grand Slam than Murray.  So why is Warwinka left out of the Big Five?

This is a classic example of making a prediction and then molding the facts to fit the prediction.  Murray was supposed to be the next challenger to the Big Three, and he is currently ranked number one, but he never developed into a consistent thorn in the side of the Big Three as far as Winning majors.  But the sports cognoscente insist on shoehorning Murray into a mythical Big Four that doesn’t actually exist. 

My second complaint is the attempt to rechristen the section of Wimbledon known as Henman Hill into Mount Murray or Murray Mound.  No, no, no!  I realize that Andy Murray is the first Brit to win Wimbledon in ages (assuming you consider a Scot to be a member of the British empire, which is how the vote went but there was some dissent).  But don’t do a disservice to Tim Henman by taking his name off of a key part of Wimbledon.

Why?  Because Henman was never good enough to win Wimbledon.  He was the top British men’s player at the time, but he wasn’t in the same league as Pete Sampras, who was dominating at the time.  Despite that, every year Tim Henman put his nation on his back and he usually went one round further than he had any right to at Wimbledon.  He made it to the Wimbledon semi-finals four times, and the quarter finals another four times.  Not bad for a guy whose year-end ranking during that time was between 8 to 11.  Overall, he had five wins against top ten players at Wimbledon.

So, let’s not forget Tim Henman’s noble efforts at Wimbledon by taking away Henman Hill.  Sure, he was awarded an Order of the British Empire in 2004, but remaining at fixture at his country’s biggest tennis event is a more fitting tribute.