In the 2010s, love came to mean something in tennis—and was rewarded

“I play tennis for a living even though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion and always have.”

Do you remember those words, whose plain-spoken bleakness once stunned the sporting world? Ten years ago, Andre Agassi wrote them in his autobiography, Open, which soared to the top of the best-seller list in the fall of 2009. As the 2000s ended and the 2010s began, Agassi’s angst defined how we understood the life of a tennis star. By most accounts, it had its upsides, but they came with a soul-crushing price.

Agassi wasn’t the first top-ranked tennis player to have a love-hate—yes, Andre loved the game, too—with this lonely, labor-intensive sport. Bjorn Borg quit doing it when he was 25. John McEnroe spent much of his career trying to decide whether he loved it or hated it. Jennifer Capriati seemed to be finished with it before she was out of her teens. For many years, tennis specialized in manufacturing child prodigies, and burning them out. Even Pete Sampras, a level-headed professional from the time he left junior high, played his last match at 31. He’d had more than his share of long flights, hotel rooms, and pasta dinners.

Now, 10 years after Agassi opened up, the ambivalence that he described seems like ancient history. Can you imagine one of today’s top players harboring a dark and secret hatred for the sport? The last decade in tennis has been about a lot of things—dominant stars, long-running rivalries, epic matches, record-breaking Grand Slam totals. But when you put them all together, they tell one overarching story: The love-hate relationship that tennis players once had with their sport has turned to love, period.

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The trend starts at the top, with the figures that are currently carved into tennis’s Mt. Rushmore: Serena Williams, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic. All of them are well past 30, all of them have won everything worth winning, and all of them have suffered through injuries and ailments that would have sent most great players of the past happily out to pasture. But instead of hanging up their racquets, Serena, Roger, Rafa, and Novak have kept swinging them with the same passion for competition that they showed as teens. All of them are driven by an overriding goal—the same one, in fact: to finish with the most major titles. And, unlike many past champions, all of them have mastered the difficult art of managing their schedules and maintaining their health.

In the process, these four have helped create a new set of standards, and a new way of thinking about the sport, among their peers. Over the last 10 years, longevity and perseverance have replaced burnout and weariness as the norms. Fittingly, you could see the culmination of that shift in the decade’s final season.

It may be hard to recall or believe now, but Andy Murray kicked off 2019 by announcing his retirement in Australia, due to debilitating pain in his hip. Nobody blamed Murray, who brought two Wimbledon titles, two Olympic gold medals, and the Davis Cup back to Great Britain, for calling it a career. But he couldn’t stay away. After undergoing another, successful round of surgery, the 32-year-old returned to win the doubles title at Queens with Feliciano Lopez, liven up Wimbledon by teaming up with Serena in mixed doubles, get into a war of words with Fabio Fognini in Shanghai, and beat Stan Wawrinka in a throwback three-setter for the title in Antwerp. “This is one of the biggest wins I’ve had, after everything,” a tearful Murray said that day. In 2020, he’ll return to Australia not as man on the way out, but as a potential contender again.

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While Wawrinka lost that final to Murray in Antwerp, the Swiss also experienced a season of renewal at age 34. Two years after undergoing surgery on his left knee, he upset Novak Djokovic at the US Open, and won a classic over Stefanos Tsitsipas in the fourth round at the French Open. In his press conference later, Stan summed up this generation’s collective attitude toward their jobs as well as anyone has.

“Playing in front of such a crowd, such a big atmosphere, five-set match in a Grand Slam,” Wawrinka said, “that’s the reason why I came back from surgery in the first [place], is because I love and enjoy to play in front of people, to play in the biggest tournaments you can play.”

On the women’s side, Venus Williams turned 39, played a full schedule, beat No. 5 Kiki Bertens in Cincinnati, and didn’t show any signs that she’s ready to do anything else with her life, either. Nobody loves tennis, and the work required to play it well, like Venus. Petra Kvitova, two years removed from being attacked in her home and a year from turning 30, finished in the Top 10 and seemed to enjoy life on tour more than she ever has. And while another 29-year-old, Caroline Wozniacki, announced her retirement at the end of 2019, her career can be seen as a symbol of a decade in which patience and perseverance kept paying off.

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Wozniacki endured years of Grand Slam frustration before winning her long-awaited first and only major title at the Australian Open in 2018. Simona Halep did the same at Roland Garros a few months later. Federer weathered a five-year dry spell to win his 18th, 19th, and 20th Slams, and Nadal and Djokovic suffered through their own mental and physical struggles before dominating again. After spending years on the sidelines with injuries, Juan Martin del Potro led Argentina to its first Davis Cup title. Marin Cilic was the goat—in the old-fashioned, mortifying sense of the term—in Croatia’s final-round Davis Cup defeat in 2016, but he bounced back to be the hero of their title run in 2018. The French Davis Cup and Fed Cup teams ended long runs of frustration with victories in 2017 and 2019, respectively.

At 38, Serena has yet to see her own perseverance pay off with a record-tying 24th Grand Slam title. But while her defeats in finals have been frustrating, she doesn’t seem discouraged, or tempted to give up the chase. Her passion to win major titles, and prove herself yet again, hasn’t waned even after two decades on tour. “I’m not necessarily chasing a record,” Serena said after losing to Bianca Andreescu in the US Open final. “I’m just trying to win Grand Slams.”

The desire to experience that winning feeling again is motivation enough for Serena. She closed out her decade by taking a training trip to Boca Raton, FL, where she worked out with her latest heir apparent, Coco Gauff. If the widely shared video clip of the dance routine they put together there is any indication, Serena still takes joy in her work.

Finally, there was the Big Three. At the start of the decade, on January 1, 2010, Federer was ranked No. 1, Nadal No. 2, and Djokovic No. 3. Ten years later, on December 31, 2019, Nadal will be No. 1, Djokovic No. 2, and Federer No. 3. How do three people stay at the top so consistently, for so long? Whenever they were asked in 2019, that same four letter word—love, not hate—kept coming up.

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In 2019, Djokovic won his 15th and 16th major titles, played some of the best tennis of his career in Australia, and pulled off perhaps his most miraculous victory, over Federer at Wimbledon. Asked in Melbourne about trying to catch Federer’s record of 20 Slams, Djokovic said, “I’m aware that making history in the sport that I truly love is something special.”

Nadal won his 18th and 19th major titles this year, returned to No. 1, and closed the decade by leading Spain to a Davis Cup title in Madrid. Asked at the US Open about the Slam-title chase, Rafa said, “I am not thinking and not going to practice every day or not playing tennis for [the record]. I am playing tennis because I love to play tennis.”

Federer didn’t add any majors to his total in 2019, but he did win the Miami Open, nearly won Wimbledon, and closed the season with a convincing victory over Djokovic at the ATP Finals. For years, when people asked me how long I thought Federer would play, I would say, “For as long as he keeps winning.” And I’d say the same thing now; if Federer starts to go out in the first week at majors, he probably won’t be around for long. But even after suffering what may have been the most painful defeat of his career, in this year’s Wimbledon final, he still took a moment to appreciate where he was. During his post-match interview with Sue Barker, Federer looked around Centre Court and said, a little wistfully, “I love Wimbledon.”

Like Agassi, Federer and the rest of this decade’s best players have a passion, one that explains their success. Unlike Agassi’s, though, it’s not dark, it’s not a secret, and it’s not complicated. It’s just love.