This is a farce. There is a lot of talent out there. The Big 3 of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic are just a very special, unique trio. There never has been, nor will there ever be, a collection of players like them. It's not the other way around, that all the young talent are mugs. It's the sheer dominance of those 3, even into their thirties.
I thought about this post for a while and I think it is not true. During the amateur days of tennis, at least once there was the start of the pro game, the best amateurs turned pro after one or two years at the top. Then they disappeared into the pro tour where they could at least scratch out a living playing tennis, or maybe completely quit to get more lucrative jobs. Laver, Rosewall, Hoad, Gonzales, Segura, etc. were pros, as well as Kramer, Riggs, Budge, before that.
Even in the open era, you had Borg (shorter career), McEnroe, Connors, Lendl, Becker, Edberg, Wilander overlapping each other and even playing Agassi, Sampras, and Courier.
A lot of this is training and the way the tour is organized. Players peak for the slam tournaments, adjusting physical training, number of matches, practice, and rest (even dropping out of other tournaments with niggling injuries) to be at their best then. It's much harder to beat the best player when they are playing their best than back when they were playing continually and not worrying about their physical condition so much (party time!) for a particular tournament.
Part of this is the slowing of surfaces. It is much harder for a less consistent player to beat the top players these days. A Chris Lewis, Wayne Arthurs, Kevin Curren or even Ivo Karlevic does not have nearly as much chance for an upset these days. A very fast surface is a great equalizer and it may only take a couple of points to go the wrong way for a top player to be upset when both players are easily holding serve.
The current Big 3 certainly are great, but I'm thinking that there were times in the past that there were three or more equivalent players.
