Is tennis the most unforgiving sport if you're 3rd or 4th best?

It’s pretty brutal. You have no teammate to get bailed out with.

I think so. As an example, I've not been the biggest Stefanos Tsitsipas but I literally felt bad for him on a personal level watching him play Alcaraz and realizing that he'll never win major tournaments as long as this guy who is 5 years younger than him is playing the sport. That has to be a bitter pill to swallow. You are one of the best 10 in the world, but won't reach the summit almost no matter what you do.

You missed Agassi there I believe.

Still can't believe Roddick blew 2009. That was his day. He finally had a match with Fed under his control.

Yes. They travel every week to a new city and the top ranked player always wins.

Closest comparison is women’s sports where bracket challenges dont exist because the top seeds all advance every time.

Tennis may be the sport where the “better” player wins the most often. Sure there are upsets but luck is not a big factor due to the sheer volume of points.

A fortunate carom or bounce in golf can be the difference between winning and finishing 30th.

And then in a low scoring team sport like hockey or soccer, one team can absolutely dominate game flow and lose.

Swimming seems to be another one. If you’re second best in your event, you might never win a race like with that British breast stroke guy who was such a massive favorite in every race, the guys behind him

Ah a lot has to do with seeding now. 32 seeds at the majors. I wish they would go back to just 16 seeds. You saw a lot more upsets when that happened. A top player could catch someone in a 1st or second round match that could take them out if they weren't in a groove yet.

There was basically an entire lost generation of tennis - players born in the 90s.

F1 has a similar problem due to the importance of money, engineering and construction. The sport attracted a lot of new fans and media interest during the excitement of the changing of the guards from Hamilton to Verstappen. But that was a rare exception - it's the least competitive sport. One team dominates and everybody else is just along for the paycheck and creating the illusion that there's a "race".