Yes, good point... Rafa and Feds are still elites, capable (during bursts of on court exceptionalism) to still dominate a field of players... they were career outliers relative to most of the fields they played for long periods (years), so, (even today - late on into their careers) when they cycle back to levels of performance approximating their 'best tennis' they are incredibly difficult to deal with, even at 30/31 and 35/36 respectively... BUT their placement is tenuous, let's face it... Rafa and Feds could pull up lame/injured very easily now... Federer pulling out of the FO is a clear signal, as were his comments at the AO about 'hoping to see you all next year'... he's internalized the reality that he could suffer another injury OUT OF THE PROVERBIAL BLUE at any moment now... that's what being 35/36 (in large part) means for an athlete... he's seen the limitations and reality of injury and therapy and how it plays an ever more daunting role in relation to ones career... NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE...
For rampant Rafa and Feds, it becomes how long can they sustain that elite exceptionalism... how can they keep to that kind of intensely keen, focused, championship level... and offset the gains made by the 2 other gens in men's tennis ever encircling them... Theim is just an 'expression' (if you will) of the onset of a next wave of elites pushing against their 'traditional placement' within the absolute elite/championship set, at the top of men's tennis... and there will always been encroachment unto the absolute top of the game, inter-generationally or generational overlapping... the next step for Theim and Zverev and NickK will be to challenge Nole/Rafa/Murray/Fed at/in a major (final), then in winning one (having one of them actually push through) to signify the onset of a generational shift... because the Nish/Raonic/ set of players have essentially not completed that phase of encroachment, MAKING the final of the FO extremely important, Wimbledon too... (And here one 'frames' Murray/Nole/Rafa and Fed as one gen, even though, Fed is the outlier within them (due to chronological age AND Rafa closer to Fed due to having been a teen phenomena, as so his 'career clock' seems closer to Fed than Nole/Murray)... anyway...
If Murray and Nole don't "REBOOT" sufficiently, we might well have a kind of reframing of the men's game by the USO - HERE I AM FEELING FED WON'T BE WINNING THE USO... so, a prediction of sorts as predicate... ya, reframing... OR at least the onset of one... How Rafa and Feds do at the FO and W will be critical of course... because Theim and Zverev and NickK seem to have that final ingredient that Tomic, Nish, Raonic, Goffin don't, quite have... WITH THE EXCEPTION OF RAONIC at Wimbledon... his particular game might just work there... so, he could be an exception to the over all failure of his 'sub-generation' (if you will) in one specific setting (Wimbledon)... hard to say for sure... he might be a one off major winner ala Cilic or Delpo, they at the USO and Raonic at Wimbledon... we shall wait to see...
It's looking (possibly) more and more likely that Zverev on hardcourt (all court) and Theim on clay (for now) are the leading contenders to make a break through as time moves on and the generation cross over (tectonic shifts) become increasingly apparent... Resurgent Rafa and Feds are amazing trends against probability in a way... will the balance of the season prove to be more of their late-late career exceptionalism OR will things fairly quickly begin to revert to a more normative pattern? Murray and Nole, of course, will have a LOT to say in just what kind of gains the NextGens have in 2017... so, far the NEXTGENS haven't cracked the LONG ESTABLISHED elite patterning... but the cracks are there... Will Fed be able to pick up where he left off in Miami or will the grass season prove more troubling (or the summer hard court season) than some might expect? How will Rafa actually play in the second week of the FO? There's a lot still out there that's problematic for both of them... AND... Murray and Nole??? When are they going to resurface? Is Nole laying the foundations this week?
P