For most of tennis's existence, winning even a single Grand Slam tournament meant career affirmation.
From 1990 to '98, 16 different players won a major, six for the first and only time. If there was a big-picture narrative involved, it likely had to do with reaching No. 1 in the ATP rankings.
A lone Slam win prompted Thomas Muster's rise to No. 1 in early 1996, just as it did for Carlos Moya in 1999. Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Patrick Rafter reached the summit in 1999 as well, just as Lleyton Hewitt, Gustavo Kuerten and Marat Safin would in the years that followed.