Rod Laver, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic … who’s the GOAT?

Easy question. Difficult answer. Fascinating. Head-scratching. Have your say.

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Who’s the GOAT?

Easy question. Difficult answer. Fascinating. Head-scratching. It used to be Rod Laver. Along came Roger Federer. The beautiful. The unbeatable – along came Rafael Nadal. The Cassius of clay. The warrior and still the winningest – then Novak Djokovic arrived. Another Australian Open is at his mercy. He’d match Nadal’s benchmark of 22 majors. GOAT?

Rod Laver. Picture: Getty Images

Roger Federer. Picture: Getty Images

What do we reckon? Laver did what no man has done. And we’re not just talking about winning majors in a bucket hat. Tennis’ holy grail is the calendar-year grand slam. Laver, of course, did it twice. Bradmanesque. Federer never got there. Nadal and Djokovic have fallen short. What Djokovic would do to pull that off. To stick it to the armies of Federer and Nadal fans. You need to win 28 straight major matches for the slam and he peeled off an extraordinary 27 in 2021 … only to bomb out against Daniil Medvedev in the US Open final. He might have closed the GOAT debate there and then at Flushing Meadows. It rages on.

It fires people up. I thought a mate was going to put one on my chin in a Melbourne pub, years ago, when I suggested the GOAT wasn’t necessarily Federer. Talk against Nadal, Djokovic or Federer and their fans take it incredibly personally. Which is a credit to the three of them. For the way they have made us feel. Glorious, really.

Rafael Nadal. Picture: AFP

Novak Djokovic. Picture: AFP

Why rank them? Because it’s one of the million joys of sport. Asking the simplest and most confounding question of all – who’s the best? Laver would have won 20something majors if he wasn’t banned in his prime for turning professional. The Bradmanesque standing is unquestioned but where exactly does he stand? There’s no right answer, no wrong answer, just a truly intriguing collective answer to be compiled.

So, what do we reckon? Who’s the GOAT? Votes are open until noon on Sunday.