Is Novak Djokovic the Greatest of All-Time (GOAT)?

(CNN) — Is Novak Djokovic the greatest of all time (GOAT) in tennis? If you look at his accomplishments, the answer should be obvious and yet it still seems to be up for debate.

The Serbian star holds 24 grand slam singles titles and needs one more to be clear of Margaret Court, but if he gets to 25, will his critics finally be able to concede that he is the greatest? Don’t count on it.

Tennis fans who’ve been spoiled by the unparalleled success of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Djokovic – the so-called Big 3 of the men’s game – over the last 20 years are split, and they are fiercely loyal to the man they each perceive to be the GOAT.

Federer was the original. His Swiss swagger made him virtually untouchable early in his career, effortlessly dismantling the legacy of Pete Sampras’s 14 grand slam singles titles and seducing fans with his elegance on the court and his charm off it.

Federer dominated the grass courts of Wimbledon – the sport’s spiritual home – transcending the game. Federer would likely be the first name on the lips of most casual fans when asked to name the greatest player; his cultural impact was immense.

But then along came Nadal to challenge his supremacy and to build a legacy of his own. The Spanish lefty became the “King of Clay,” setting up residence in Paris to win an extraordinary 14 French Open titles. If Federer was graceful, Nadal brought grit, a more physical style of play that was often unplayable.

Federer was the first to win 20 grand slam singles titles, a seemingly impossible feat for anyone who’d watched Sampras get to 14, surpassing Roy Emerson’s record of 12 which had stood for more than three decades. Nadal has racked up 22 major titles, but both have now retired, leaving Djokovic with the stage to himself.

Following in the footsteps of two giants was no mean feat, but Djokovic has surpassed them both in every possible way. He’s won 24 grand slam singles titles, the measure by which tennis players are usually ranked in greatness, and in 2016, he became the only member of the Big 3 to hold all four majors at the same time.

He’s spent 428 weeks on top of the world rankings, more than double Nadal’s time at the summit and over two years more than Federer managed up there. He’s won the singles gold medal at the Olympics, which Federer didn’t, and he’s won the year-end ATP Finals, which Nadal never did.

But it’s in the nine Masters Series events that Djokovic really stands out, neither Federer nor Nadal were able to win all of them, but Djokovic has won them all, at least twice. He totally lapped them!

A 25th major, which he will hope to acquire in 2025, is perhaps the only thing left on the to-do list, a trophy that would enable him to definitively say that he won more grand slam singles titles than anyone else. This shouldn’t matter though; Margaret Court won half of her majors in the amateur era, and 11 of her titles came at her home Australian Open at a time when many players didn’t travel Down Under.

If it weren’t for circumstance, Djokovic might already have been well past his quarter century. In 2020, until he was disqualified for petulantly hitting the ball at a lineswoman, he was favorite to win the US Open in New York, and his choice not to be vaccinated against Covid-19 cost him a shot at the same tournament and also the Australian Open two years later. These episodes fuel his critics, who find Djokovic harder to love than his Big 3 companions.

If his personality doesn’t disqualify him then they would argue that it’s the way he has played the game. Some might argue that Djokovic is too robotic or that he doesn’t make tennis look like it’s fun, discounting perhaps his extraordinary mental fortitude or his instinct for the game that makes him less spectacular – he rarely has to chase down a ball, he’s already there, waiting to hit it.

Seven-time grand slam singles champion Mats Wilander once mused that Djokovic was the ‘BOAT’. Speaking with Eurosport in 2023, he was quite clear on who the best of all time was.

“I hate the expression ‘GOAT.’ I would have liked to call it the boat race. The best of all time is Novak Djokovic, but when you start saying great, I think more things come into it than just the sport itself,” Wilander said. “But the best of all time? We have him in front of us and it’s Novak Djokovic.”

It is possible that Federer was the fans’ first love, Nadal their second, and nobody could have imagined having the GOAT debate again so soon. If two’s company, maybe three’s a crowd. But Djokovic has all the stats to back him up, including a superior head-to-head record against each of his two rivals.

Tennis fans will twist themselves into pretzels to argue it any other way, but if the point of being a professional athlete is to win matches, tournaments and trophies, then this debate was really over a long time ago.

Whether you like it or not, Novak Djokovic is the GOAT.

The-CNN-Wire
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