Stories are the lifeblood of a sport. They shape a fan’s connection to the game, provide a hook for their obsessions, support deep emotional investment, and create space to define the stakes well in advance. If Lionel Messi can lead Argentina to World Cup glory in Qatar in December, he will be a better footballer than the late Diego Maradona.

But the narratives are also fickle, selfish, and often pre-ordained. They are neither objective nor entirely quantifiable and leave no room for luck, chance and risk. It is rather a flight of supporters to overcome sporting uncertainty. If Gonzalo Higuain had buried the golden luck in the 2014 World Cup final against Germany, Messi would already be a better footballer than Maradona.

Federer, Nadal, Djokovic

In tennis, the fan favorite story of this generation is to christen one among Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic as the greatest male singles player of all time. After all, it’s a time like no other in the history of men’s tennis. Beginning with the 2005 French Open, the trio have dominated until the corner in 57 of the 67 Grand Slams, lending credence to the argument that the greatest must be one of them.

They hold the top three spots for most Grand Slam match wins, each of them recording over 300 wins, and they are also in the top five for most ATP Tour titles won. Thus, the will is to build a historical time machine, to compare the statistics between the three and also with champions of yesteryear like Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg and Pete Sampras and to separate the greats from the greats.

It’s been simmering since Nadal equaled Federer’s record 20 majors by winning the 2020 French Open, nearly boiled over when Djokovic came one game away from winning his 21st Grand Slam title in New York last year and exploded in Australia earlier this season when Nadal won his 21st. With three more Grand Slams (including the ongoing French Open) still in play in 2022, and the trio still active, the discussion is unlikely to die anytime soon.

Comparisons over time

But comparisons within the contemporary and between the contemporary and the historical have their own pitfalls. The recordings are certainly indicative, but devoid of context and perspective, they are often misleading. For one thing, there is no even field for comparison. If Grand Slam titles won are the only measure of greatness, how can one reconcile the fact that the great Pancho Gonzales was even denied the opportunity to compete (from 1950 to 1967) because he was turned professional in what was an amateur sport until the start of the open era in 1968?

Jimmy Connors, eight-time Slam winner and former world No. World Team Tennis, a professional league created by Billie Jean King. That year, Connors won the other three Grand Slams. Other top players also routinely skipped the Australian Open, held at the end of the year until 1985, rather than the coveted early-season slot it occupies today. today.

Then there is the depth of the terrain and the non-overlapping character of the players’ peaks. Laver, considered by many to be the greatest, won six of his 11 Majors as an amateur, even as great players similar to Ken Rosewall and Gonzales plied their trades on the professional circuit. Federer had won 12 of his 20 Majors before the end of 2007, a period when Djokovic had not yet fully arrived and Nadal was about to find his feet outside the Parisian clay court.

There is no denying that advances in string and racquet technology have benefited modern era players over their 1960s and 1970s counterparts who played with wooden racquets that had a much smaller sweet spot. Better nutrition, training and recovery techniques have enabled today’s stars to play longer. Yet how can one quantify the resilience, consistency, big game nerve and endless appetite for the game of Federer and Nadal over two decades?

Borg, who won his 11 Majors in a glorious seven-year window from 1974 to 1981, still beams with triumph in part because he retired at the slightest sign of decline. But should it rank higher than Federer’s late-career brilliance and problem-solving abilities that allowed him to add three more Majors in 2017 and 2018 after going nearly five years without a win?

Another variable is the playing surface. Laver has won nine of his 11 Majors on grass, while Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have finished runners-up or better at all four Grand Slams, on clay, grass and acrylic, at least five times each. . Djokovic, in fact, is the only man to win all four Majors, nine ATP Masters 1000s and the year-end ATP Finals twice. However, a single surface dominating the circuit like in Laver’s days leads to greater variance and a tight field.

It is a truism to say that the courts today are more homogeneous than ever, which makes them more accessible to all courtists like Djokovic. Wimbledon grass, for example, was much faster in the 1960s and 1970s, giving a halo to back-to-back French Open (slow clay) and Wimbledon triumphs of Laver (1962 and 1969) and Borg (1978, ’79, ’80) against those of Nadal (2008 and 2010), Federer (2009) and Djokovic (2021).

Beyond the field

Sports champions also come in varying hues, whose aura and significance extend far beyond the confines of the gaming arena. Arthur Ashe, three-time major champion and the only black man to win the title in singles at the Australian Open, Wimbledon or the US Open, will easily trump the trio of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic for the eloquent campaigner he was for causes like civil human rights, movements anti-apartheid and AIDS awareness.

Beyond tennis, the world may see a greater sprinter than Usain Bolt, but the Jamaican’s role in single-handedly rescuing a discipline ravaged by multiple doping scandals will remain intact. In football, the world may forever debate who among Pelé, Maradona, Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo is the greatest, but it is the ideas of Dutch maestro Johan Cruyff developed nearly five decades ago that still drive the sport. .

Same athlete, different eras?

The debate to decide who is the greatest sportsman is also confined to himself in that he does not just see the past through a blind lens, but closes the door to potential greatness. Over a decade and a half, Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have continually evolved their tactics to suit each other and add layers of intrigue to their rivalry. Is it fair to assume that no other group of players can replicate the same thing?

“I think if I was playing today, I would have adapted my playing style to today’s needs,” said badminton legend Prakash Padukone. sports star in 2018. “The tendency for people is to think, ‘Could he have survived by now?’ In general, my view is that champions in any sport in any era succeeded because they discovered what was good at that time. That’s not to say that if me or anyone else were playing now, we’d be playing exactly the same way we were playing in the 1980s or 1970s.

“We would have adapted to what was required and we would have found a way to win. It’s not just me. It applies to any sport. I would still have used my strength. I probably would have been much stronger physically. I might have had a more powerful smash, moved faster.

“I don’t know how it would have evolved. But I would have found a way. If you could do it then, you can do it anytime.

Why is it then that such a binary, narrow, zero-sum exercise in finding out who is the greatest is still appealing? At its best, it allows us to revisit the past and learn from it. At worst, in the intellectually defective avatar, he offers an escape from the trappings of the present. The label “Greatest of All Time” has an authoritative resonance, despite the myth and illusion that blur reality.

The yard is big enough

But the legacy of players and their place in the hierarchies are not always determined by the results of the big moments. Nadal’s victory over Djokovic on Tuesday at Roland Garros tells us nothing more than what we already knew of his greatness. No more than a 14th Roland-Garros record and a 22nd Grand Slam in total. It will, however, suit his fans’ narrative, of their desire to see their hero endure a little more than the rest, campaigning against overwhelming evidence that the world is big enough to contain all sports heroes, past, present and future. .