When Roger Federer won a record 15th Grand Slam title — a number he has since pushed to 17 — at Wimbledon in 2009 it seemed to put to bed tennis’ enduring argument about who is the greatest man to have played the game.
By beating Federer in his prime at Wimbledon in 2008, winning the 2010 US Open for titles at all four major tournaments and with a record nine French Open wins in his overall haul of 14 Grand Slam trophies, Nadal left-armed his way into the conversation.
With victory on Sunday in the French Open final against Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic would become part of that debate, too. Not simply because it would give him the complete collection of titles at all four majors without which no player can pretend to have been among the very best, but because he will achieve a rare feat that eluded both Federer and Nadal: winning four consecutively.
Murray, who will be Britain’s first French Open champion since Fred Perry in 1935 if he beats Djokovic for a third time in a Grand Slam final, sometimes gives the impression that willpower, more than his play, is the backbone of his game.
But the Scot, so irascible on court, so seemingly normal off it, has the full armory of strokes and the tennis brain needed to break down Djokovic’s defenses. He shot-by-shot dismantled, rather than simply beat, Stan Wawrinka in the semifinals, not letting last year’s champion find his bearings in a 6-4, 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 performance that seven-time major winner Mats Wilander described as “the greatest tactical masterpiece I’ve ever seen at Roland Garros.”
Mentally, neither player has a clear edge: Murray benefits from the knowledge that he won their last meeting on clay, 6-3, 6-3 in the final in Rome last month; No. 1 Djokovic can draw on the inspiration of having beaten his understudy in the rankings in the Australian Open final in 2016, 2015, 2013 and 2011. Murray won their other two Grand Slam championship matches: at Wimbledon in 2013 and, in another five-setter, at the 2012 US Open.
Ultimately, any argument about greatest players may never get a conclusive answer. How, after all, can the wooden-racket era of Rod laver — the last man to win the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open in a row, in 1969 — be fairly compared to the furious game played nowIJ
Murray, as good as he is, isn’t close to knocking on the door of tennis’ pantheon of true legends. Not so Djokovic.
He stands on the cusp of greatness. Win on Sunday, and that will be beyond doubt.