Roger Federer won his 20th career Grand Slam title by taking out the Australian Open this year. Photo / Getty Images.
Roger Federer won his 20th career Grand Slam title by taking out the Australian Open this year. Photo / Getty Images.
Sweltering Melbourne shut the stadium roof and red hot Roger Federer shut the door on the argument — he's the best tennis player of all time.
Winning the Australian Open final over big Marin Cilic, to claim his 20th Grand Slam, was a clincher. Or maybe just another one.
But is he the greatest sportsman of, for argument's sake, the last half century or so?
Not a chance. One man, Muhammad Ali, stands ahead of the rest, because he was a world figure without compare, and one who took some outwardly courageous stands unimaginable to Federer and his heavily sponsored pals.
But when it comes to the court, Federer is the king for my money, and probably most others.
Some of the old brigade will argue long and hard: I've got the emails — "you never saw Rod Laver play".
Federer is competing in maybe the toughest era tennis has seen, against one rival who was almost unbeatable on clay, and others primed by sports science and any sort of coaching they desired as they sought to chase down the Fed.
Led by French Open specialist Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, the pack got its noses in front but only now and then. As the Australian Open commentators were quick to point out, Federer has now won three of his staggering 20 Grand Slam titles since turning 35. He's also been in many of the finest tennis epics.
Federer has absorbed the power game, tamed it, kept tennis as an art form when opponents were relying on howitzers and marathon running. What he has done is borderline miraculous.
The more recent challengers to Federer simply don't have his numbers, or his wondrous all round game.
He has all the shots, the tactics, the resilience, the smashing touches.
Anyone who looks further back and sees Laver, whose career included the amateur and professional eras, as the equal of Federer must have one hell of an argument beyond the Grand Slam maths. Federer 20, Laver 11...there is no argument which beats that. Yes, Laver was banned for five years after turning pro, but you can't award him titles that he didn't win. And he is now nine titles behind.
In an apples and oranges debate, and leaving team sports out of the equation, only golf maestro Jack Nicklaus challenges Federer. Nicklaus, who won 18 majors and was runner up in 19, and Federer, who has lost 10 Grand Slam finals, are definitely in the same ballpark. I'd give the nod to Nicklaus.
As a world sports phenomenon, nothing matches Tiger Woods, but he remains short of the Nicklaus mark and that's the end of that. As I write, Tiger has just tried to blast another ball down memory lane and gone back into the rough. He's like an old boxer, who can't give up.
Muhammad Ali is second to none in the conversation of the best sportsmen of the past 50 years. Photo / Getty Images
Which bring us to Ali, a beautiful boxer and snappy poet who was more than happy to use one to highlight the other. His vanity could sound like insanity, and yet it was probably pivotal in allowing him such extraordinary courage that he risked jail, and it all, by standing up to the American war machine.
Activist, humorist, pugilist...you choose the order. But the man ruled the world and boxing when the heavyweight division was amazing. There's has never been a sports character who comes remotely close. His bravado-infused strategies in dealing with the scary Sonny Liston and George Foreman were beyond belief, in line with the courage he showed outside of the ring.
A personal anecdote: At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Ali spoke at a function in a tent, and I managed to snap a picture of him in a crowd, from about 20 metres away. You could barely make out his head.
As my very non-sporting wife feigned interest in my Olympic photos, she came across the one in which you could almost see the The Greatest.
"You got that close to Muhammad Ali," she exclaimed, with genuine amazement.
There is one shocking black mark against Ali's name, the disgraceful race-linked taunting of the noble Joe Frazier. That apart, Ali was a man apart. More than anything, he made the world a lot of fun and sport absolutely vital.
Federer, Nicklaus, Woods...outstanding, sensational. But they are, in comparison to Ali, just sports people.
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