Wiedmer: Is it time to add Novak Djokovic to GOAT discussion?

Novak Djokovic lunges to return a shot to Rafael Nadal during their Wimbledon semifinal Saturday in London. Djokovic won 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (9), 3-6, 10-8, completing a match that started Friday but was suspended after the third set.
Novak Djokovic lunges to return a shot to Rafael Nadal during their Wimbledon semifinal Saturday in London. Djokovic won 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (9), 3-6, 10-8, completing a match that started Friday but was suspended after the third set.

What if this argument about deciding the GOAT - Greatest Of All Time - of professional tennis needs to include three players instead of two?

What if it's no longer enough to consider only Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. What if it's time to ponder whether Novak Djokovic could eclipse both Nadal's current mark of 17 major men's singles titles and Federer's record haul of 20 before he crushes his final fuzzy yellow ball into oblivion?

This possibility had become something of a moot point before Sunday afternoon at the All-England Club and Djokovic's rather surgical dismantling of fatigued giant Kevin Anderson in straight sets to win Wimbledon.

Before that victory secured Djoker's 13th major championship - but first since the 2016 French Open - it seemed his once stellar career had been all but halted by an elbow injury and personal issues and what appeared to be a rather lengthy, perplexing struggle over whether to completely reabsorb himself in the game he was starting to overwhelm two years ago.

To go back to that 2016 French Open is to witness greatness in its prime. When he won that title, Djokovic was the reigning champion at all four majors, having won Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 2015 and the Australian Open in 2016. There was talk of him becoming the first player since Rod Laver to capture all four tennis majors in the same calendar year, which Laver did twice (1962, 1969).

Of course, that never happened. Then everything else seemed to happen. And Djokovic suddenly became human, as Federer and Nadal had before him, their careers momentarily slowed by the same double whammy of injury and doubt that unexpectedly took hold of Djokovic.

But that's also the thing about true greatness and genius, even in the shortened time frame of sport. It may take a brief break, but it can resurface at any given time, arguably stronger than ever. So as Djokovic rehabbed and recharged, he watched Federer and Nadal evenly split the previous six majors before Wimbledon 2016, despite both men being older than his 31 years on earth. And regardless of having undergone elbow surgery in February, he entered both the French Open in late May and Wimbledon.

It would take an enormous amount of hard work and a wee bit of luck, and it might still take the rest of the year to get all the way back to his former self, but Djokovic had to start somewhere, much as Federer and Nadal had traveled similar paths two years earlier after injury layoffs.

So there he stood on the All-England Club's Centre Court on Sunday, basking in the joy of his fourth Wimbledon crown and 13th major championship overall. Then Djokovic immediately won over a crowd not always in his corner this fortnight by pointing to the player's box where his 3-year-old son, Stefan, had just appeared.

Noted Djokovic, a wide smile on his face: "It feels amazing because for the first time in my life I have someone screaming, 'Daddy! Daddy!'"

Children change everything, and Djokovic and his wife Jelena's world changed again with the arrival of daughter Tara last fall. But what has really changed is the landscape of tennis with his return. It may or may not be a coincidence Federer and Nadal both returned to dominate the sport while Djokovic struggled to regain his form, because he owns a career advantage on both of them.

He toppled Federer in the 2014 and 2015 Wimbledon finals. He beat Nadal on Saturday to reach Sunday's final.

"I had surgery, I had my moments of doubt," Djokovic said in victory, having eaten two clumps of grass to celebrate. "There's no better place to make a comeback. This is a sacred place in the world of tennis. The grass tasted really well."

Maybe he'll never be loved by the masses the way Federer and Nadal are. Maybe he'll never be routinely mentioned in the same sentence as them, because maybe he's all the way back and maybe he isn't.

Whipping a seriously fatigued Anderson - who had played a total of 74 games in his previous two fifth sets alone just to reach the final - isn't the same as meeting a similarly rested opponent such as Federer or Nadal in a final, though Djokovic did have to topple Nadal 10-8 in Saturday morning's fifth set to conclude a semifinal match that began Friday evening.

As the 6-foot-8 Anderson noted with a shrug concerning the nearly 21 hours total he spent on the court just to get to Sunday: "I would have given another 21 hours to get here."

Some may argue the tennis powers that be need to consider going to a fifth-set tiebreaker in all the majors, rather than just the U.S. Open, to avoid the 26-24 fifth set score that got Anderson past John Isner in the semis or his 13-11 fifth set over Federer in the quarterfinals. If you can play a tiebreaker to decide every set knotted at 6-6 through the first four sets, why not the fifth? Why must the victor win only that set by two games?

But that's for later - probably much later.

For now, with Djokovic capturing his 13th major title in surprisingly dominant fashion, it might be time to seriously consider adding him to the conversation of his sport's GOAT. Because playing as he did at Wimbledon, he would seem to have a few more majors in his future than Federer and Nadal.

Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.

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