So who's the male tennis GOAT?

[Mark TKO]

Just seen the footage. Great Olympic spirit shown there. Never understood why pro sports were allowed in but that's the way it is now I guess.

[Master]

So it was fun watching bad boy Novak losing to Medvedev. Failing to complete a calendar grand slam sweep, and overtake Fed/Nadal. Shame.

On a positive note is Emma Raducanu achievement the greatest in tennis/sport? A qualifier to win a slam, not dropping a set and was 150 placed at the time. Unbelievable

[Beanz]

So it was fun watching bad boy Novak losing to Medvedev. Failing to complete a calendar grand slam sweep, and overtake Fed/Nadal. Shame.

On a positive note is Emma Raducanu achievement the greatest in tennis/sport? A qualifier to win a slam, not dropping a set and was 150 placed at the time. Unbelievable

She is amazing and it was a mind blowing feat. Surprised there was no thread on her progress thru the tournament.The final was fantastic and to be honest the men's tennis has been incredibly boring for years. There can be few duller sportsmen in the history of sport than Federer and Djokovic.

[Mark TKO]

I watched Raducanu final, the first women's tennis match I have watched for years and when I say years I mean a lot!

A hell of an achievement. I do wonder how strong the female game is at the moment ? I looked back at names she had beaten and hadn't heard of any of them but I guess there's no dominant female at the moment. Hopefully she can become that figure and have a rivalry with someone else - that is good for the game. (I grew up in the Evert-Navratilova rivalry era).

As for Djokovic you did sense that was coming. He'd struggled in a couple of matches at times and last night I actually felt sorry for him as he had nothing in the tank it seemed for the most part. Again fair play to Medevedev though, great performance.

I do think there are now 3 fitter stronger younger players on the mens tour - Tsipitas, Zverev and Medvedev - and it could well be that the old guard will be second to them (Fed for sure). You do think if Djok is going to get to 21 he has to do pretty sharpish. You don't know what yesterday took out of him either, he probably knows he won't get another chance to do the season grand slam now the young 3 are coming of age.

Maybe the main 3 old guard will all finish on 20 slams which would probably be about fair to be honest. They are the 3 GOATs and people can then argue forever over who was best.

I still believe on his day though Jeremy Bates would tear them all another arsehole.

[TitoFan]

Novak will get to 21. It's not that I want him to, because my favorite of the Big Three has always been Roger. But Roger yielded TBE status a long time ago to both Novak and Rafa. TBH... between Novak and Rafa I'd rather it be Novak who takes over the mantle. He may be a bit boorish at times (and a McEnroe wannabe with all the racket smashing)... but he's good on ALL surfaces. I refuse to acknowledge a mega-clay-specialist as TBE. Rafa's #3. But Novak is still young, and it's just a matter of time. As far as the young'uns... it was bound to happen at some point. It may seem these guys have come out of nowhere... but that's just the way tennis is. As for the female side of things, it's good to see some new blood up there as well. With Serena now out of the picture due to age, the field is wide open for some of these upcoming young ladies to take over. There doesn't seem to be a Serena in there just yet, though.

[Mark TKO]

Not sure how you can say Roger yielded TBE status a long time ago ? With no home surfaces and in their prime I'd still pick him against the other two.

And French aside Rafa hasn't won consistently on the other surfaces like the other two have so I'd always say its between Roger and Novak anyway - with Nadal the best there has ever been and ever will be on clay by a country mile.

[TitoFan]

I'm a Roger fan, so I'm not trying to throw shade his way. At their respective primes, Roger very likely beats Novak more than Novak beats him. But Roger lost some key head-to-head matches against Rafa, for instance. Even at Wimbledon! That one hurt more than most. Only fair Roger should've taken a French away from Rafa.

Look at the head-to-head matchups. It's maddening to me... but I'm not going to ignore the numbers just because I'm a Federer fan and don't like Nadal. Federer has by far the inferior head-to-head numbers in Grand Slam finals between the three of them. It seems Roger sometimes failed when it counted the most. Nadal only broke into the win column at the Australian Open because he won it against Roger, for crying out loud. Nadal is up there in majors not only because of course he's a specialist on clay... but because he took his only Australian Open from Federer and one of his two Wimbledons as well.

Also, Roger hasn't won a major since 2018. Since then, Novak has racked up 8 majors and Rafa has won 4. In tennis terms, that's a long time ago for me.