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Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray Have an Intense Conversation on GOAT in Tennis

Published 04/17/2020, 3:41 PM EDT

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Tennis legends Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic elated their fans by doing LIVE Instagram session on Friday evening. The duo reminisced a few moments from their past experiences on the professional tour, relived some instances and altogether they had a productive discussion.

One of their topics of discussion was on the GOAT debate. In the tennis world, the subject has been talked over for more than a decade now. Briton Murray gave a detailed explanation of the difficulties in picking up one single GOAT player from the ‘strong era’ of tennis.

“I’m sure Borg would have been amazing in this era. Rafa would have played amazing in Connor and McEnroe’s time. The special thing about this era is, you have three guys playing at the same time,” Andy Murray said.

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“So you can compare them. You (Djokovic)have played 55 times against Rafa, 50 times against Roger. And Roger and Rafa have played 40 times. So you have that many matches between the best players in the biggest tournaments. So you actually don’t have to compare the generations.”

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The three liege lords have been on the track of utter dominance since Roger Federer won his first Slam at Wimbledon 2003. Since 2005 French Open, there have been just two major finals that did not contest a ‘Big Three’ player in the championship match. Their winning streak at majors doesn’t seem to stop in the foreseeable future. Towards the end of their careers, it will be difficult to conclude the best player amongst the trio. 

“I think the best three players are playing just now. It’s difficult to judge it and we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. How everyone’s going to finish Slam wise, how many matches, played against each other and stuff,” the three-time Slam champion continued.

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Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray discuss the battle of surfaces

In the sport of tennis, it is cumbersome to give an objective answer to the question of ‘who is the best tennis player’ that is because of the versatile surfaces existing in the sport.

“In this conversation, because we have different surfaces, to me right now, Rafa’s record on clay, nobody competes with. Roger’s record at Wimbledon is the best. And your record on hard-court is the best,” Andy told the Serb.

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Amongst the ‘Big Three,’ all of them are nearly unbeatable on their respective mastered surfaces. “Because we have separate surfaces it’s difficult. When people ask me who’s the toughest player you have ever played against, I’ll be like, I’ve competed against the best hard-court, clay-court and grass-court player ever. For me right now, it depends on the surface.”

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Mahalakshmi Murali

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Mahalakshmi Murali joined EssentiallySports in 2018 as a tennis author and has gone on to pen more than 1800 engaging articles, probing into various aspects of the sport and its illustrious players. With her expertise on the sport, Mahalakshmi has interviewed stalwarts from the sport such as Serena WIlliams’ coach Patrick Mouratoglou and Kevin Anderson’s physio, Carlos Costa. Equipped with her vast experience and a keen understanding of the sport, Mahalakshmi now co-heads the tennis department.
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