re: Kornheiser: Nadal has removed Federer from the discussion of G.O.A.T

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Fair enough.

Who do you have in your top 5?

Fed, Nadal, Sampras....

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Fed, Nadal, Sampras, and Borg are my top four. I could go a few different directions with the fifth, depending on what criteria I deem the most important. Pancho Gonzalez, Laver, Agassi, Johnny Mac, and, yes, even Djokovic are in the mix.

Johnny Mac doesn't have the best resume, but for a time he was untouchable.

Laver won a lot of slams, but it was in that weird transition period at the beginning of the open era. I'm just not convinced he was as great as his numbers might indicate. Plus, he was like my size. He's tough to assess.

Pancho Gonsalez is the one guy from the before the open era that had real deal athleticism and power in his game. Many tennis historians have said that if they needed one guy to play a tennis match with their life depending on it, they'd go with Pancho. It sucks that none of us have seen him play, but I have to give the "old timer" nod.

Agassi had the cleanest groundstrokes of any player in history. His hand-eye was otherworldly. This was what allowed him to keep playing into his mid 30s when he was moving around the court like an old man. It's a shame that he squandered so many years of his would-be prime. But that doesn't detract from his greatness.

Novak Djokovic, when his game is one, might be the best tennis player I've ever seen. It doesn't make any sense to me how he went to the 2007 USO final, and then won the ensuing 2008 Aussie Open and then just floundered for the next three years until he unleashed himself into Novak 2.0 in 2011 and harnessed his obvious physical gifts. Novak will age better than Nadal, though, and so we'll see a lot more greatness out of Djokovic in the years to come.