* !Picby Pete Bodo*
It's an inevitable conversation that takes place the minute they crown the Australian Open champion. Can (fill in the name of the winner) be the first player to complete a calendar year Grand Slam since Rod Laver last did it in 1969 on the men's side, and Steffi Graf accomplished the feat in 1988?
Let's not forget, for all the jawboning about this GOAT or that GOAT, a calendar-year Grand Slam remains the ultimate achievement in tennis, even if partisans conveniently like to ignore that when they lobby for their heroes.
The most powerful proof for what you might call the "sanctity" of the Grand Slam is that despite the vast differences in the games of men and women, the latter have produced only one more Grand Slammer than have the men. Neither Billie Jean King nor Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Monica Seles, or Serena Williams has completed the feat.
Only three women recorded Grand Slams: Maureen Connolly Brinker (1953), Margaret Court (1970) and Graf (who also has the sport's only "Golden Slam," which includes an Olympic singles gold medal in addition to the four Grand Slam titles). The men have just two Grand Slammers: Donald Budge (1938), and the only player of either sex who ran the Grand Slam table twice, Laver (1962 and 1969).
The chance that we'll see a Grand Slam this year probably isn't very high, odds and statistics being what they are. But it's probably higher than it has been in a long time, because Victoria Azarenka and Novak Djokovic are both exceptional hard-court players, and thus well-armed for two of the four majors.
More important, though, is the fact that neither faces a seemingly insurmontable hurdle of the kind that Serena has faced in recent years at the prospect of winning on the red clay of Roland Garros, or Roger Federer met in his undeclared quest for a Slam. That would be a fella by the name of Rafael Nadal.
As a newly minted Grand Slam champion, Azarenka hasn't provided us win sufficient data. Let's wait and see, although we already know she's terrific on hard courts. She won Marbella on clay last year, made the finals at Madrid (l. to Kvitova) and had a good French Open, stopped in the quarters by the eventual champ, Li Na. On grass, she's made steady progress and last year lost to the eventual champ, Petra Kvitova, there as well. But she pushed the semifinal to three sets before bowing. She has plenty of all-surface potential.
Djokovic is the more intriguing candidate because he's won four majors since he took his game to that vaunted "next level" at the start of last year. And when a guy who's already won one major does that, you'd better pay attention. The only title Djokovic has yet to collect is that of the French Open. He missed a good opportunity last year, when he was beaten in the semifinals by Federer. In the weeks leading up to the tournament, he accomplished something no other player could pull off for years: He mastered Nadal on red clay.
I can't emphasize this enough: Were it not for Nadal's ironclad grip on the French Open title (which is still intact, in case you were wondering), the question we'd be asking here could just as easily be, "Can Djokovic join Federer as one of just four men to have completed a calendar-year Grand Slam?"
In a way, though, this is stretching things a bit. For Djokovic, just as it would have been for Federer, stripping the French title from Nadal would represent the starting point rather than the mid-point or even the high-point of a quest for a Grand Slam.
The pressure on anyone who would emerge from the Bois de Boulogne with two major titles in hand for the year would begin to ratchet up. If the player were lucky enough to add that third major at Wimbledon, we would enter uncharted territory. The only word I can think of, trying to anticipate what that process of playing for the U.S. Open title with a Grand Slam in the offing would be like is: unimaginable.
This would be a convenient place to end this story, of course. But instead of trying to imagine the unimaginable, let's ask how likely it is to become a reality.
Last year at this time, there was talk of Nadal perhaps eclipsing Federer's record 16 Grand Slam singles titles, as well as the prospect of Nadal punching through to accomplish a Grand Slam. The conversation was tenable partly because of Nadal's game, and partly because of his superiority as a competitor.
While it's true that the one tournament that Nadal owns, the French Open, also happens to have been the major stumbling block for so many of the men who might have achieved a Grand Slam (a reality that pre-dates the era of Nadal's domination), Djokovic probably will go into the tournament with a better chance to win it than any erstwhile Grand Slammer since Bjorn Borg. That's based on his clay-court proficiency as well as his record against other clay-courters.
And when it comes to his nature as a competitor, Djokovic has demonstrated that it can only be underestimated. The few rattlings that Djokovic was not quite the same player at the Australian Open as he was early last year were effectively stilled by his performance in the final.
Let's suspend our disbelief for a moment and ask, based on the record, who the most obvious stumbling block would be for Djokovic on his way to a Grand Slam? Heretical though it may sound to Nadal fans, recent history tells us that would be Federer.
After all, the world No. 3 beat Djokovic in Paris and held two match points against him at the U.S. Open. But Federer is another year older, and the draw gods might continue to protect Djokovic by demanding that Roger go through Rafa, his nemesis, in order to get to Nole.
That's a very big ask, but not nearly so big as the one Djokovic faces when it comes to the prospect of recording a Grand Slam.