Don’t forget tennis great Rod Laver

In many ways, comparing sportsmen and women from diverse eras is a self-defeating and almost certainly futile exercise. How, for example, can you draw a comparison between heavyweight champions the “Brown Bomber” Joe Louis, the undefeated Rocky Marciano or the almost arrogant elegance of Muhammad Ali? The straight answer is you can’t.

Technology, training and diet have certainly gone through sea changes over the years, but brought down to basics, it is still mano a mano within the prescribed parameters. This holds equally true in the dog-eat-dog business of singles play in tennis.

Roger Federer indelibly installed himself as one of the greats of the game by winning his sixth Australian Open and registering a record 20 Grand Slam singles titles with a 6-1 fifth set devastation of the Croatian Marin Cilic last weekend, prompting the call that the Swiss be regarded as the greatest male player of all time.

There is indeed some justification for this. At 36, Federer has more than proven his lasting – and winning – abilities. And the $3.2 million added to his lifetime career earnings of $115 050 482 in Melbourne should comfortably keep the two sets of twins in designer rompers for a while.

But despite Federer’s undoubted credentials, there is another valid claimant to the title of the greatest singles exponent. Rod Laver, the great Australian left-hander, retired in 1977, four years before Federer was born. Despite his 200 singles titles and 11 Grand Slams, his official career earnings amounted to $1 565 413.

It was the lack of rewards in the amateur era which was the prime reason for Laver turning professional in 1962 – when he did the seemingly impossible and did a Season Slam.

Banned from playing under the auspices of the amateur authorities, effectively excluding him from the Grand Slam tournaments for five years, Laver sat it out until 1969 when the open era ended differentiation between paid and unpaid players – and promptly did another Season Slam of four in a single year. He remains the only player to have achieved this.

Federer or Laver? The jury is out on the greatest. So take your pick. But it would have been a great contest if both were in their prime.