There was a time when you watched Roger Federer dominate the world of men’s tennis, and you thought you were watching perhaps the greatest that has ever lived.

Slowly but surely the likes of Rafa Nadal, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic have reined him in – and now you would be tempted to say Novak can lay claim to being the greatest of the modern era.

The 29-year-old won his first French Open yesterday, but that was just the cherry on top of what has been a mental past year. Here’s SMH:

In the Darwinian cauldron of men’s professional tennis, it made sense that nobody had won four straight Grand Slam singles titles since September 1969, when Rod Laver outlasted Tony Roche in four sets at the US Open to complete the feat. It figured further that nobody had ever done so on three different surfaces. Somehow, all the way into 2016, in an era full of ball-blasters who can make it ever harder to secure a given point, one guy has won 28 consecutive Grand Slam singles matches, and holds all four Grand Slam titles…

Andy Murray reminded the audience of its luck as witnesses and called it “such a rare thing to have happened” and “something you probably won’t see for a long, long time”.

Djokovic also recently made history as the first person to tick off $100 million in prize money, so you could say it has been a pretty decent 2016 for the Serbian.

I’m sure there are many tennis fans out there who hope his dominance is reeled in – things can start to get a little predictable, after all – but i wouldn’t put money on that happening any time soon.

[source:smh]