So, what did we witness last week?

A new champion staking his claim to the GOAT (greatest of all time) title? The end of a memorable duopoly at the top of the men’s game? The beginning of another winning streak that’s going to run forever? Just another exhibition of the cyclical ebb and flow of the professional game? As I struggle to put it all in perspective, it might be useful to step back and look at the big picture. This does sometimes help when we ponder over heavy questions, like leadership transfers and legacy shifts.

The tennis season has some clear milestones in the course of its busy season which helps us in this kind of exercise. The conclusion of the Australian Open is the first, where we get a fair indication of who’s been the quickest off the block. Right in the heart of the clay court season, around Rome and Madrid, is when we get our second milestone, where everyone analyses how well the usual suspects have done on the red surface, how the unfavoured have upped their game, and so on. The third is at the end of Wimbledon, a clear middle-of-the-year marker, with a long period of inactivity and a longer journey across the Atlantic to follow. The fourth is at the end of the US open, when every player’s report card gets graded for the year, and we all head off to celebrate our findings in London.

This year, the fight among the top three spots has been intense, with individual storylines playing out right through the year. So, where do they all stand at the end of Wimbledon?

Roger Federer began the year looking over his shoulder at Novak Djokovic, who quickly caught up and dispatched with him in the semi-finals of the Australian Open. Federer’s response to a query on the long-term implications of that loss was to brusquely ask the world to check again six months down the line. Well, six months later, Federer is dethroned, but hanging on. The curious part of his season though, has been that his high point came not on his favourite green surface at Wimbledon, but at Roland Garros when he masterminded the usurper Djokovic’s sole defeat this year. This has actually worked in his favour, proving his resilience on his least favoured surface, while he continues to threaten on surfaces more conducive to him. Roger Federer continues to be there and thereabouts.

Rafael Nadal has had an even more interesting year so far. His impeccable record last season was always going to make it tough for him this time around, but the fact that he kept losing to this one man over and over again (the Djoker once more), while remaining tough as nails with the rest of the pack, made for fascinating viewing. That he might have successsfully defended all those points from last year if not for that one man adds to the sense of frustration or poignancy, depending on where your affiliations lie. Rafael Nadal continues to lord over the tennis world, with the notable exception of one individual.

Which brings us to the new king, Novak Djokovic. It’s been fun watching him this year. We kept waiting patiently for the match which would end his incredible streak, but it just wouldn’t come. Until, in the biggest stage of all, he fell to Fedex at Roland Garros. But if we thought we were now back to the Rafa-Rog hegemony, we were proved wrong, as Djokovic pressed on again to win an improbable first Wimbledon title. Improbable, only because of the incredibly high standard of tennis he has been able to sustain for so long now, and because of all the tennis institutions he was breaking in the process. For me, the greatest aspect of his ascent to the No. 1 ranking has been that it was achieved against two all-time champions of the sport who had held supreme for the last five years, and who were not showing any perceptible signs of decline yet. This is the greatest argument yet that we might be seeing another all-time champion in the making here. Another one? Three GOAT contenders playing at the same time? What are the chances of that happening? How lucky could we get? But while we wait for Djokovic to provide the answers, he remains, undisputedly, the best tennis player in the world today.

Based on the current state of play, here are three possible scenarios going forward, in descending order of likelihood.

Scenario 1, Nadal and Djokovic are engaged in a titanic struggle for top spot for the foreseeable future. Nadal finds a way past Djokovic’s seeming lack of weaknesses, and Djokovic deflates slightly to descend from his stratospheric heights, and they engage in duels worthy of Nadal-Federer of yore. And that is saying something. Pity Djodal doesn’t have the same ring to it as Fedal does.

Scenario 2, Djokovic continues to thump Nadal till it starts reflecting in Nadal’s game when he plays other mere mortals, and Djokovic asserts his own space at the top of the mountain, and stakes an even stronger claim to the title of GOAT. The key to this will be Djokovic continuing to play lights-out the way he has so far. And inspite of all the lessons I’ve learned this year, I still find it hard to imagine him sustaining such a high level of play consistently going forward.

Scenario 3, Federer, Djokovic and Nadal engage in a three-way tussle for top spot. This would be my ideal scenario, but the least likely to materialise, primarily due to what I see as Federer’s growing inability to keep up with the best over entire seasons. But the romantics among us are already talking excitedly about a Mexican shootout situation, where Nadal has Federer’s number (a known fact), Djokovic has Nadal’s number (leads 5-0 this year) and Federer has Djokovic’s number (a semi-final win at Roland Garros?). As is obvious from the supporting arguments, it is the Federer vs Djokovic case that needs a dose of credibility right now.

Of course, there is always the chance of a Scenario 4, where an upstart (think Murray or Del Potro) decides to gate crash the party. But as a generation of tennis fans, we have been spoilt. We have watched a small group of incredibly talented tennis players take over the top of the sport and create a rigid hierarchy with almost no scope for others to intrude; where the major stories lie in shifts from No1 to No2 and the titanic struggles that come with it. We realise that we are watching not just good players, but great champions in action. The kind who usually come once in a lifetime, but we have been fortunate enough to see all together, pitted against each other. And each time one of them wins a major title, we know it is a definitive step towards either establishing or reaffirming his immortality in the pantheon of tennis legends. And that, more than anything else, is what we witnessed last week with Novak Djokovic, the latest entrant into this elite league of extraordinary gentlemen.