Novak Djokovic (Serbian Cyrillic: Новак Ђоковић, Novak Đoković, [nôʋaːk dʑôːkoʋitɕ] (listen); born 22 May 1987) is a Serbian professional tennis player. He is currently ranked as world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). Djokovic has been No. 1 for a record total of 348 weeks, and has finished as ATP Year-End No. 1 on a record seven occasions. He has won a joint record 20 Grand Slam men's singles titles, including a record nine Australian Open titles. Overall, he has won 86 ATP singles titles, including a record 37 Masters events. Djokovic is the only man in the Open Era to achieve a double career Grand Slam and complete a non-calendar year Grand Slam. He is also the only player to complete the career Golden Masters on the ATP Tour, which he has done twice.

Djokovic began his professional career in 2003. At age 20, he disrupted Roger Federer's and Rafael Nadal's streak of 11 consecutive majors to win his first Grand Slam title at the 2008 Australian Open. By 2010, Djokovic also separated himself from the rest of men's tennis to join Federer and Nadal in the Big Three, the group of three players who have dominated men's tennis for more than a decade. In 2011, Djokovic was ranked No. 1 for the first time, winning three out of four majors and a then-season record of five Masters events. He remained the best player in men's tennis for the rest of the decade, leading the tour in major and Masters's titles, and winning four out of his five titles at the ATP Finals consecutively from 2012 through 2015. After four consecutive year-end finishes at No. 3 through 2010, Djokovic finished No. 1 for six years and No. 2 for three years in the next decade.

Djokovic had another career year in 2015, reaching fifteen consecutive finals, including all four major finals and eight Masters finals, winning three majors and a season-record of six Masters events as well as the ATP Finals. The following year, he won the 2016 French Open to complete the first and only non-calendar year Grand Slam in the Open Era and his first career Grand Slam. He became the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to hold all four major titles at once and the only one in history to do so on three different surfaces.

Novak Djokovic

Rafael "Rafa" Nadal Parera ([rəf(ə)ˈɛl nəˈðal pəˈɾeɾə], [rafaˈel naˈðal paˈɾeɾa]; born 3 June 1986) is a Spanish professional tennis player. He is ranked world No. 6 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), has been ranked No. 1 in the ATP rankings for 209 weeks, and has finished as the year-end No. 1 five times. Nadal has won 20 Grand Slam men's singles titles, an all-time record shared with Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. His 13 French Open titles in particular are a record at any tournament. Nadal's dominance on clay is also highlighted by his winning 62 of his 88 ATP singles titles on clay, including 26 of his 36 Masters titles. His 81 consecutive wins on clay is the longest single-surface win streak in the Open Era.

From childhood through most of his professional career, Nadal was coached by his uncle Toni. He was one of the most successful teenagers in ATP Tour history, reaching No. 2 in the world and winning 16 titles before his 20th birthday, including his first French Open and six Masters events. Nadal became No. 1 for the first time in 2008 after his first major victory off clay against his rival, the longtime top-ranked Federer, in an historic Wimbledon final. He also won an Olympic gold medal in singles that year in Beijing. After defeating Djokovic in the 2010 US Open final, the 24-year-old Nadal became the youngest man in the Open Era to achieve the career Grand Slam, and also the first man to win three majors on three different surfaces (hard, grass and clay) in the same calendar year. With his Olympic gold medal, he is also one of only two male players to complete the career Golden Slam.

In the next decade, Djokovic became Nadal's primary rival. The two have faced each other 58 times (including nine major finals), the most in men's Open Era history. Since Djokovic defeated Nadal in three consecutive major finals between the 2011 Wimbledon Championships and 2012 Australian Open, Nadal has struggled at Wimbledon and has not won another Australian Open. He has continued to dominate the French Open, winning four consecutive titles a second and a third time, while also winning three more US Open titles. He equalled Federer's record for the most major men's singles titles at the 2020 French Open.

Rafael Nadal

Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963), also known by his initials MJ, is an American former professional basketball player and businessman. His biography on the official National Basketball Association (NBA) website states: "By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time." He was integral in helping to popularize the NBA around the world in the 1980s and 1990s, becoming a global cultural icon in the process. Jordan played 15 seasons in the NBA, winning six championships with the Chicago Bulls. He is the principal owner and chairman of the Charlotte Hornets of the NBA and of 23XI Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Jordan played college basketball for three seasons under coach Dean Smith with the North Carolina Tar Heels. As a freshman, he was a member of the Tar Heels' national championship team in 1982. Jordan joined the Bulls in 1984 as the third overall draft pick, and quickly emerged as a league star, entertaining crowds with his prolific scoring while gaining a reputation as one of the game's best defensive players. His leaping ability, demonstrated by performing slam dunks from the free throw line in Slam Dunk Contests, earned him the nicknames "Air Jordan" and "His Airness". Jordan won his first NBA championship with the Bulls in 1991, and followed that achievement with titles in 1992 and 1993, securing a "three-peat". Jordan abruptly retired from basketball before the 1993–94 NBA season to play Minor League Baseball but returned to the Bulls in March 1995 and led them to three more championships in 1996, 1997, and 1998, as well as a then-record 72 regular season wins in the 1995–96 NBA season. He retired for the second time in January 1999 but returned for two more NBA seasons from 2001 to 2003 as a member of the Washington Wizards.

Jordan's individual accolades and accomplishments include six NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) Awards, ten scoring titles (both all-time records), five MVP Awards, ten All-NBA First Team designations, nine All-Defensive First Team honors (joint record), fourteen NBA All-Star Game selections, three All-Star Game MVP Awards, three steals titles, and the 1988 NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. He holds the NBA records for career regular season scoring average (30.12 points per game) and career playoff scoring average (33.45 points per game).