Agassi chooses Nadal over Federer for 'best player in tennis history' honour

American tennis legend Andre Agassi has picked world No.1 Rafael Nadal ahead of Swiss ace Roger Federer for the honour of the 'best player in tennis history'.

Conventional wisdom ranks Federer ahead of Nadal as the Swiss holds a record 17 Grand Slam titles against 13 for the Spaniard, who however, has a convincing 23-10 head-to-head record against Federer and is one Australian Open victory away from becoming only the third man to win all four Grand Slam titles twice.

According to Sport24, the eight-time Grand Slam winning Agassi said that he prefers Nadal over Federer because the Spaniard has thrived in an ultra-competitive 'golden age of tennis' while in contrast, Federer has separated himself from the field for four years and has also put a distance between him and Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt.

Agassi further said that Nadal had to deal with Federer, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray in the golden age of tennis, adding that he has done it all during Federer's prime.

Agassi added that he did not discount Australia's Rod Laver, two-time winner of the calendar-year Grand Slam, when rating the greatest player of all time.