Five titans land in GQ's 50 Greatest Living Athletes

It's not a magazine-rated roster without a shard of controversy, and that's what GQ goes for with its new "50 Greatest Living Athletes" lineup. Five tennis titans make the cut, which features LeBron James at No. 1 and leaves the remaining 49 sports stars remarkably unranked.

Even so, Michael Jordan follows King James in the cover story, and the third mini-tale turns to Serena Williams, saying, in part: "She did the Crip Walk at Wimbledon. She danced next to Beyoncé in a music video and was not outclassed. Whenever she chooses to return to the sport, she'll be one major title away from Margaret Court's all-time record. Imagine her not getting it."

The great Jackie Joyner-Kersee also lands firmly on the list, and as GQ has it, "until Serena came along, many people considered her the greatest female athlete ever."

Four more racquet-wielding icons follow in fairly quick succession, including the GOAT in men's tennis, recently recognized as No. 1 on Forbes' Fab 40 roster: "It's 2017 now, and [Roger] Federer is old: recently 36, with an ailing knee and back. Somehow he wins two more majors, his game as beautifully unstressed as it ever was. So let's not forget how many times, in the past 20 years, this could've–maybe even should've–ended. It isn't over yet."

Martina Navratilova finds herself saluted for her "dominant, machine-like consistency" and "off-the-court social impact only Williams has matched."

Rafael Nadal also appears, touted as "the most powerful player ever to step on the court–and the most mentally tough, too."

Rounding out this quintet: one Bjorn Borg, esteemed as "one of the coolest, most graceful athletes in any sport–still the model for how to look and move, on a tennis court or in a nightclub."

The GQ list also includes these tennis-adjacent luminaries: Julius Erving, father of Alexandra Stevenson; Nadia Comaneci, a frequent fixture in Simona Halep's player's box; J. J. Watt, past boyfriend of the now-engaged Caroline Wozniacki; and Federer fan-friends Tiger Woods and Lindsey Vonn.

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