The return of the Rod Laver Adidas tennis shoe – which has been described as a sneaker for grown men who are nonetheless not yet willing to go gently into that good night – got me thinking about the answer to an oft-asked question: Who is the greatest tennis player you ever saw?

The answer to that is simply “Rod Laver.” Look, Roger Federer fans, he will never be the answer to that question for this Nadalista, just as I am congenitally incapable of rooting for the Red Sox as a Yankee fan.

But in any event, it’s not a horse race between Feddy Bear and Rafa, because there was Rod Laver. What made Laver so great? Well, for one thing, he was a lefty, and a lefty serve is, I think, more difficult to read. Certainly, Bjorn Borg, who spent all those years bedeviling and being bedeviled by Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, thought so. And certainly it’s the reason Novak Djokovic is always looking to practice with a southpaw the day before he has to face Rafael Nadal (who plays lefty but is really a righty in southpaw clothing).

The righty-lefty thing is something I touch on in my new novel “Water Music,” in which Alí Iskandar is a prodigious southpaw tennis player – which gives right-handed rival, friend and lover Alex Vyranos fits.

But back to Laver, whose racket I proudly owned as a child...