New Delhi, Jan. 17 -- The most difficult thing in modern tennis is to be an allrounder - a person who can produce the results and the performances regardless of the surface or the opponent. Every player starts off with a natural set of likes and dislikes. Some prefer the backhand to the forehand, others like clay more than the hardcourts, a few lean towards touch play but the majority towards power. But to enter the league of legends, one has to show that they can adapt, persist and eventually win the Grand Slams - on hard courts, on clay and on grass. They call it a career Grand Slam and it is a feat that has only ever been achieved by only eight men and 10 women. Now, Carlos Alcaraz and Iga Swiatek are attempting to join the most exclusive of groups. A look at the list of men and women who have achieved the career Grand Slam shows that it takes a special kind of player. Among the men - Fred Perry, Don Budge, Rod Laver, Roy Emerson, Andre Agassi, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic - all legends in their own right. Leading from the front among the women are Maureen Connolly, Doris Hart, Shirley Fry Irvin, Margaret Court, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. If you take the records after the Open Era into account, the list is shorter still. Just five men and six women. It is a commentary not just on the enormity of the task ahead of Swiatek and Alcaraz but also on why many view it as the ultimate test. To understand what it can mean, one has to go back to Andre Agassi's words. In 1999, the American completed a career Grand Slam by winning the French Open that many had almost accorded a mythical status too. As good as Rod Laver was, his calendar Grand Slams had come at a time when professionalism was just making its way into the game. And until Agassi showed that it could be done, all-court mastery had remained a pipe dream in the men's game. In 2020, the American reflected on his accomplishment, marking it as his best moment on a tennis court. "I've got to say it was the best moment I've ever had on a tennis court, as far as an accomplishment goes," Agassi said to the Roland Garros website. "And the feeling was me living the rest of my life truly believing I wouldn't have another regret as it relates to my career." There are so many things that go into winning Majors on different surfaces that you almost have to come back as a different player, as Agassi did in his second stint after dropping all the way down to the Challenger level, to win them all. By 2004, Federer had won the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. But the career Grand Slam was only completed when he won the French Open 2009 after three consecutive runner-up finishes to Nadal. It is never easy, not even for the best. Sometimes, it can happen early. Steffi Graf has become the youngest player to appear in the main draw of a major at the 1983 French Open aged 13. In 1988, at the age of 18, she had one of the greatest years in the professional game - winning all four Grand Slams and the Olympic gold medal - to achieve a Golden Slam. From the 2002 French Open to the 2003 Australian Open, Serena Williams was on a hot streak, winning all four major singles titles consecutively to achieve what we now know as the Serena Slam. But such runs and players are rare. However, this challenge is pushing Alcaraz forward. The 22-year-old would eclipse Don Budge as the youngest man to achieve the career Grand Slam by winning at Melbourne Park. "I think this is my main goal for this year. It's the first tournament, the main goal," Alcaraz said on Friday. "So, it's going to be really interesting for me how I have prepared ... I think I just made a really good pre-season, just to be in a good shape." Swiatek has chosen a different, calmer approach. The world No.2 says she can "hear" the talk about the career Slam, but she wants to shut out the outside noise for now. "This is not my clear goal that I wake up with. I'm thinking more about how I want to play, what I want to improve day by day," she said. It doesn't help that both Swiatek and Alcaraz have been slow starters. The Pole has made runs to the semi-finals in 2022 and 2025 while the Spaniard has been stopped in the quarters in 2024 and 2025. Both are usually at their best in the middle of the season but this time, they'll hope to strike a better rhythm early and make the Happy Slam one to remember....