World number 1 ranked male tennis players

For official ATP rankings for 1973 through 2007, see List of ATP number 1 ranked players.

World number one male tennis player rankings is a year-by-year listing of both the male tennis player who, at the end of a full year of play, has generally been considered to be the best overall player for the entire year, and of the runner-up for that year.

Unofficial rankings before 1973

In the days before the Open era of tennis arrived in 1968, rankings for amateur players were generally only compiled for a full year of play and the professional players had no rankings at all, except for seedings in individual tournaments. Even for the amateurs, however, there was no single official overall ranking that encompassed the entire world; rankings were done by the national tennis association of each individual country. It was only with the introduction of computerized rankings in the Open era that rankings became common on a more frequent basis than at the end of the year.

It is also important to understand that until the computer-generated rankings began in 1973 all previous rankings going back to 1913 had been to at least some degree subjective. Even the "authoritative" end-of-the-year amateur rankings issued by such groups as the United States Lawn Tennis Association were based on judgments made by men and women and not on mathematical formulas assigning points for wins or losses.

In 1938, for instance, when Don Budge won the amateur Grand Slam, it was easy to conclude that Budge was not only the No. 1 American player but also the No. 1 world amateur player. It is far more difficult, however, to decide who was the best overall player, amateur or professional, for that year, since both Ellsworth Vines and Fred Perry, now professionals, were still at the top of their form. Two different sources, however, who have carefully studied the performances of the players for that year, both concluded that Budge was the best overall player, with Vines a close second. For the previous year, 1937, one of these same sources concluded that all three players, Perry, Vines, and Budge, deserved to be called the co-No. 1 players in the world.

Another example is 1947. Bobby Riggs, a professional, had clearly established himself as the best player in the world the year before. In 1947 he was still the best professional player but Jack Kramer had a sensational amateur year. The following year, 1948, Kramer turned professional and in a long series of matches against Riggs defeated him decisively. It is feasible to argue, therefore, that Riggs and Kramer were the co-No. 1s for 1947.

1948 was the last year in which an amateur player turned professional and then went on to beat the defending professional champion. It is therefore generally acknowledged that the world's best player in every year since 1948 has always been the best professional player for any given year.

Even here, however, some years present difficulties. Jack Kramer was perhaps the world's best player in 1950 and 1951 when he crushed first Pancho Gonzales and then Pancho Segura in head-to-head tours — but was dominated in tournaments by the same players. In 1952 there was no long, headline tour. Instead, there were short tours between different players and a number of professional tournaments, with the result that none of the professionals played extensively. The short-lived Professional Lawn Tennis Association (PLTA) published an end-of-the-year list in which Segura was ranked the best player in the world, with Gonzales second. During the course of the year, however, Gonzales had defeated Segura 4 matches to 1. Segura had also won a number of important tournaments, so it is probable that Segura and Gonzales were co-No. 1 for the year.

The following year, 1953, Kramer narrowly defeated the top amateur-turned-professional, Frank Sedgman, in their tour during the first half of the year and so reestablished himself as No. 1, at least for that period; but then, because of injuries, he did not play the second half of the year. As a result, Kramer was now in semi-retirement and in 1954 there were a number of round-robins as well as shorter tours, from which it is clear from all the evidence that Gonzales had now established himself as the best player in the world, the first year in a run of 7 consecutive years as the World No. 1. But, given the spotty and often contradictory record-keeping of the professional results ever since 1926, it is frequently difficult to make a clear, objective judgment as to who was the best player in any number of years.

Professional tennis in Europe before 1926

Most sources consider 1926, the year of the first professional tours of head-to-head matches, to be the true beginning of professional tennis. Previous to that date there were numerous teaching professionals, that is, players who gave lessons for money at private clubs and public parks. Because they accepted money in return for their services, they were not allowed to participate in any of the amateur tournaments. They did, however, over the years, create a number of relatively small professional tournaments for players such as themselves, primarily in Europe. Some of the oldest professional matches known are those who opposed Irish professional player George Kerr and Tom Pettitt, the leading professional in America : in 1889 the Irish beat the American three times in four meetings. Some decades later Karel Koželuh and Albert Burke were probably the most notable, as well as the best, of these players. The Bristol Cup, held at Beaulieu or at Cannes on the French Riviera and won 7 consecutive times by Koželuh, was "the world's only significant pro tennis tournament." Koželuh went on to become one of the very best of the touring professionals in the 1930s, so it is easy to imagine that he, Burke, and probably others of these forgotten teaching professionals may well have been among the top 10 players, amateur and professional, in any given years before 1928, which is the first year for which any of the sources cited here give a ranking for all the top players of that year. All top 10 rankings for the years before 1928, therefore, are for amateurs only.

Sources of rankings and other information

Other years dating back to 1913 also present difficulties and ambiguities. The rankings below, however, all come from various sources that are as authoritative as can be found. There are fifteen sources:

• The Official Encyclopedia of Tennis (1981) of the United States Tennis Association has annual rankings for the top 10 players as compiled every year from 1914 through 1980. These rankings were made annually by various tennis experts at a London newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, Wallis Myers (1913-1938), John Olliff (1939-1951), and Lance Tingay (1952-1967). Unfortunately, these rankings included only amateur players. Beginning with the '20s, some of the best players in the world were professionals. Once they became professionals, as Bill Tilden did in 1931, they were no longer included in these annual lists.

• History of the Pro Tennis Wars, by Ray Bowers, is a Web site associated with the Tennis Server site. In thirteen chapters, Bowers gives a very detailed account of the first twenty years of the professional tennis tours, from a modest beginning in 1926 with Suzanne Lenglen and Vincent Richards as the main attractions, on through 1945. He also gives detailed results of some of the tournaments played by professionals in addition to the main head-to-head tours. In his summing-up for each year since 1928, he gives his rankings for the best players of that year, combining both amateurs and professionals, with the number of players ranked varying from year to year. In all cases prior to 1940, his rankings coincide with those of the Daily Telegraph as far as amateurs are concerned.

• Total Tennis: The Ultimate Tennis Encyclopedia (2003), by Bud Collins. This massive work has year-by-year chapters in which Collins gives a brief summation of the Pro Tour results, often with personal comments about the players. It also has somewhat more complete rankings from the early years of the Daily Telegraph. The combined amateur-professional rankings for 1968 through 1972 are those of Collins himself. Beginning with 1973, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) began issuing computer-generated weekly rankings. Total Tennis shows the top 10 players in these rankings for the last week of every calendar year through 2002, and the top 2 player are often included here.

• The History of Professional Tennis (2003), by Joe McCauley. This book, published in England, is a year-by-year account of the professional tours and tournaments between 1926 and 1968, then has 80 additional pages of year-by-year results of as many tournaments, tours, and head-to-head matches as the author, a long-time writer for World Tennis, could find.

• PLTA. The Professional Lawn Tennis Association was a group of professional players in the late 1940s and early 1950s who, for several years, issued their own official rankings of the professional players at the end of each year; it was also apparently called the PPA, or Professional Players Association in at least 1946.

• The Game, My 40 Years in Tennis (1979), by Jack Kramer. Kramer's autobiography has information about the 1954 professional tour that is somewhat different from the other sources but that must be considered authoritative in that Kramer himself was the tour promoter that year.

• The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) has issued its own year-end ranking of the top male player every year since 1973.

• Tennis Is My Racket (1949), by Bobby Riggs. Riggs's autobiography has information about the 1946 professional tour that is slightly different from the other sources. He also writes at length about his 1948 tour with Jack Kramer but says nothing about his playing record in 1947, about which there is much conflicting information.

• The Life & Times of Bobby Riggs, The Last Sure Thing (2003), by Tom LeCompte. A biography published after Riggs's death that jibes with Riggs's own information for 1946 but that is at odds with other sources about Riggs's record in 1947.

• Vainqueurs 1946-2003 (2003), by Michel Sutter (Winners 1946-2003 in English). Apparently based mostly on information drawn from the French sports magazine L'Équipe, this is an up-dated edition of his earlier book Vainqueurs 1946-1991. Both books list the winners of many professional tournaments and matches for the years shown in their titles but the earlier book also listed the losing finalists, the score and the exact date as well as some commentary, in French and in English, by the author for each individual year.

• Histoiredutennis.com ("History of tennis") is a French website that has much interesting information, particularly at its extended chapters with the history of tennis at http://bmarcore.club.fr/tennis/menu-tennis.html. Some of its information about the professional tour in 1954, however, seems to conflict with other sources. The 1954 information may actually be for 1953.

• Der Grösste Meister. Die denkwürdige Karriere des australischen Tennisspielers Kenneth Robert Rosewall (1999), by Robert Geist. A detailed account of Rosewall's career with many statistics and in particular his annual rankings including during his pro career.

• Anthony Wilding A Sporting Life (2005), by Len and Shelley Richardson.

• Royal South Yarra Lawn Tennis Club 100 Years in Australian Tennis, by Richard Yallop.

• Modern Tennis (1915), by P.A. Vaile (second edition).

• Lawn Tennis (1889), by Methven Brownlee (Arrowsmith, Bristol)

• Kings of the court. The story of lawn tennis. by E.C. Potter. (Barnes and Company, New York, 1963.) A very good tennis history book, has many details about the pre-WWI players.

• Fifty years of Wimbledon. by Wallis Myers. (The Field, London, 1926.) Each year of Wimbledon is examined, although it does not contain Top10 world rankings.

However there are sometimes contradictions between all these sources.

The major professional tournaments before 1968

The professional circuit being (much) less popular than the traditional amateur circuit before 1968, any pro tournament could be cancelled at any time due to poor attendances. Therefore there was no real tradition in the pro circuit.

Now there is a real tradition prevailing : since 1983, the events hierarchy has been very clear : 1) Wimbledon, 2) the US Open and Roland Garros, 4) the Australian Open and far behind 5) the Tennis Masters Cup, 6) the Davis Cup.

But before 1968 the events hierarchy changed each year : in 1934 the US Pro was a high-class tournament with all the best pro players and in 1936 this same tournament was just a meeting between pro teachers without any leading pro players.

Consequently for a given year a pro tournament was a major one when it attracted the best pro players and then another year this same tournament could be a second-rank tournament because few or no leading players came.

Before the open era in addition to numerous small tournaments and head-to-head tours between the leading professionals, there were some major tournaments which stood out at different periods :

a) Some survived sporadically because of financial collapses and other temporarily stood out when other great tournaments weren't held :

• the Bristol Cup (held at Cannes or at Beaulieu) in the twenties
• the Queen's Club Pro (just in 1928)
• the Southport tournament called the International Pro Championship of Britain from 1935 through 1939
• the World Pro Championships in Berlin in the thirties
• the U.S Pro hardcourt in LA in 1945 (which was the only significant pro tournament of the last year of World War II)
• Philadelphia 1950-1952
• the Tournament of Champions held in Los Angeles in 1956 and at Forest Hills next years (when it didn't merge with the U.S. Pro)
• some Masters Pro Round Robin in Los Angeles (1957, 1958)
• the Australian Pro (there were just three editions in 1954, 1957 and 1958)
• Madison Square Garden Pro (1966, 1967)
• Wimbledon Pro (1967)
• ...and some other Australian pro or South African pro tournaments.

b) there were also some team events modeled on Davis Cup as the Bonnardel Cup in the thirties and the Kramer Cup (1961-1963)

c) Nevertheless three tournaments survived more or less with sometimes all the cream of the leading players, and other times with very depleted fields, and therefore these tournaments held a certain tradition. They were called "championship tournaments". The most prestigious of the three was generally the London Indoor Professional Championship. Played between 1934 and 1990, at Wembley in England, it was unofficially usually considered the world's championship until 1967. The oldest of the three was the United States Professional Championship, played between 1927 and 1999. Between 1954 and 1962 it was played indoors in Cleveland and was called the World Professional Championships. The third major tournament was the French Professional Championship, played between 1934 (and perhaps before but the data are unclear) and 1968, generally at Roland Garros. The British and American championships continued into the Open era but devolved to the status of minor tournaments. The winner and runner-up in each of these tournaments will be shown for the years in which they were played.

These three tournaments (Wembley Pro, French Pro and U.S. Pro) until 1967 included are sometimes referred as the professional Grand Slam tournaments by tennis historians as Robert Geist in "DER GRÖSSTE MEISTER Die denkwürdige Karriere des australischen Tennisspielers Kenneth Robert Rosewall" or Raymond Lee in his "Greatest Player of All time: A Statistical Analysis" article ( http://www.sportsmediainc.net/tennisweek/index.cfm?func=showarticle&newsid=17405&bannerregion ).

Note: The Wembley Pro tournament has never been a British Pro as written in many books. There have been a) the International Pro Championship of Britain played at Southport in the thirties (one of the major tournaments of the era as indicated above) and b) played by domestic players the Pro Championships of Britain, held annually at, generally, Eastbourne. Eastbourne also held the Slazenger Pro tournament

Thus for a given year these three championships could be the greatest events as in 1964 or could not as in 1959 when the greatest tournaments were probably the Forest Hills Pro, the Masters Pro in Los Angeles and almost all the Australian tournaments ahead of Wembley Pro, the French Pro or the U.S. Pro (held at Cleveland that year).

Discrepancies in source material

A good example of the occasional lack of authoritative material about the early years of the professional players is the somewhat surprising fact that the very existence of the 1936 and 1938 Wembley tournament is in question. Two sources, Collins and McCauley, give results for the Wembley tournament in each year. Bowers, however, is adamant that neither took place and offers some evidence to support his view.

Another example is 1947. Collins says that Riggs beat Budge in a tour; McCauley says that there was no long tour, only a short one between Riggs and Frank Kovacs. Tom LeCompte says that there was a small tour with Riggs overcoming Budge 12-6 followed by the short Riggs-Kovacs tour (4-3, but 11-10 according to McCauley).

Other examples : the French Pro until 1933. McCauley says that the first year of the French Pro is unknown but begins his list in 1930 whereas Ray Bowers doesn't talk about any French Pro before 1934 (even in 1934 he doesn't use the expression "French Professional Championships" but writes a three-day tournament at (Roland) Garros, September 21-23). For example in 1933, the supposed Tilden-Cochet final (6-2 6-4 6-2) listed by McCauley was just according to Bowers a singles match (with a slightly different score 6-3 6-4 6-2) of a USA-France meeting (in the Davis Cup format) at Roland Garros (where Cochet defeated Bruce Barnes, Tilden beat Plaa and Cochet and Barnes overcame Plaa and the US won the doubles).

Male tennis players No. 1 or Co-No. 1, since 1877 (sorted by descending number of years)

(Earliest first for those with identical numbers; (probably) undisputed No. 1 year in Boldface and Co-No. 1 year in normal characters) :

• 8 years Pancho Gonzales, 1952, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960
• 7 years William Renshaw, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886, 1889
• 7 years Bill Tilden, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1931
• 7 years Rod Laver, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970
• 6 years Reggie Doherty, 1897, 1898, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902
• 6 years Jack Kramer, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1953
• 6 years Ken Rosewall, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1970
• 6 years Pete Sampras, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998
• 5 years William Larned, 1901, 1902, 1908, 1909, 1910
• 5 years Hugh Lawrence "Laurie" Doherty, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906
• 5 years Fred Perry, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1941
• 5 years Don Budge, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940, 1942
• 4 years Ellsworth Vines, 1932, 1935, 1936, 1937
• 4 "periods" Bobby Riggs, 1941, 1943-1945, 1946, 1947 (Riggs has been considered as the best player for the entire period of 1943-1945 when the tennis activity was very limited because of war; this is why a ranking year by year would have been possibly inadequate : Riggs in particular played just one match in 1943, none in 1944 and about twenty in 1945)
• 4 years Björn Borg, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980
• 4 years Roger Federer, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
• 3 years Ernest Renshaw, 1887, 1888, 1892
• 3 years Wilfred Baddeley, 1891, 1892, 1896
• 3 years Joshua Pim, 1893, 1894, 1895
• 3 years Anthony Wilding, 1911, 1912, 1913
• 3 years Henri Cochet, 1928, 1929, 1930
• 3 years Jimmy Connors, 1974, 1976, 1982
• 3 years John McEnroe, 1981, 1983, 1984
• 3 years Ivan Lendl, 1985, 1986, 1987
• 2 years John Hartley, 1879, 1880
• 2 years Willoughby Hamilton, 1889, 1890
• 2 years Ernest Lewis, 1890, 1891
• 2 years Malcolm Whitman, 1899, 1900
• 2 years Norman Brookes, 1907, 1911
• 2 years Maurice McLoughlin, 1912, 1914
• 2 years Bill Johnston, 1919, 1922
• 2 years René Lacoste, 1926, 1927
• 2 years Pancho Segura, 1950, 1952
• 2 years John Newcombe, 1970, 1971
• 2 years Stan Smith, 1971, 1972
• 2 years Stefan Edberg, 1990, 1991
• 2 years Lleyton Hewitt, 2001, 2002
• 1 year Spencer Gore, 1877
• 1 year Frank Hadow, 1878
• 1 year Herbert Lawford, 1887
• 1 year Wilberforce Eaves, 1897
• 1 year Robert Wrenn, 1897
• 1 year Harold Mahony, 1898
• 1 year Arthur Gore, 1901
• 1 year Gerald Patterson, 1919
• 1 year Jack Crawford, 1933
• 1 year Ilie Năstase, 1973
• 1 year Arthur Ashe, 1975
• 1 year Guillermo Vilas, 1977
• 1 year Mats Wilander, 1988
• 1 year Boris Becker, 1989
• 1 year Jim Courier, 1992
• 1 year Andre Agassi, 1999
• 1 year Gustavo Kuerten, 2000
• 1 year Andy Roddick, 2003

Top Tennis Players by decade

• 1870s - John Hartley, 1879, 1880
• 1880s - William Renshaw, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886 & Ernest Renshaw, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1892
• 1890s - Reggie Doherty, 1897, 1898, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902
• 1900s - Hugh Lawrence "Laurie" Doherty, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906
• 1910s - Anthony Wilding, 1911, 1912, 1913
• 1920s - Bill Tilden, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1931
• 1930s - Ellsworth Vines, 1932, 1935, 1936, 1937 & Fred Perry, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1941 & Don Budge, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940, 1942
• 1940s - Bobby Riggs, 1941, 1943-1945, 1946, 1947 & Jack Kramer, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1953
• 1950s - Pancho Gonzales, 1952, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960
• 1960s - Ken Rosewall, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1970 & Rod Laver, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970

Open-Era

• 1970s - Jimmy Connors, 1974, 1976, 1982 & Björn Borg, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980
• 1980s - John McEnroe, 1981, 1983, 1984 & Ivan Lendl, 1985, 1986, 1987
• 1990s - Pete Sampras, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998
• 2000s - Roger Federer, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007

History

• History of the Pro Tennis Wars, by Ray Bowers
  • Chapter I: Suzanne Lenglen and the First Pro Tour
  • Chapter II, Part 1: The eminence of Karel Kozeluh and Vincent Richards 1927-1928
  • Chapter II, Part 2: Deja vu 1929-1930
  • Chapter III: Tilden's Year of Triumph in 1931
  • Chapter IV: Tilden and Nusslein, 1932-1933
  • Chapter V: The Early Ascendancy of Vines, 1934
  • Chapter VI: Vines's Second Year: 1935
  • Chapter VII: Awaiting Perry, 1936
  • Chapter VIII: Perry and Vines, 1937
  • Chapter IX: Readying for Budge, 1938
  • Chapter X: Budge's Great Pro Year, 1939
  • Chapter XI: America, 1940-1941
  • Chapter XII: America, 1942