World number 1 ranked male tennis players

World number 1 ranked male tennis players is a year-by-year listing of the male tennis players who were, at the end of a full calendar year of play, at the time, generally considered to be the best overall for that entire calendar year. The runner-up for each year is also listed as is a summary of the reasons why both were ranked as such, which includes the performance of the players in major tennis tournaments of the particular year, and the tennis ranking authorities which provided rankings.

Rankings before 1973

Before the open era of tennis arrived in 1968, rankings for amateur players were generally compiled only for a full year of play. Professional players were ranked by journalists, promoters, and players' associations usually at the end of the year. Even for amateurs, however, there was no single official overall ranking that encompassed the entire world. Instead, nation rankings were done by the national tennis association of each country, and world rankings were the preserve of tennis journalists. It was only with the introduction of computerized rankings in the open era that rankings were issued more frequently than once yearly. Even the end-of-year amateur rankings issued by official organizations such 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 U.S. No. 1 but also the world No. 1 amateur player. It was far more difficult, however, to decide who was the best overall player, amateur or professional, for that year because both Ellsworth Vines and Fred Perry, now professionals, were still at the top of their form. Two different sources, however, carefully studied the performances of the players for that year and 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-world No. 1 players.

In 1946 Bobby Riggs, a professional, had established himself as the best player in the world. In 1947, he was still the best professional player but Jack Kramer as an amateur player won Wimbledon and the U.S. Championships. Kramer, having turned professional in November after the amateur Pacific Coast Championships, met Riggs three times in late December on fast indoor courts and Riggs won twice. But at the end of their long series of matches in May 1948, Kramer had led Riggs decisively in head-to-head meetings.

1948 was the last year in which an amateur player turned professional and then went on to beat the defending professional champion. Therefore, it is generally acknowledged that the world No. 1 in every year since 1948 has been the best professional player.

Even here, however, some years present difficulties. 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 those same players. In 1952, there was no long, headline tour. Instead, there were short tours between different players and several professional tournaments, with the result that none of the professionals played extensively. The short-lived Professional Lawn Tennis Association published an end-of-the-year list in which Segura was ranked the best player in the world, with Gonzales second. During the year, however, Gonzales had defeated Segura 4 matches to 1. Segura had also won a number of important tournaments.

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 world 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.

In 1954, there were a number of round-robins tournaments as well as shorter tours, from which it is clear that Gonzales had now established himself as the best player in the world, the first year in a run of seven consecutive years as the world No. 1. But, given the spotty and often contradictory record-keeping of the professional results 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

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 amateur tournaments. They did, however, create a number of relatively small professional tournaments for players like themselves, primarily in Europe.

Some of the oldest professional matches known are those between Irish player George Kerr and American Tom Pettitt. In 1889, Kerr beat Pettitt three times in four meetings. In June 1890, Kerr won all three matches against Pettitt in Dublin.

In April 1898, a professional, round-robin tournament was played in Paris on covered courts. Both Thomas Burke (tutor of the Tennis Club de Paris, former teacher of Joshua Pim who won Wimbledon twice) from Ireland and Kerr (Fitzwilliam Club) defeated Tom Fleming (Queen's Club), and Burke defeated Kerr 6–2, 4–6, 6–1, 5–7, 6–4.

During the 1900 Paris Exhibition, a professional tournament was held on clay, with Burke finishing ahead of both Kerr and the Englishman Charles Hierons.

In the spring of 1903 in Nice on clay, Reginald Doherty, the leading amateur, defeated the leading professional, Burke, 1–6, 6–1, 6–0, 6–0.

Burke was reportedly as good a player as the leading amateurs.^[1] Charles Haggett was the best English teaching professional during the ealry 20th century. In 1913, Haggett settled in the United States, invited by the West Side Tennis Club of Forest Hills, New York and became the coach of the American Davis Cup team. In practice matches, he beat the leading amateurs Anthony Wilding, Wimbledon winner and Maurice McLoughlin, Wimbledon All Comer's winner.^[2]

In the 1920s, Karel Koželuh, Albert Burke (son of Thomas Burke), and Roman Najuch 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 seven consecutive times by Koželuh, was "the world's only significant pro tennis tournament."^[3] Koželuh went on to become one of the best of the touring professionals in the 1930s. He and Burke, however, were not listed among the top players before 1928, as this was the first year when a ranking was published for all the top players, amateur and professional. All top 10 rankings for the years before 1928 were for amateurs only.

The major professional tournaments before 1968

Tradition on the pro circuit was non-existent before 1968 because the event hierarchy could change each year. Some major tournaments, however, stood out at different times.

Elite events that lasted only a few years (mostly because of financial collapse) included:

Three major tournaments held a certain tradition and usually had the best of the leading players. 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 Arena in the United Kingdom, the tournament was unofficially and usually considered the world's championship until 1967. The oldest of the three was the United States Professional Championship, usually called the U.S. Pro, 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 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) through 1967 are sometimes referred to as the professional Grand Slam tournaments by tennis historians. In any particular year, another tournament, such as the Forest Hills Pro or the Masters Pro, could have had a better field. But over the decades, these were the three "majors" that all professional players sought.

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).

The world No. 1 and No. 2 rankings

Before 1973, there were no computer-based rankings based on the points players obtained for achieving a certain level of performance in particular tournaments, but only journalists or officials (on their personal behalf) or promoters or players themselves who listed their own annual rankings. In some years, however, only a small number of journalists or players released rankings at the end of the tennis year. For these years, rankings done by tennis historians or sports statisticians well after the tennis year ended (i.e. in the 2000s for a year in the 1960s) are considered in the determination of which players are ranked No. 1 and No. 2.

In 1973 the ATP listed its own rankings every fortnight and some years later (around 1977) every week but they had many imperfections because in the seventies and the eighties they didn’t take into account such events as the Davis Cup, the WCT Finals and the Masters (later called the Singles Championship and in the 2000s the Tennis Masters Cup). Currently, the ATP does award points for what is now called the ATP Finals. (See : List of ATP number 1 ranked players). As well, the ATP point rankings did not award the Grand Slam tournaments which most often attracted the most top-ranked players in the world (Wimbledon and the U.S. Open) and, therefore, were the most valuable to win in the minds of both players and tennis journalists, an amount of points commensurate with their importance. As well, some events which did not attract many or even a couple top-ranked players but offered high prize money were worth a higher number of points than their perceived importance.

Therefore, other rankings proposed by tennis experts or by the players themselves could be more accurate because they included these events and adjusted the rankings to reflect the actual importance of particular tournaments. From 1973 to 2006 this list sometimes differs from the ATP list because it shows journalists (or even players) rankings released at the time and not the computer-based point rankings. In particular, Connors has been ranked No. 1, at the end of the year, from 1974 to 1978 by the ATP but the majority disagreed with the computer rankings: for instance in 1975 all the journalists (among them John Barrett, Bud Collins, Barry Lorge and Judith Elian) ranked Arthur Ashe as the No. 1 in the world while his ATP ranking was only 4th; in 1977, no one, except the ATP ranking, considered that Connors was the best player in the world, and everyone thought that Borg and Vilas were the top two tennis players; and in 1978 everyone and, in particular, the ITF recognized that the Swede was the World Champion. In 1982 and in 1989, respectively, Connors and Becker, both winners of Wimbledon and the US Open, were considered as World Champions even though the ATP ranked McEnroe and Lendl as No. 1 in those years. Since the mid-'90s the ATP rankings had been more or less accepted by many as the official rankings (but in 1999 many considered Sampras as the second best player in the world while the ATP ranked Kafelnikov 2nd). Finally since 1978 the ITF (represented at the beginning by Sedgman, Hoad and Trabert) has designated his World Champion. From 1973 onward, as there is no shortage of rankings that were released by tennis authorities or publications at the end of each tennis year, which reflected the generally agreed upon importance of particular tournaments at the time, later rankings by tennis historians or sports statisticians are not considered in the listing of No. 1 and No. 2 players.

Before 1913 very few sources are available but Richard Yallop in Royal South Yarra Lawn Tennis Club 100 Years in Australian Tennis stated that Norman Brookes was the champion of the world in 1907 and Len and Shelley Richardson in Anthony Wilding A Sporting Life cite the opinions of A. E. Crawley (an early-twentieth-century British journalist) and Anthony Wilding (the New Zealand tennis player). Other years dating back to 1913 also present difficulties and ambiguities. There are sometimes contradictions between sources regarding the same information.

List of No. 1 and No. 2 ranked players

Records

Number of times ranked No. 1

• Note: An undisputed number one player for the year (without another player regarded as number one) is shown in bold

Total	World Number One	Years
8 years	Pancho Gonzales	1952, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960
7 years	William Renshaw	1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886, 1889
	Bill Tilden	1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1931
	Rod Laver	1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970
6 years	Reginald Doherty	1897, 1898, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902
	Jack Kramer	1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1953
	Ken Rosewall	1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1970
	Pete Sampras	1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998
5 years	Joshua Pim	1890, 1891, 1893, 1894, 1895
	William Larned	1901, 1902, 1908, 1909, 1910
	Laurence Doherty	1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906
	Fred Perry	1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1941
	Don Budge	1937, 1938, 1939, 1940, 1942
	Roger Federer	2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
	Novak Djokovic	2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015
4 years	Wilfred Baddeley	1891, 1892, 1895, 1896
	Ellsworth Vines	1932, 1935, 1936, 1937
	Bobby Riggs	1941, 1943-1945, 1946, 1947
	Björn Borg	1977, 1978, 1979, 1980
	Rafael Nadal	2008, 2010, 2013, 2017
3 years	Ernest Renshaw	1887, 1888, 1892
	Anthony Wilding	1911, 1912, 1913
	Henri Cochet	1928, 1929, 1930
	Jimmy Connors	1974, 1976, 1982
	John McEnroe	1981, 1983, 1984
	Ivan Lendl	1985, 1986, 1987
2 years	John Hartley	1879, 1880
	Willoughby Hamilton	1889, 1890
	Ernest Lewis	1890, 1891
	Malcolm Whitman	1899, 1900
	Norman Brookes	1907, 1911
	Maurice McLoughlin	1912, 1914
	Bill Johnston	1919, 1922
	René Lacoste	1926, 1927
	Pancho Segura	1950, 1952
	Stan Smith	1971, 1972
	Stefan Edberg	1990, 1991
	Lleyton Hewitt	2001, 2002
1 year	Spencer Gore	1877
	Frank Hadow	1878
	Herbert Lawford	1887
	Wilberforce Eaves	1897
	Robert Wrenn	1897
	Arthur Gore	1901
	Gerald Patterson	1919
	Jack Crawford	1933
	John Newcombe	1971
	Ilie Năstase	1973
	Arthur Ashe	1975
	Guillermo Vilas	1977
	Mats Wilander	1988
	Boris Becker	1989
	Jim Courier	1992
	Andre Agassi	1999
	Gustavo Kuerten	2000
	Andy Roddick	2003
	Andy Murray	2016

Age

• Note: The age is measured at 31 December of year ranked as No. 1.

Youngest World Number One Year 19 years and 354 days Wilfred Baddeley 1891 20 years and 310 days Lleyton Hewitt 2001

Oldest World Number One Year 38 years and 324 days Bill Tilden 1931

See also

• List of ATP number 1 ranked singles players
• World number 1 ranked female tennis players

References

Sources of rankings and yearly performance information

The rankings above are based on eighteen main sources:

• The United States Tennis Association Official Encyclopedia of Tennis (1981).^[1] This book 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). These rankings, however, included only amateur players. Beginning with the 1920s, 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 website^[2] associated with the Tennis Server website. In thirteen chapters, Bowers gives a 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.
• Bud Collins' Tennis Encyclopedia (1997), 3rd Edition, by Bud Collins. This book has year-by-year chapters describing the professional and amateur tour results up until 1967 and the professional tour results since 1968. Its last section contains Collins' personal ranking of the Top 10 players, both male and female, for each year from 1968 until 1997, as published in the Boston Globe each year. Beginning with 1973, the Association of Tennis Professionals began issuing computer-generated weekly rankings. Collins also shows the top 10 players in these rankings for the last week of every calendar year through 1997.
• Total Tennis: The Ultimate Tennis Encyclopedia (2003), by Bud Collins.^[3] This book 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. Collins shows the top 10 players in the ATP rankings for the last week of every calendar year from 1973 through 2002.
• The Bud Collins History of Tennis: An Authoritative Encyclopedia and Record Book, Second Edition (2010) by Bud Collins. The book has year-by year chapters describing the professional and amateur tour results until 1967 and the professional tour results since 1968. In the years beginning in 1968 each year's chapter states which tennis player(s) most tennis authorities considered No. 1 for the particular year. In the numerical section at the end of each chapter, the No. 1 player for the year is listed, but in some years the player does not correspond to what the earlier text indicates. In Chapter 17 the top 10 players from the ATP rankings for the last year of every calendar year from 1973 are provided; the No. 1 player in these lists is the same as the No. 1 player stated in the numerical section of each year's chapter.
• The History of Professional Tennis (2003), by Joe McCauley. This book is a year-by-year account of the professional tours and tournaments between 1926 and 1968. The book has 80 pages of year-by-year results for as many tournaments, tours, and head-to-head matches as the author, a long-time writer for World Tennis magazine, could find.
• The Concise History of Tennis (2017), 8th ed, by Károly Mazák. This self-published book is a year-by-year account of (lawn) tennis between 1877 and 2016.^[4] Each page contains a short summary of the major events in that particular year, and combined (amateur and professional) year-end rankings in tabulated form that show the performance of the top players at the major events. He arrived at his Based upon available sources, including contemporary magazine classifications (Pastime, Lawn Tennis and Badminton) and official national rankings, the author has retrospectively created year-end rankings before 1913.^[5]
• Professional Lawn Tennis Association (PLTA). The PLTA was composed of a group of professional players in the late 1940s and early 1950s and, for several years, issued its own official rankings of professional players at the end of each year. The PLTA was also apparently called the Professional Players Association (PPA) in at least 1946.
• The Game, My 40 Years in Tennis (1979), by Jack Kramer.^[6] Kramer's autobiography has information about the 1954 professional tour that is somewhat different from the other sources. Kramer himself was the tour promoter that year.
• Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). The ATP has issued its own year-end ranking of the top male players 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 Kramer but says nothing about his playing record in 1947, about which there is much conflicting information.
• The Last Sure Thing: The Life & Times of Bobby Riggs (2003), by Tom LeCompte.^[7] This biography published after Riggs's death correlates with his own information for 1946 but 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 updated 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 runner-ups, scores, and the exact dates as well as some commentary by the author for each year.
• Der Grösste Meister. Die denkwürdige Karriere des australischen Tennisspielers Kenneth Robert Rosewall (1999), by Robert Geist. This is a detailed account of Ken Rosewall's career with many statistics and, in particular, his annual rankings during his professional 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.^[8]
• 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.) Tennis history book, has details about the pre–World War I players.

In addition, when the article was written the rankings for certain tennis publications and tennis journalists were also entered into the table by its authors. Since that time, Wikipedia's standards for referencing have become stricter but in many cases there is no formal documentation of these rankings available on the internet at the current time (2018) so the original entries of the authors are presumed to be accurate.

External links

• 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
  • Chapter XIII: The high war years, 1943-1945