ITF World Champions

The ITF's constitution states that no tennis tournament can be designated the "World Championships" without unanimous consent of the ITF Council.[5] There is currently no such tournament. The constitution also states:[6]

The ITF may award the title of World Champion to players who, in the opinion of the Board of Directors, are the most outstanding players in any one-year. The names of players who have been awarded this title shall be listed in the Roll of Honour.

It also states:[1]

Official Tennis Championships [i.e. the Grand Slam events] shall be the decisive factor in the determination of the ITF World Champions for each year.

For singles, ITF appoints a panel of former top players at the start of the season, which votes on the champion at the end of the season.

The boys' and girls' singles and doubles titles prior to 2003 were awarded based on world ranking. Since then singles and doubles rankings have been combined in a single award each for boys and for girls.[7]

The world champion accolade has been extended by the ITF to wheelchair tennis players of the Men's and Women's division since 1991. In November 2017, the ITF announced that the quad wheelchair tennis division is to be recognised in its annual list of ITF World Champions.[8]

The ITF World Champions' Dinner takes place in Paris during the French Open, to honour the previous year's champions,[9] who are presented with a trophy, but not any monetary prize.[10]

The first men's panel in 1978 had three members, Don Budge, Fred Perry, and Lew Hoad,[10][11] who attended the season's Grand Slam events at ITF expense to inform their choice.[12] The 1983 panel split two to one between John McEnroe (votes of Budge and Perry) and Mats Wilander (vote of Hoad).[13] The 1984 panel had five members,[14] while the 1985 panel had four: Budge, Perry, Hoad, and Tony Trabert.[15] When Ivan Lendl was chosen as champion for 1985, the panel's announcement was accompanied with a rebuke for Lendl's criticism of some tournaments and his refusal to play in the Davis Cup.[15] Perry and Trabert were on the 1986 panel, with performances outside the Grand Slams taken into consideration.[16]

The 1990 designation of Lendl as champion was a surprise.[17] That year, the Association of Tennis Professionals named Stefan Edberg its "Player of The Year", in accordance with the ATP Rankings, while Tennis Magazine (France) ranked Edberg first, Andre Agassi second, and Lendl third.[18] Tennis also suggested the ITF was punishing Edberg for denigrating the Grand Slam Cup tournament it had introduced.[18] The ITF panel, of Perry, Trabert, and Frank Sedgman, called it "the toughest decision any of us can remember having to make", and stated it was Lendl's better average performance in the Grand Slams that made the difference.[17]

The choice to award Djokovic the ITF World Champion of 2013 over Nadal was unexpected. Nadal finished the year ranked #1 and with more slams (2 to 1), more Masters titles (5 to 3), and more tournament titles (10 to 7). Similar to the situation with Edberg in 1990, the ITF cited Nadal's failure to win a match at 2 of the 4 slams (DNP the Australian Open, 1st round loss at Wimbledon) to justify their decision and Djokovic’s consistent results across all four Slams (1 title, 2 runner-ups, 1 SF), Davis Cup (led Serbia to final, won 7/7 singles rubbers) and the ATP World Tour Finals (won title).[19]

Other instances when the ITF choices differed from the ATP rankings are 1978 (Jimmy Connors), 1982 (McEnroe), 1989 (Lendl). None of these, however, were controversial and were generally agreed upon, with the 1978 and 1982 choices being particularly clear cut in favor of Borg (1978) and Connors (1982).

Year Player 1978 Björn Borg 1979 Björn Borg (2) 1980 Björn Borg (3) 1981 John McEnroe 1982 Jimmy Connors 1983 John McEnroe (2) 1984 John McEnroe (3) 1985 Ivan Lendl 1986 Ivan Lendl (2) 1987 Ivan Lendl (3) 1988 Mats Wilander 1989 Boris Becker 1990 Ivan Lendl (4) 1991 Stefan Edberg 1992 Jim Courier 1993 Pete Sampras 1994 Pete Sampras (2) 1995 Pete Sampras (3) 1996 Pete Sampras (4) 1997 Pete Sampras (5) 1998 Pete Sampras (6) 1999 Andre Agassi 2000 Gustavo Kuerten 2001 Lleyton Hewitt 2002 Lleyton Hewitt (2) 2003 Andy Roddick 2004 Roger Federer 2005 Roger Federer (2) 2006 Roger Federer (3) 2007 Roger Federer (4) 2008 Rafael Nadal 2009 Roger Federer (5) 2010 Rafael Nadal (2) 2011 Novak Djokovic 2012 Novak Djokovic (2) 2013 Novak Djokovic (3) 2014 Novak Djokovic (4) 2015 Novak Djokovic (5) 2016 Andy Murray 2017 Rafael Nadal (3) 2018 Novak Djokovic (6) 2019 Rafael Nadal (4)

Total Player 6 Pete Sampras Novak Djokovic 5 Roger Federer 4 Ivan Lendl Rafael Nadal 3 Björn Borg John McEnroe 2 Lleyton Hewitt

The women's panel initially featured three former women's champions, Margaret Court, Margaret duPont and Ann Jones.[20][10][11] Althea Gibson was a member through the early 1980s.[21]

ITF world champions for women differed from the WTA year-end rankings the following years: 1978 (Martina Navratilova), 1994 (Steffi Graf), 2001 (Lindsay Davenport), 2004 (Lindsay Davenport), 2005 (Lindsay Davenport), 2011 (Caroline Wozniacki), 2012 (Victoria Azarenka), 2017 (Simona Halep).

Year Player Nationality 1978 Chris Evert  United States 1979 Martina Navratilova  United States 1980 Chris Evert (2)  United States 1981 Chris Evert (3)  United States 1982 Martina Navratilova (2)  United States 1983 Martina Navratilova (3)  United States 1984 Martina Navratilova (4)  United States 1985 Martina Navratilova (5)  United States 1986 Martina Navratilova (6)  United States 1987 Steffi Graf  West Germany 1988 Steffi Graf (2)  West Germany 1989 Steffi Graf (3)  West Germany 1990 Steffi Graf (4)  Germany 1991 Monica Seles  Yugoslavia 1992 Monica Seles (2)  FR Yugoslavia 1993 Steffi Graf (5)  Germany 1994 Arantxa Sánchez Vicario  Spain 1995 Steffi Graf (6)  Germany 1996 Steffi Graf (7)  Germany 1997 Martina Hingis   Switzerland 1998 Lindsay Davenport  United States 1999 Martina Hingis (2)   Switzerland 2000 Martina Hingis (3)   Switzerland 2001 Jennifer Capriati  United States 2002 Serena Williams  United States 2003 Justine Henin  Belgium 2004 Anastasia Myskina  Russia 2005 Kim Clijsters  Belgium 2006 Justine Henin (2)  Belgium 2007 Justine Henin (3)  Belgium 2008 Jelena Janković  Serbia 2009 Serena Williams (2)  United States 2010 Caroline Wozniacki  Denmark 2011 Petra Kvitová  Czech Republic 2012 Serena Williams (3)  United States 2013 Serena Williams (4)  United States 2014 Serena Williams (5)  United States 2015 Serena Williams (6)  United States 2016 Angelique Kerber  Germany 2017 Garbiñe Muguruza  Spain 2018 Simona Halep  Romania 2019 Ashleigh Barty  Australia

Total Player Nationality 7 Steffi Graf  Germany 6 Martina Navratilova  United States 6 Serena Williams  United States 3 Chris Evert  United States 3 Martina Hingis   Switzerland 3 Justine Henin  Belgium 2 Monica Seles  FR Yugoslavia

• International Tennis Federation
• ATP World Tour Awards
• WTA Awards
• World number one male tennis player rankings
• World number one female tennis player rankings
• Tennis statistics

ITF Constitution

• Fecci, Vicki (6 January 2010). "Memorandum, Articles of Association and Bye-laws of ITF LIMITED; Trading as the International Tennis Federation" (PDF). Nassau, Bahamas: ITF. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 January 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2013.

• "World Champions". International Tennis Federation (ITF). 2013. Retrieved 4 August 2017.