Men’s tennis is currently winding down from a true golden age. Of the five best players in the Open era, several played recently (yes, including Novak Djokovic). And on the list that follows, I am definitely not trying to be someone who can’t see past 2020, for instance. I’m much older than that.
Still, the way racket composition has developed and therefore, the players also adjusting to their new power (literally as the rackets now allow a player to power a ball much harder than say, 1975) has also developed, today’s players can likely play well on any surface at any time with any kind of racket. Since everyone is capable of the same display of explosiveness with their forehands, players have had to develop touch again.
Carlos Alcaraz is not on the list that follows, though he likely will be should we do this same list in 10 or 15 years. But Alcaraz is the new hybrid. He can play with brute force but he also already has one of the best drop shots since tennis was invented.
Ranking the five best players on the ATP circuit in the Open era (Djokovic is involved, duh!)
So the way I put the following list together isn’t just based on the number of Grand Slam titles held or how many weeks a player has spent at number one – at least, not solely based on those metrics – because anyone can simply pull up a list of those things. But this is more an idea of which players are the best of their time but could also likely be just as successful in any other era.
What follows is still my opinion, of course, but hopefully, you’ll understand my thought process. Sure, I will give you raw numbers, but only in the context of how I think they rank. But ask me again in 10 years, and I will likely have someone else on this list who is currently only 20 years old (for the name, see above).
Fifth best player on the ATP tour in the Open era – Ivan Lendl
While ranking all of these players was difficult in the context of if they should be on the list and where they should be, number 5 might be the most difficult. Players I wanted to include but didn’t (hint: they won’t be among the next four players either) are Andre Agassi (he achieved a career Grand Slam but was very inconsistent earlier in his career) and Bjorn Borg (he won 11 majors but only on two surfaces). I wasn’t even a huge fan of Ivan Lendl because he seemed so robotic, but one cannot argue with his success.
He also made himself into a greater player. Like any top athlete, he was definitely born with great skill, obviously. But once you reach a certain level of top-end tennis, everyone you play against was born with immense skill. The part that separates great from very good is the will to win and to be mentally tougher than one’s opponents.
Lendl did win eight majors (two Australian Opens, three French Opens, and three U.S. Opens), but he didn’t win his first until 1984, though he had turned pro in 1978. The knock on Lendl was that he couldn’t overcome his demons and win a major. But he ended up winning two each in 1986 and 1987.
Lendl also held the number 1 ranking for the fourth-most weeks in the Open era (268) and he was able to overmatch his greatest rival, John McEnroe. Mind you, I am a huge McEnroe fan, but by the end of the 1980s when Lendl and McEnroe played I expected Lendl to win most of the time. Because Lendl was the better player and made himself into being better than almost anyone.
Fourth best player on the ATP tour in the Open era – Pete Sampras
I know I said I wouldn’t rank players based on raw numbers (I lied; just wait until the last slide) but 14 Grand Slams is a difficult number to disrespect, especially as that was the all-time high by three titles until one of the other guys on this list came around. No, Pete Sampras was not good – OK, he was awful – on clay, but almost every player on this list has some surface they don’t excel at.
Sampras was also a player who took advantage of his time. He has arguably the best serve on grass or hard court that the tennis world has ever seen. He didn’t just win at places like Wimbledon, he dominated. Sampras won seven Wimbledon finals, a record until Roger Federer surpassed him, and never lost a final at Wimbledon.
It should also be noted that while Sampras was definitely much better on grass or hard court, he still kept his number one ranking for more weeks (286) than anyone else until – you guessed it – Federer passed him.
Sampras was more meticulous, more driven, and simply better than most of his contemporaries. Sure, Agassi had the more versatile game, but if you were going to have a final at the U.S. Open or Wimbledon with both players at the top of their game, your bet would have to be Sampras over Agassi. At every surface of Grand Slams and through many years on each, the only major where Sampras finished with double-digit losses was the French.
Third best player on the ATP tour in the Open era – Rafael Nadal
I really really wanted to put Roger Federer number three here due to Nadal being better head-to-head against the guy from Switzerland and that Nadal has two more Grand Slam titles than Federer, but I just couldn’t. Do I think that Nadal would beat Federer on clay or a hard court when they were both in peak form, probably yes. But this article isn’t about who is better and instead who is greater in the global scheme.
Nadal, however, is very likely the best player ever on clay. His only match might be Bjorn Borg. Borg had a much shorter career than Nadal and while Nadal has a ridiculous record of 112-3 at the French, Borg (with a less composite racket, of course) had a record of 49-2. But Nadal was able to sustain his success for much longer and would likely give Borg a beat down on most hard court surfaces.
Nadal, unfortunately, won’t return until 2024 and that will likely be his last year on the tour. That’s a shame as Nadal was still playing at a high level until an injury ended his 2023 season early after a second-round loss at the Australian Open. But while Nadal was a clay-court master, he still had an 88.1 percent winning percentage at all Grand Slams and won at least one of all of the four majors.
He was also ranked in the top 10 of the ATP rankings for 912 consecutive weeks. In other words, a bit over 17 years. He also won two Olympic gold medals so it shows he doesn’t just care about himself, he cares about others as well. But we already knew that, right? Nadal’s tennis academy in Mallorca, Spain has helped hundreds of kids learn the game.
Second best player on the ATP tour in the Open era – Roger Federer
Roger Federer was just too good for too long to not be ranked at number two here. Sure, he was around a few years before Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic matured into the great players they became, but is that Federer’s fault? Heck, if anything the ideal situation would have been for Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic to all start on the same day and let them battle it out for titles for the next 15 years.
Federer just so thoroughly dominated tennis between 2003 and 2007 that there is almost no rival from anyone else in the history of the sport to compare. He reached 17 straight finals between 2005 and 2006. When he reached the finals between 2003 and 2005 he literally did not lose. In that same time frame, he did not lose to anyone else ranked in the top 10. On grass between 2003 and 2008, he did not lose.
If you had Nadal versus Federer on clay at their peaks, you’d take Nadal. But on grass at Wimbledon, you’d have to choose Federer. Federer played a bit of a throwback game. He did develop an excellent serve, but he was always more about the beauty of touch and baseline to baseline. He moved well, made impossible shots look easy, and early on defeated anyone who dared challenge him.
He smashed Sampras’s record of weeks at number one and ended up at 310. He also has the most semifinal appearances in Grand Slams of any one (46), more quarterfinal showings (58), and second-most final showings (31). He also appeared in one final every year for 15 years, tied with Nadal and the guy who is number one on this list.
Best player on the ATP tour in the Open era – Novak Djokovic
OK, as I previously mentioned, I lied and am just going to overwhelm you with statistics here. So get ready. Here we go.
Novak Djokovic has the most all-time weeks ranked number (389) one by 79 weeks. He has the most Grand Slams with 23 and could add another at Wimbledon which starts next week. He has been in the most Grand Slam finals with 34, three more than anyone else. He trails Federer in the number of Grand Slam semifinal appearances by one (he might catch up at Wimbledon) though he has appeared in 11 fewer Grand Slams total.
He has won the career Grand Slam three times, more than any other player. He has won three majors in a season three times, tied for most with Federer and if Djokovic wins Wimbledon he will even pass Federer in this category. Djokovic has won at least two titles in a year seven times, most ever. Djokovic owns the Australian Open having won 10 Aussies (he’s never lost a final at the Aussie) with the next closest player having six titles. But Djokovic has won at least three times at every other major as well, which no other player can say.
Sure, Nadal is better on clay, but of the three losses that Nadal has at the French Open, two of them are to Djokovic. Djokovic has the best winning percentage at the Australian Open ever, but he has the third-best winning percentage at every other major (he only trails Nadal and Borg at the French). Yes, that’s a lot of numbers, and you can find more, but Novak Djokovic is the best ATP player in the Open era or likely of any other era.