World-number-one Male Tennis-player Rankings - The World Number 1 and 2 Rankings

The World Number 1 and 2 Rankings

Before 1973 there were no computer rankings, but only journalists or officials (on their personal behalf) or promoters or players themselves who listed their own annual rankings.

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). Nowadays the Tennis Masters Cup give ATP points. (See : List of ATP number 1 ranked players).

Therefore other rankings proposed by tennis experts or by the players themselves could be more accurate because they included these events : From 1973 to 2006 this list sometimes differs from the ATP list because it shows journalists (or even players) rankings and not computer rankings. In particular Connors has been ranked #1, at the end of the year, from 1974 to 1978 by the ATP but the majority disagreed the computer rankings : for instance in 1975 all the journalists (among them John Barrett, Bud Collins, Barry Lorge, Judith Elian) ranked Arthur Ashe as the number 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 tennis kings; 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 respectively McEnroe and Lendl as number 1. 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.

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 Zealander tennis player).