By U.B. Acharya

On Monday, the 8th of March 2021, Novak Djokovic crossed a milestone of reaching 311 weeks as ATP’s No. 1 ranked player surpassing Roger Federer’s what one thought of as unbeatable record of 310 weeks. Before discussing further, let us look at some historical milestones.

Historical Records

Though international tennis started in 1877 with the advent of Wimbledon Championships in London, the game became truly international only after the First World War in 1919. Since it was only amateur tennis in those years and there was no proper week by week ranking method, I have qualitatively estimated how many weeks these players would have been No. 1 ranked player if the modern technique was applied then. A rough decade-wise analysis is given in the table. [See box]

Some explanations are needed for this analysis table. ‘Number of Major Titles’ include Professional Majors also. In earlier years, State tournaments like Victoria State Tennis Tournament or Southern California Tennis Tournament, etc., were considered as equivalent of present day ATP tournament. Rod Laver’s tally of 200 tournaments include many such tournaments though he won only 74 ATP tournaments after 1968. Number of weeks as No. 1 player is a calculated guesstimate and includes the number weeks as No. 1 player in their professional career also.

ATP Regime

The system of awarding No. 1 Ranking on a weekly basis started on August 23, 1973 onwards and the first recipient was Romanian Ilie Nastase. In fact the method is very simple and purely quantitative. For every recognised ATP tournament, points are awarded as per the player’s performance. For example, the winner of a Major tournament earns 2000 points and runner-up gets 1200 points. The beauty is that even the qualifier of a Major tournament gets 25 points. Next in importance is the ATP

Finals and a player who wins all his league matches and then goes on to win the finals gets 1500 points. The number of points gets reduced as the importance of tournament is of a lower category. The bottom of the barrel is the ‘Features 25,000’ where the winner gets just 3 points.

The points are counted on 52 week basis. Suppose a player wins a Major tournament, he earns 2000 points. Next year, in order to maintain the total number of points he has earned so far, he would have to win that tournament. Otherwise he would lose points depending on up to which round he had survived! Therefore to retain week after week No. 1 ranking, a player has to be consistent for a long period of time!

The Usual Culprits

From 1973 onwards, a total of 26 players have reached the No. 1 spot. While Thomas Muster attained No. 1 ranking just for a week, five other players have maintained No. 1 ranking for over 250 weeks though not continuously. These five giants are Jimmy Connors (268), Ivan Lendl (270), Pete Sampras (286), and Roger Federer (310) and finally, the current holder of No. 1 Ranking Novak Djokovic (311). Djoko first became No. 1 when he beat the top seed Rafael Nadal in Wimbledon finals on 4th July 2011 and since then he has maintained top position 60% of the time ! 

We don’t know how long he will be able to maintain this high level of game but right now he has set a new goal for himself.

The ‘GOAT’ Debate

The moment Djokovic won the Australian Open (his 18th Major), the tennis analysts have resumed their GOAT (Greatest Of All Times) debate. However, I will refrain from discussing this subject until the three of them end their tennis career or at least until the end of this year when the picture should become clearer.