Top 100 ranking per Tennis Channel in 2012
Notes:
- Bolded players are still active today.
- Empty spots in the table mean player did not participate in any of those tournaments.
| 100 Greatest of All Time | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Sports |
| Presented by | |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 5 |
| Original release | |
| Network | Tennis Channel |
| Release | March 2012 |
100 Greatest of All Time was a sports television series of five one-hour episodes, produced and first aired by the Tennis Channel in March 2012. It presented a list of 100 tennis players to be considered the greatest of all time, both men and women. The series was hosted by Jack Nicklaus, Jerry Rice, Wayne Gretzky, Lisa Leslie and Carl Lewis. [1] Many retired tennis luminaries provided commentary, including Rod Laver, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Björn Borg, John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Pete Sampras, and Andre Agassi.
An international panel of tennis experts determined this ranking of 62 men and 38 women. [1] The United States was credited with the most great players (38), followed by Australia (17), France (7), Great Britain (6) and Czechoslovakia (5). Forty-three players made the list from the Americas, 39 from Europe and 18 from Oceania.
Grand Slam singles titles (Australian, French, Wimbledon and US tournaments) column figures reflect number of wins as of March 2012 when the list was published. In addition to that, the pre-Open Era Pro major tournaments (three professional events) were included: the U.S. Pro Championships (first held in 1927), French Pro Championship (first held in 1930) and Wembley Championships (started in 1934). Only male tennis players that turned from amateurs to pros were able to participate in those. [lower-alpha 1] The Open Era started in 1968 and all three pro majors tournaments were quickly relegated to lesser events and were all defunct by the 1990s.
Prior to 1924, the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) recognized two other events as world championships. The "World Hard Court Championships" (WHCC) and the "World Covered Court Championships" (WCCC). Between 1913 and 1923 Wimbledon was known as the World Grass Court Championships (WGCC), also sanctioned by the ILTF.
In 1924 ILTF designated the Australasian, French, British and American championship tournaments as the new four majors. 1925 was the first season held with all these four major tournaments opened to all amateurs.
‡ The Grand Slam, winning all four Grand Slam tournament singles titles (Australian, French, Wimbledon and US) in one calendar year was achieved six times by five different players: Don Budge in 1938, Maureen Connolly in 1953, Rod Laver in 1962 & 1969, Margaret Court in 1970 and Steffi Graf in 1988.
◊ The Pro Grand Slam, winning all three professional slam singles titles (U.S., French and Wembley) in one calendar year was achieved by Ken Rosewall in 1963 and by Rod Laver in 1967.
† Anthony Wilding is the only Triple World Champion. In 1913, he won all three ILTF singles titles, the World Covered Court Championships (WCCC), the World Hard Court Championships (WHCC) and Wimbledon Championships (also known as World Grass Court Championships or simply WGCC).
Notes:
The Grand Slam in tennis is the achievement of winning all four major championships in one discipline in a calendar year. In doubles, a Grand Slam may be achieved as a team or as an individual with different partners. Winning all four major championships consecutively but not within the same calendar year is referred to as a "non-calendar-year Grand Slam", while winning the four majors at any point during the course of a career is known as a "Career Grand Slam".
Rodney George Laver is an Australian former tennis player. Laver was ranked the world number 1 professional player indisputably for five years from 1965 to 1969 and by some sources also in 1964 and 1970. He was also ranked as the number 1 amateur in 1961 and 1962. Laver won 198 singles titles which is the most won by a player in history.
Lewis Alan Hoad was an Australian tennis player whose career ran from 1950 to 1973. Hoad won four Major singles tournaments as an amateur. He was a member of the Australian team that won the Davis Cup four times between 1952 and 1956. Hoad turned professional in July 1957. He won the Kooyong Tournament of Champions in 1958 and the Forest Hills Tournament of Champions in 1959. He won the Ampol Open Trophy world series of tournaments in 1959, which included the Kooyong tournament that concluded in early January 1960. Hoad's men's singles tournament victories spanned from 1951 to 1971.
Kenneth Robert Rosewall is an Australian former world top-ranking professional tennis player. Rosewall won 147 singles titles, including a record 15 Pro Majors and 8 Grand Slam titles for a total 23 titles at pro and amateur majors. He also won 15 Pro Majors in doubles and 9 Grand Slam doubles titles. Rosewall achieved a Pro Slam in singles in 1963 by winning the three Pro Majors in one year and he completed the Career Grand Slam in doubles.
Roy Stanley Emerson is an Australian former tennis player who won 12 Grand Slam singles titles and 16 Grand Slam doubles titles, for a total of 28 Grand Slam titles. All of his singles Grand Slam victories and 14 of his Grand Slam doubles victories were achieved before the open era began in 1968. He is the only male player to have completed a career Grand Slam in both singles and doubles, and the first of four male players to complete a double career Grand Slam in singles. His 28 major titles are the all-time record for a male player. He was ranked world No. 1 amateur in 1961 by Ned Potter, 1964 by Potter, Lance Tingay and an Ulrich Kaiser panel of 14 experts and 1965 by Tingay, Joseph McCauley, Sport za Rubezhom and an Ulrich Kaiser panel of 16 experts.
Anthony Frederick Wilding, also known as Tony Wilding, was a New Zealand world No. 1 tennis player and soldier who was killed in action during World War I. Considered the world's first tennis superstar, Wilding was the son of wealthy English immigrants to Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand and enjoyed the use of private tennis courts at their home. He obtained a legal education at Trinity College, Cambridge and briefly joined his father's law firm. Wilding was a first-class cricketer and a keen motorcycle enthusiast. His tennis career started with him winning the Canterbury Championships aged 17. He developed into a leading tennis player in the world during 1909–1914 and is considered to be a former world No. 1. He won 11 Grand Slam tournament titles, six in singles and five in doubles, and is the first and to date only player from New Zealand to have won a Grand Slam singles title. In addition to Wimbledon, he also won three other ILTF World Championships : In singles, two World Hard Court Championships (WHCC) (1913–14) and one World Covered Court Championships (WCCC) (1913). With his eleven Grand Slam tournaments, two WHCC and one WCCC titles, he has a total of fourteen Major tournament titles. His sweep of the three ILTF World Championships in 1913 was accomplished on three different surfaces being the first time this has been achieved in Major tournaments.
Anthony Dalton Roche AO MBE is an Australian former professional tennis player.
The ITF Grand Prix Circuit was a professional tennis tour for male players that existed founded in 1970 as the ILTF Grand Prix Tennis Circuit it ran annually until 1989 when it and WCT Circuit were replaced by a single world wide ATP Tour.
The 1972 Wimbledon Championships was a tennis tournament that took place on the outdoor grass courts at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom. The tournament was scheduled to be held from Monday 26 June until Saturday 8 July 1972 but rain on the final Saturday meant that the men's singles, women's doubles and mixed doubles finals were played on Sunday 9 July. It was the first time in the tournament's history that finals were played on a Sunday. It was the 86th staging of the Wimbledon Championships, and the third Grand Slam tennis event of 1972.
Sandra Reynolds Price is a South African former tennis player who won four Grand Slam women's doubles championships and one Grand Slam mixed doubles championship. Her best Grand Slam singles result was reaching the 1960 Wimbledon final, losing to Maria Bueno 8–6, 6–0. Reynolds is the only South African woman to reach the Wimbledon singles final, and is one of three to have reached a major singles final. In 1961, she was seeded No. 1 for the Wimbledon singles event, making her the only South African player ever to be seeded first in a singles major. She was the runner-up at the 1959 U.S. Women's Clay Court Championships, losing to Sally Moore in the final. Price won the German Championships in 1960, 1961, and 1962. She was the runner-up at the 1959 Italian Championships, having defeated Bueno in the semifinals, then losing to Christine Truman in the final.
Since 1990, the biggest events in men's tennis have been the four Grand Slam tournaments, the ATP Finals and the ATP Masters tournaments, in addition to the Grand Slam Cup between 1990–99. From 1983 to 1990, men's tennis had a very strong tradition and clear hierarchy of tournaments: the Grand Slam tournaments, including Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open, and the Australian Open; the season-ending Masters Grand Prix; and the Davis Cup. Before 1983, however, and in particular before the start of the Open Era in 1968, the hierarchy of professional tournaments changed virtually every year. For example, in 1934, the U.S. Pro was a high-class tournament with all the best players, but just two years later, the same tournament was ordinary because only professional teachers entered the event.
The racket sport traditionally named lawn tennis, invented in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, now commonly known simply as tennis, is the direct descendant of what is now denoted real tennis or royal tennis, which continues to be played today as a separate sport with more complex rules. The first Lawn Tennis Club and tournament was held in Royal Leamington Spa on 1 August 1882.
This is a list of the main career statistics of Swiss former professional tennis player Roger Federer. All statistics are according to the ATP Tour website. Federer won 103 ATP singles titles including 20 majors, 28 ATP Masters, and six ATP Finals. Federer was also a gold medalist in men's doubles with Stan Wawrinka at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and a silver medalist in singles at the 2012 London Olympics.
This is a list of the main career statistics of Australian former tennis player Rod Laver whose playing career ran from 1956 until 1977. He played as an amateur from 1956 until the end of 1962 when he joined Jack Kramer's professional circuit. As a professional he was banned from playing the Grand Slam tournaments as well as other tournaments organized by the national associations of the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF). In 1968, with the advent of the Open Era, the distinction between amateurs and professionals disappeared and Laver was again able to compete in most Grand Slam events until the end of his career in 1977. During his career he won eleven Grand Slam tournaments, eight Pro Slam tournaments and five Davis Cup titles.
The Wimbledon World Lawn Tennis Professional Championships, also known as the Wimbledon Pro, was a men's tennis tournament held in August 1967. The tournament was sponsored and broadcast by the BBC to mark the invention of colour television. It was the first tournament staged at Wimbledon that was open to male professional tennis players since the British Professional Championships in 1930, and had a prize fund of US$45,000. The singles competition was an eight-man knockout event won by Rod Laver, who received £3,000, whilst the doubles was a four team knockout event won by Andrés Gimeno and Pancho Gonzales.
The 1970 Pepsi-Cola ILTF Grand Prix was a tennis circuit administered by the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) which served as a forerunner to the current Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) World Tour and the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Tour. It was the inaugural edition of the Grand Prix circuit and consisted of men's tournaments recognised by the ILTF. The creation of the Grand Prix circuit, on an experimental basis during its first year, was announced in April 1970 by the president of the ILTF, Ben Barnett. It was the brainchild of Jack Kramer, former tennis promoter and winner of the Wimbledon and US championships, and was aimed at countering the influence of commercial promoters, particularly Lamar Hunt and his World Championship Tennis circuit and George MacCall's National Tennis League.
The World Covered Court Championships were part of a series of three major world championships sanctioned from 1913 to 1923 by the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF). The tournament was played indoors on wood floors, and its venue changed from year to year among several countries. While the World Grass Court Championships (Wimbledon) and World Hard Court Championships (WHCC) could justify their "world championship" titles, the WCCC had trouble attracting top players from outside Europe. At an Annual General Meeting (AGM) held on 16 March 1923 in Paris, France the ILTF issued the ‘Rules of Tennis’ that were adopted with public effect on 1 January 1924. USA became an affiliated member of the ILTF. The World Championship title was also dropped at this meeting and a new category of Official Championship was created for events in Great Britain, France, USA and Australia – today’s Grand Slam events. The WCCC tournament was then disbanded by the ILTF.
This article covers the period from 1877 to present. Before the beginning of the Open Era in April 1968, only amateurs were allowed to compete in established tennis tournaments, including the four Grand Slam tournaments. Wimbledon, the oldest of the majors, was founded in 1877, followed by the US Open in 1881, the French Open in 1891 and the Australian Open in 1905. Beginning in 1905 and continuing to the present day, all four majors have been played yearly, with the exception of during the two World Wars, 1986 for the Australian Open, and 2020 for Wimbledon. The Australian Open is the first major of the year (January), followed by the French Open (May–June), Wimbledon (June–July) and the US Open (August–September). There was no prize money and players were compensated for travel expenses only. A player who wins all four majors, in singles or as part of a doubles team, in the same calendar year is said to have achieved a "Grand Slam". If the player wins all four consecutively, but not in the same calendar year, it is called a "Non-Calendar Year Grand Slam". Winning all four at some point in a career, even if not consecutively, is referred to as a "Career Grand Slam". Winning the four majors and a gold medal in tennis at the Summer Olympics in the same calendar year has been called a "Golden Slam" since 1988. Winning all four majors plus an Olympic gold at some point in a career, even if not consecutively, is referred to as a "Career Golden Slam". Winning the year-end championship while also having won a Golden Slam is referred to as a "Super Slam". Winning all four majors, an Olympic gold, and the year-end championships at some point in a career, even if not consecutively, is referred to as a "Career Super Slam". Winning the four majors in all three disciplines a player is eligible for–singles, doubles and mixed doubles–is considered winning a "boxed set" of Grand Slam titles.