{"id":7520,"date":"2025-04-04T10:39:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T10:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=7520"},"modified":"2025-04-05T19:17:27","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T19:17:27","slug":"trivia-notebook-4-number-ones-past-and-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/04\/trivia-notebook-4-number-ones-past-and-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Trivia Notebook #4: Number Ones, Past and Future"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Would Medvedev now settle for this?<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Previous: Trivia Notebook #3<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome back for some more trivia! Again, thanks to all those who have suggested topics. Feel free to drop them in the comments here, on Twitter, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today we’re going to look at Daniil Medvedev’s high ranking sans finals, revisit what would make a good year-end showing for Joao Fonseca, and see who has beaten multiple number ones (past, present, or future) in the same tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniil’s Drought<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniil Medvedev hasn’t won a title since 2023; he hasn’t reached a final since Indian Wells in 2024. He won plenty of matches last year–Wimbledon semi, US Open quarter–so when he lost at Indian Wells last month, he was still ranked sixth in the world. He has now fallen out of the top ten, but for a fortnight, he was a top-tenner without a single final in the previous 52 weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is unusual<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Since 1982, the beginning of my reliable week-by-week ATP rankings data, only a few dozen players have held a place in the top 30 without the points from a single final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only nine<\/em> have clung to a spot in the top 20. (I’m not counting Roger Federer, who remained in the top ten after the Covid-19 pause and held on to a top 20 place for a long time because of the pandemic adjustments to the ranking rules.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medvedev is not the first top-tenner, but his ranking in Miami is the “best” of all-time:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rank  Player                 Date  \n8     Daniil Medvedev    20250317  \n10    Fernando Gonzalez  20100301  \n19    Goran Ivanisevic   20020701  \n19    Lucas Pouille      20191014  \n20    John McEnroe       19921026  \n20    Gaston Gaudio      20060731  \n20    Andrei Medvedev    20000529  \n20    Petr Korda         19990125  \n20    Mardy Fish         20120813<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
(Each player is listed only once, with their best ranking. Most of them spent multiple weeks in the top 20 without the points from a final.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gonzo had seven semi-finals to his credit, including Rome and Roland Garros. His final-less ranking position is the only one that comes close to what Medvedev has (not) achieved lately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fonseca’s company<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the first Trivia Notebook, I looked at big ranking leaps<\/a> into the top 100. The goal was to find some context for Joao Fonseca, who started the year at #145 and had already reached an Elo rating in the top 50. Sure enough, his position on the official table has quickly followed. He’s up to 59th, and he doesn’t have many points to defend for the rest of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And he’s up to 11th<\/a><\/em> on my Elo list. That’s not a guarantee he’ll climb so high on the ATP table, but it suggests he won’t be 59th for long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A one-hundred point leap into the top 50, as it turned out, wouldn’t be all that historic. Eric J followed up to ask:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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How high would he have to get from his starting position for it to be a historically interesting result?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Let’s say that the reference class for Fonseca consists of players who finished a year ranked between 120 and 180. Again going back to the early 80s, here are the players from that group who reached the best rankings in the following year:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Player               Year  YE-Rk  Next YE  Gain  \nGoran Ivanisevic     2000    129       12   117  \nMikael Pernfors      1985    165       12   153  \nAndy Roddick         2000    156       14   142  \nParadorn Srichaphan  2001    120       16   104  \nFernando Gonzalez    2001    139       18   121  \nHenrik Holm          1991    131       19   112  \nNicolas Jarry        2022    152       19   133  \nJan Lennard Struff   2022    150       25   125  \nJan Siemerink        1990    135       26   109  \nMilan Srejber        1985    121       27    94  \nClaudio Mezzadri     1986    138       28   110  \nBohdan Ulihrach      1994    142       28   114  \nDmitry Tursunov      2012    122       29    93  \nFrancisco Cerundolo  2021    127       30    97  \nTommy Robredo        2000    131       30   101  \nMichael Chang        1987    163       30   133<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
(“Year” refers to the season with the ranking between 120 and 180: The breakthrough came the following season.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one has ever gone from a ranking in this range to the top ten. Fonseca has a chance to be the first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps more to the point is how the Brazilian would stack up against other teens. Most of the players on that list are young, but the whole notion of “ranking leaps” can distract us from what really matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fonseca will be 19 at the end of the year. Here are the last ten teenagers to finish a season in the top 20:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Player           Year  YE Rank  \nCarlos Alcaraz   2022        1  \nHolger Rune      2022       11  \nNovak Djokovic   2006       16  \nAndy Murray      2006       17  \nRafael Nadal     2005        2  \nRichard Gasquet  2005       16  \nAndy Roddick     2001       14  \nLleyton Hewitt   2000        7  \nAndrei Medvedev  1993        6<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Pretty good company. Again, there’s a lot to do in the next seven months or so. Elo is a good forecasting tool<\/a>, but the exact timeline<\/a> is much tougher to get right. If Fonseca does live up to expectations on schedule, he’ll be in elite company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defeats of past and future<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the February roundup<\/a>, I linked to full match video<\/a> of Andy Murray’s 2005 US Open match against Arnaud Clement. Edo took the cue and charted<\/a> the match (he’s now past the 1,700 mark<\/a>!), and he observed that in the same tournament, Clement beat Murray–then a future number one–and former top dog Juan Carlos Ferrero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pretty good run for the 91st-ranked Frenchman, especially in retrospect. Alas, he lost to Nicolas Kiefer in the third round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It turns out that a lot of players have beaten multiple (past, present, or future) number ones in the same tournaments. It’s especially common in eras where several men have cycled through the number one position: Not only are number ones comparably weaker, there are more opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let’s strengthen the parameters to make it more interesting. How many players have done the same as Clement, beating a former number one and<\/em> a present or future number one at the same event, while ranked outside the top 50 himself?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clement is one of 25 men to accomplish the feat. But the Frenchman is an even more unique case. He is one of just two players–Slava Dosedel is the other–to have done it twice! A year after his US Open run, he beat Lleyton Hewitt, Marat Safin, and Murray again (also charted<\/a> by Edo) to win the Washington title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dosedel is the only man to have done this on multiple surfaces. He won the 1996 Munich title with wins over Boris Becker and Carlos Moya on clay. Then he defeated Jim Courier and Pat Rafter at the 1999 Adelaide event, before–get this–losing to Hewitt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clement and Dosedel both came along in the right era for this: 24 of the 27 instances took place between 1995 and 2006. The only example since 2006: the 2018 Australian Open, when Hyeon Chung knocked out both Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most impressive of all is a run you’ve surely heard about before. Goran Ivanisevic claimed the 2001 Wimbledon title as a wild card, with wins against former number ones Moya, Rafter, and Safin, plus a victory over future number one Andy Roddick. That single tournament–not to mention Goran himself<\/a>–continues to be the trivia answer that keeps giving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
See you next time!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Previous: Trivia Notebook #3 Welcome back for some more trivia! Again, thanks to all those who have suggested topics. Feel free to drop them in the comments here, on Twitter, etc. Today we’re going to look at Daniil Medvedev’s high ranking sans finals, revisit what would make a good year-end showing for Joao Fonseca, and … Continue reading Trivia Notebook #4: Number Ones, Past and Future<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,91,117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-curiosities","category-rankings","category-trivia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7520"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7530,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7520\/revisions\/7530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}