Tennis fans talk about “cracking the top ten,” “top ten scalps,” and “top ten talent,” suggesting that this ranking milestone is a failsafe marker of the current elite. \u00a0While the top ten isn’t quite the same as the big four, the connotation is that the top ten is a class above.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, Juan Monaco<\/a> joined that group. \u00a0His Hamburg title earned him the 500 points to put him over the top, capping the best 52-week span of his career. \u00a0Since this time last year, he’s played five finals, won three titles, and reached the semis at the Miami Masters.<\/p>\n Job well done, Pico: We can now add you to an illustrious list featuring such names as Mikhail Youzhny<\/a>, Nicolas Massu<\/a>, Radek Stepanek<\/a>, Arnaud Clement<\/a>, and Marcos Baghdatis<\/a>. \u00a0Kind of like an Olympic medal, an appearance in the top ten is something they can never take away from you.<\/p>\n As my snark implies, the top ten mystique is misplaced. \u00a0Sure, a berth in the top ten is an impressive accomplishment. \u00a0For that matter, a spot in the top 100 is far out of reach of mere mortals. \u00a0But with so many top-tenners hanging around, there’s barely enough mystique to go around.<\/p>\n Any given week, of course, there’s only room for ten men in the top ten. \u00a0But the last few spots are–and always have been–a revolving door. \u00a0At any given time, there are a staggering number of past, present, and future top ten players in the active ranks.<\/p>\n In fact, of the 146 players ever to reach the ATP top 10,\u00a036<\/strong> of them are in this week’s rankings. \u00a0A few, such as Massu, Thomas Muster<\/a>, \u00a0and Fernando Gonzalez<\/a> are retired (or might as well be). \u00a0But that still leaves more than 30 “top-tenners” among active players. \u00a0Even that doesn’t tell the whole story.<\/p>\n For a fuller perspective, head back a decade to the 2002 end-of-year rankings. \u00a0In December of that year,\u00a070<\/strong> of the men who appeared in the ATP rankings would, at some point in their career, crack the top ten. \u00a0If we set aside youngsters like Monaco and Rafael Nadal<\/a> who were on the way up in late 2002, we find that of the top 100 on December 16, 2002,\u00a047<\/strong>\u00a0could write “former top-ten player” on their Wikipedia pages.<\/p>\n Dwell on that for a moment. \u00a0Nearly half of the top 100 had this elite status. \u00a0You could nearly fill the Paris Masters draw with past, present, and future top-tenners.<\/p>\n Ten years from now, the same will probably be said about the class of 2012. \u00a0“Only” 28 of the current top 100 have spent time in the top ten, but for many of the other 72, there’s plenty of time to add to the list. \u00a0It seems a given that Milos Raonic<\/a>, Bernard Tomic<\/a>, and Kei Nishikori<\/a> will at some point crack the top 10<\/a>, while players like Alexandr Dolgopolov<\/a>, Ryan Harrison<\/a>, Grigor Dimitrov<\/a>, Vasek Pospisil<\/a>, and Cedrik Marcel Stebe<\/a> are poised to follow them to the top.<\/p>\n Your list may be different than mine, but the details don’t matter. \u00a0A year ago, most people wouldn’t have guessed Monaco would crack the top 10. \u00a0When Janko Tipsarevic<\/a> was ranked around #50 on his 26th birthday, no one imagined he’d spend months at #8. \u00a0To say that Dimitrov, or Pospisil, or David Goffin<\/a> is a future top-tenner doesn’t mean he’s going to take over the sport and beat all comers<\/a>, it just means that he’ll put together a year with a couple of 250 titles and a handful of solid wins against other top players.<\/p>\n Next time someone offers you to bet you that so-and-so won’t ever reach #10 in the world, it’s worth careful consideration. \u00a0The top ten is bigger than it sounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tennis fans talk about “cracking the top ten,” “top ten scalps,” and “top ten talent,” suggesting that this ranking milestone is a failsafe marker of the current elite. \u00a0While the top ten isn’t quite the same as the big four, the connotation is that the top ten is a class above. Yesterday, Juan Monaco joined … Continue reading The Ever-Expanding Top Ten<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rankings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809","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=809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}