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This is an update of last year's rankings, which you can find here:
Greatest Tennis Players of the Open Era - by Surface (Year-End 2019) | Mens Tennis Forums
Methodology follows the first table.
GOAT list - all surfaces (active players are highlighted in green):
![358993]()
Top movers in 2020
The biggest movers of the year were Djokovic (1 slam + 2 masters + extra weeks at number 1), Dominic Thiem (moved from 48th place to 34th!), Medvedev (from 84th place to 59th!), and Nadal (1 slam):
![358989]()
Methodology:
The focus was to try and be as objective as humanly possible.
1. Screening: only players who have won at least 1 grand slam, or 1 Masters 10000, an ATP finals title, or an Olympic Gold Medal are screened in.
2. Criteria were decided such that they were 1) generally recognized as important records, and 2) unambiguously positive/good (example: number of weeks in 2nd place doesn't count as unambiguously good, because 2nd place isn't as good as first), 3) not too nichey (number of slams won without losing a set is somewhat nichey), 4) not based on timing at all (e.g. no number of consecutive titles, or CYGS) and 5) in the Open Era.
3. Two lists are compiled with all the criteria, and each player's score.
4. There are 5 GOAT lists (a total one, and one for each surface:
GOAT lists: The first list, which I am calling the "GOAT" list, measures players' greatness mostly based on their achievements, putting a lot of weight on Grand Slams and other big titles. This is done by surface - so there are 5 of these lists. There is one overall list, and one for each surface (hard courts, clay, grass, and carpet)
Criteria for GOAT list:
Number of Grand Slams: 50 points
Number of World Tour Finals: 25 points
Number of Olympic Gold Medals: 25 points
Number of Masters 1000: 10 points
Number of ATP 500 tournaments: 4 points
Number of ATP 250 tournaments: 2 points
Peak Elo rating: 50 points per every standard deviation above the minimum (approximately 50 GOAT points per 135 Elo ranking points above the minimum of 1910)
Winning percentage in Grand Slams: 50 points per standard deviation above the minimum
Winning percentage against Top 5 players: 50 points per standard deviation above the minimum
Total weeks at Number 1: 1 point per week
Number 1 bonus: 50 bonus points to any player who has ever been Number 1
PS: note that for the lists by surface, there are a couple of methodological differences compared with the overall GOAT list. First, there are no ATP rankings by surface, so to compute the weeks at number 1 by surface, I use the Elo rankings provided by Ultimate Tennis Statistics - Rankings Table. The second difference is that instead of using the winning percentage in Grand Slams, I use the winning percentage in Big Titles - that's mainly because the Carpet surface never had a Grand Slam, so I wanted to keep things consistent.
Here are the tables by surface:
HARD COURT GOAT:
![358990]()
CLAY COURT GOAT:
![358991]()
GRASS COURT GOAT:
![358992]()
CARPET COURT GOAT:
![]()
If you spot a mistake, please let me know.
All data are taken from Ultimate Tennis Statistics, so thank you to them!
Greatest Tennis Players of the Open Era - by Surface (Year-End 2019) | Mens Tennis Forums
Methodology follows the first table.
GOAT list - all surfaces (active players are highlighted in green):
Top movers in 2020
The biggest movers of the year were Djokovic (1 slam + 2 masters + extra weeks at number 1), Dominic Thiem (moved from 48th place to 34th!), Medvedev (from 84th place to 59th!), and Nadal (1 slam):
Methodology:
The focus was to try and be as objective as humanly possible.
1. Screening: only players who have won at least 1 grand slam, or 1 Masters 10000, an ATP finals title, or an Olympic Gold Medal are screened in.
2. Criteria were decided such that they were 1) generally recognized as important records, and 2) unambiguously positive/good (example: number of weeks in 2nd place doesn't count as unambiguously good, because 2nd place isn't as good as first), 3) not too nichey (number of slams won without losing a set is somewhat nichey), 4) not based on timing at all (e.g. no number of consecutive titles, or CYGS) and 5) in the Open Era.
3. Two lists are compiled with all the criteria, and each player's score.
4. There are 5 GOAT lists (a total one, and one for each surface:
GOAT lists: The first list, which I am calling the "GOAT" list, measures players' greatness mostly based on their achievements, putting a lot of weight on Grand Slams and other big titles. This is done by surface - so there are 5 of these lists. There is one overall list, and one for each surface (hard courts, clay, grass, and carpet)
Criteria for GOAT list:
Number of Grand Slams: 50 points
Number of World Tour Finals: 25 points
Number of Olympic Gold Medals: 25 points
Number of Masters 1000: 10 points
Number of ATP 500 tournaments: 4 points
Number of ATP 250 tournaments: 2 points
Peak Elo rating: 50 points per every standard deviation above the minimum (approximately 50 GOAT points per 135 Elo ranking points above the minimum of 1910)
Winning percentage in Grand Slams: 50 points per standard deviation above the minimum
Winning percentage against Top 5 players: 50 points per standard deviation above the minimum
Total weeks at Number 1: 1 point per week
Number 1 bonus: 50 bonus points to any player who has ever been Number 1
PS: note that for the lists by surface, there are a couple of methodological differences compared with the overall GOAT list. First, there are no ATP rankings by surface, so to compute the weeks at number 1 by surface, I use the Elo rankings provided by Ultimate Tennis Statistics - Rankings Table. The second difference is that instead of using the winning percentage in Grand Slams, I use the winning percentage in Big Titles - that's mainly because the Carpet surface never had a Grand Slam, so I wanted to keep things consistent.
Here are the tables by surface:
HARD COURT GOAT:
CLAY COURT GOAT:
GRASS COURT GOAT:
CARPET COURT GOAT:
If you spot a mistake, please let me know.
All data are taken from Ultimate Tennis Statistics, so thank you to them!
