At Trove 42, we have endeavoured to come up with a systematic and scientific method to rank the greatest men’s singles tennis players in the Open Era. To do this, we’ve used numbers, lots of them. Every match, every title, every victory and every defeat of a player’s professional career has been taken into account. Everything that a player has done throughout his career, has been considered to generate an index rating. The higher the index rating, the greater is the player.
Below is the updated list of the top 10 greatest men’s singles players of all time. You can know more about our entire ranking methodology here.
| No. | Name | Grand Slam Titles(Finals) | Weeks At No. 1(Best Streak) | Career Titles(Finals) | Index Score |
| 1 | Roger Federer | 20 (31) | 310 (237) | 103 (157) | 58872 |
| 2 | Novak Djokovic | 17 (26) | 282 (122) | 79 (113) | 46277 |
| 3 | Rafael Nadal | 19 (27) | 209 (57) | 85 (122) | 39435 |
| 4 | Ivan Lendl |
8 (19) | 270 (157) | 94 (146) | 38440 |
| 5 | Jimmy Connors | 8 (15) | 268 (160) | 109 (164) | 34850 |
| 6 | Pete Sampras | 14 (18) | 286 (102) | 64 (88) | 34111 |
| 7 | Andre Agassi | 8 (15) | 101 (52) | 60 (90) | 27661 |
| 8 | John McEnroe | 7 (11) | 170 (58) | 77 (109) | 25455 |
| 9 | Bjorn Borg | 11 (16) | 109 (46) | 64 (89) | 25334 |
| 10 | Boris Becker | 6 (10) | 12 (3) | 49 (77) | 21573 |
I like the way you came up with a systematic/analytical method of determining the TOP 10 tennis players of all time. Though your formula needs some more enhancement (i.e. Masters 1000 and Olympic titles needs to weigh heavier), the true rankings may be very close… I objectively believe Fed is #1, Agassi is #9 and Becker is #10. Numbers 2 thru 8 is debatable. But certainly, these ten players are the top 10 of the Open Era. Kudos to you for a great column as I’m an avid tennis fan since the 80’s.
But something happened along the way, and by the time he finished his 20-year career, I was not only a fan but I had also come to respect him as a great player and spokesman for the game.