Best Tennis players Of All Time – Our Top10 list In 2022

Who are the Top 10 best tennis players of all time? The Wimbledon Championships of 1877, which was won by Briton Spencer Gore, are considered the very first Grand Slam in tennis history.

Since then, most of the Grand Slam titles have been won by players from the United States, Great Britain, and Australia.

Top 10 best tennis players of all time

In the so-called open era of tennis, which began in 1968, players from 20 different nations won a Grand Slam title. The USA tops the list with 52 victories, more than twice as many as the next best country – Sweden.

However, there are players who make winning Grand Slams a habit and win numerous titles at prestigious events.

Numerous extraordinary players have come and gone in tennis history. Since technological changes and higher fitness standards make it difficult to compare players from different eras in a sport, choosing the best player who has ever played can be a difficult and highly subjective task.

Who are the top 10 tennis players?

Our list focuses on 10 such famous tennis players who just couldn’t stop winning Grand Slams, all of which took home at least seven of them.

10th – John McEnroe tennis player:

John McEnroe player
  • Born on February 16, 1959, in Wiesbaden, Federal Republic of Germany
  • Place of residence: New York City
  • Professional debut: 1978
  • Retired: 1992
  • 105 career titles
  • 7 Grand Slam singles titles: 3x Wimbledon, 4x US Open
  • Inducted into Tennis Hall of Fame: 1999

There is an endless list of adjectives that can be used to describe John McEnroe – from his talent to his temperament, he is without a doubt one of the top 10 best tennis players in history.

Every sport from time to time spawns an extraordinary character that fans just can’t take their eyes off of, and McEnroe was just that. Watch Best Tennis Racquets

With its famous rivalries with Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors, McEnroe was the gift to controversial hopes for Tennis fanatics, but his character is not meant to outshine the great successes he has achieved during his 14-year career.

9th – Ivan Lendl tennis player:

Ivan Lendl tennis player
  • Born on March 7, 1960 in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia
  • Place of residence: Goshen, Connecticut
  • Professional debut: 1978
  • Retired: 1994
  • Total career prize pool: $ 21,262,417
  • 144 career titles
  • 8 Grand Slam singles titles: 2x Australian Open, 3x French Open, 3x US Open
  • Inducted into Tennis Hall of Fame: 2001
  • He won 94 individual titles, including 8 Grand Slam titles.

In February 1983 Lendl rose to the top of the ATP rankings for the first time, although he had not yet won a Grand Slam title.

Lendl is one of only two players who topped the ranking without first winning a Grand Slam title.

Ivan Lendl is also known as the player who fundamentally changed the way tennis professionals approach their diet.

Ivan Lendl had a fruitful decade at the top, collecting at least one major per year between 1981 and 1991 and winning a total of eleven Grand Slams.

8th – Jimmy Connors tennis players:

Jimmy Connors tennis players
  • Born on September 2, 1952, in East St. Louis, Illinois, USA
  • Place of residence: Santa Barbara, California
  • Professional debut: 1972
  • Retired: 1996
  • Total career prize pool: $ 8,641,040
  • 147 career titles
  • 8 Grand Slam singles titles: 1x Australian Open, 2x Wimbledon, 5x US Open
  • Inducted into Tennis Hall of Fame: 1998

The American Jimmy Connors won an unbelievable 109 ATP titles – a record that remains to this day and thus guarantees among the top 10 best tennis players in the world.

Connors rose to the top of the ATP rankings five times, including for 160 consecutive weeks from 1974 to 1977.

Connors won 8 Grand Slam singles titles, including the Open-era record with 5 US Open titles, most recently set by Roger Federer. 

Tennis fans will always remember 1974 as the year Jimmy Connors established his dominance in men’s tennis.

The American won three majors that year and could have made it a Grand Slam if he hadn’t been banned from the French Open for signing a contract with the World Team Tennis Circuit.

7th – Andre Agassi tennis player:

Andre Agassi tennis player
  • Place of residence: Las Vegas, Nevada
  • Professional debut: 1986
  • Retired: 2006
  • Total career prize pool: $ 31,152,975
  • 61 career titles
  • 8 Grand Slam singles titles: 4x Australian Open, 1x French Open, 2x US Open, 1x Wimbledon
  • Olympic gold medalist 1996
  • Inducted into Tennis Hall of Fame: 2011

Which tennis fan can forget the young, flashy, long-haired Andre Agassi, who first appeared on the tennis scene in the late 80s?

Initially, many were probably shocked by his rock-star demeanor and manner, but over the course of his 20-year career, he undoubtedly learned to appreciate the American’s qualities and talent.

6th – Björn Borg tennis player:

Björn Borg tennis player
  • Born on June 6, 1956, in Sodertalje, Stockholm County, Sweden
  • Place of residence: Stockholm, Sweden
  • Professional debut: 1973
  • Retired: 1983
  • Total career prize pool: $ 3,655,751
  • 101 career titles
  • Inducted into Tennis Hall of Fame: 1987
  • Björn Borg, the famous “Ice-Man”, won a Grand Slam title for the first time at the French Open in 1974 as a teenager.

He is best known among young fans for his rivalry with John McEnroe, the contemporary and competitor on the pitch.

Their encounters were legendary because of their contrasting styles and personalities.

5th – Rod Laver tennis player:

Rod Laver tennis player
  • Born on August 8, 1938, in Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia
  • Place of residence: Carlsbad, California
  • Professional debut: 1962
  • End of career: 1979
  • Total career prize pool: $ 1,565,413
  • 200 career titles
  • 11 Grand Slam singles titles: 3x Australian Open, 2x French Open, 2x US Open, 4x Wimbledon
  • 9 Pro Slam Singles titles: 3x US Pro, 4x Wembley Pro, 1x French Pro, 1x Wimbledon Pro
  • Inducted into Tennis Hall of Fame: 1981

Rod Laver is considered by many to be the greatest tennis player of all time, mainly for two reasons:

He won 11 Grand Slam titles and is still the only player to have won all four Grand Slams in one year, not just once, but twice. It is also amazing that he achieved this feat with a gap of seven years.

4th – Pete Sampras Tennis Player:

Pete Sampras Tennis Player
  • Place of residence: Lake Sherwood, California
  • Professional debut: 1988
  • Retired: 2002
  • Total career prize pool: $ 43,280,489
  • 64 career titles
  • 14 Grand Slam singles titles: 2x Australian Open, 7x Wimbledon, 5x US Open
  • Inducted into Tennis Hall of Fame: 2007

Great American Pete Sampras, widely regarded as one of the best service and volleyball players of all time, deserves a fourth 4th on the list of the best players of all time. Sampras, nicknamed “Pistol Pete” for its quick serves. 

He held the world number 1 for a total of 286 weeks, including six consecutive world number. 1 s at the end of the year from 1993 to 1998.

His Grand Slam yield includes 2 Australian Open (1994, 1997), 7 Wimbledon Championships (1993-1995, 1997-2000) and 5 US Open titles (1990, 1993, 1995, 1996, 2002).

3rd – Novak Djokovic Tennis Player:

Novak Djokovic Tennis Player
  • Born on May 22, 1987, in Belgrade, Serbia
  • Place of residence: Monte Carlo, Monaco
  • Professional debut: 2003
  • Total career prize pool: $ 125,847,879
  • 73 career titles
  • 15 Grand Slam singles titles: 7x Australian Open, 4x Wimbledon, 3x US Open, 1x French Open

Novak Djokovic does not have the flair and fan base of Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer, but he can hold his own against both in a direct comparison.

While the debate about the Best Tennis Player Of All Time mostly goes back and forth between Nadal and Federer, it’s time to look up from these two for a moment and include Djokovic in the bill as well.

After winning his first Grand Slam tournament at the Australian Open in 2008, Djokovic had to chase Nadal and Federer for three years. It wasn’t until 2011 that the Serb found his groove again on the Grand Slam level.

2nd – Rafael Nadal Greatest Tennis Payer:

Rafael Nadal Greatest Tennis Payer
  • Place of residence: Manacor, Mallorca, Spain
  • Professional debut: 2001
  • Total career prize pool: $ 103,251,975
  • 80 career titles
  • 17 Grand Slam singles titles: 1x Australian Open, 11x French Open, 3x US Open, 2x Wimbledon
  • 2008 Olympic gold medalist

Rafael Nadal, the greatest clay-court player ever, just had to get a top spot on this list. Words alone can hardly convey the greatness that this man has reached in the ashes.

Expressed in numbers – Nadal has 57 Ascheplatz titles with eleven French Open titles on his résumé – the most victories in a single Grand Slam that an active or retired player, whether man or woman, could achieve.

1st – Roger Federer Swiss Best Tennis Player:

Roger Federer Best Tennis Player
  • Born on August 8, 1981, in Basel, Switzerland
  • Place of residence: Wollerau, Switzerland and Dubai, United Arab Emirates
  • Professional debut: 1998
  • Total career prize pool: $ 120,514,916
  • 101 career titles
  • 20 Grand Slam singles titles: 6x Australian Open, 1x French Open, 5x US Open, 8x Wimbledon
  • Currently active player
  • The countdown ends with the great Swiss Roger Federer.

Federer achieved his international breakthrough at Wimbledon 2001 against the seven-time champion Pete Sampras in an exciting encounter in the fourth round.

But nobody would have expected that the then 19-year-old Federer Sampras record of 7 Wimbledon titles would once surpass.

However, this is exactly what the Swiss achieved when he won his 8th Wimbledon Cup in 2017.

Federer won his first Wimbledon title at the age of just 21 in 2003 and won five consecutive titles by 2007.

His match with Rafael Nadal in the 2008 Wimbledon final is widely considered to be the best tennis match ever played.

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