My Tennis 128 list was largely finalized before the start of the 2022 season. I made a few adjustments as the year went along, notably bumping up Ashleigh Barty several places after her Australian Open title. Since then, though, there has been little reason to update the list. While many all-time greats are still playing, most of them–with one major exception!–are no longer at the top of the game. The young stars taking their place are still building their résumés.
The method I used to construct the ranking used each player’s peak performance, their top five years, and their overall career, all measured by Elo. It is possible for a youngster to crack the list with an extremely high peak, but because two of the three components of the algorithm rely more on longevity, it’s not easy. The formula was designed to compare entire bodies of work, so placing a mid-career Iga Swiatek or Carlos Alcaraz (or Naomi Osaka or Daniil Medvedev) was not the point. All we can do is see how a player like that would rate if their career ended today.
Swiatek, with her fourth major and her best year-end Elo rating, makes the cut. Despite a career that spans only a few seasons, Iga slots into the list just ahead of Barty, right behind Dorothy Round, at 101st overall.
Thus, the Tennis 128 grows to 129. (I’m not about to say goodbye to the great Beverly Baker Fleitz.) And for now, that’s as much as the list will expand. No other newcomers quite qualify.
On the women’s side, Aryna Sabalenka ranks about 200th, and Coco Gauff stands around #250. Two returning WTAers are also worth keeping an eye on this year. Angelique Kerber comes in around 160th, and Osaka ranks in the neighborhood of #180. It’s unlikely that any of these players will crack the 128 by the end of 2024, but especially if Gauff or Sabalenka turns in a particularly dominant season, it is possible.
The player with the best shot at becoming a 128er next year might surprise you. Alexander Zverev didn’t miss the cut by much when I first made the list, and while he hasn’t improved his position much in the meantime, he continues to inch toward inclusion. He stands at the edge of the top 140, and a single strong season could force me to make room. About 15 places behind him, in the mid-150s, is Medvedev.
The ATP’s prize youngsters, Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, both remain outside the top 200. Again, this is more a matter of their short careers than any knock on their performance thus far. Alcaraz is around 205th, while Sinner ranks another 20 places down the list. Like Sabalenka and Gauff, they’ll probably need multiple seasons to reach the Tennis 128 threshold.
For some of you, I know, the real action is at the top of the table, not the fringes. A handful of high-profile retirements and injuries meant that 2022/23 turned out to be a great time to make an all-time ranking that would remain valid for several more years. The one fly in the ointment, of course, is Novak Djokovic.
Djokovic ranked fourth (behind Rod Laver, Steffi Graf, and Martina Navratilova), and at this point in his illustrious career, there’s only so much he can do to climb higher. Today’s game is a bit weaker than it was at his peak, and Novak probably is, too: His Elo rating stands at 2,227, compared to 2,435 at the end of the 2015 season. The most substantial difference between him and Laver is peak rating: Rocket rates better than anyone else by a wide margin.
Still, Djokovic’s persistence at the top of the game alters the calculation. When I first built the ranking two years ago, his career–that is, the part of my formula apart from peak rating and best five years–ranked fourth behind Roger Federer, Bill Tilden, and Ken Rosewall. Now he’s up to second place, so close to Fed that a mere top-ten finish in 2024 would move him to the top of this category, too.
What it all adds up to is this: Move over, Martina. Djokovic is the new number three. Another season like this one, and he’ll displace Steffi, as well. The gap in peak ratings makes it unlikely he’ll ever catch Laver, but don’t tell Novak, or else he might figure out how to reach the top of this list, too.
Click here for the full Tennis 128, with links to long-form essays about each player.
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