Tireless podcaster Alex Gruskin likes to talk about what he calls the “top-ten, top-15, top-20, and top-25 clubs.” He works out the membership of each one by consulting the Tennis Abstract ATP and WTA stats leaderboards, which display dozens of metrics for each of the top 50 ranked players on both tours.
To qualify for Alex’s “top ten club,” a player needs to be in the top ten in both hold percentage and break percentage–in other words, to be an elite server and returner. Even cracking the top 25 club is no easy task. In 2023, only 11 men were better than half of the top 50 on both sides of the ball. It’s more common to excel at one or the other. In 2022, the best returner (Diego Schwartzman) ranked 50th out of 50 on serve, and the best server (Nick Kyrgios) came in 40th on return.
The top-25 club is a high standard, and the top-ten club is a stratospheric one. This year, only three men–Novak Djokovic, Jannik Sinner, and Carlos Alcaraz–made the cut, and Alcaraz almost missed it, ranking 10th in hold percentage. Daniil Medvedev almost qualified, but he trailed Alcaraz by 0.7% in hold percentage and came in 11th in that category.
Three top-ten clubbers is, as it turns out, an unusual showing. In the 33 seasons for which we have the necessary stats to calculate hold and break percentage (back to 1991), only 13 men have ever managed the feat. Many of them did it several times, so there are a total of 49 player-seasons that qualify. For the two-plus decades between 1991 and 2011, there were only two seasons in which more than one player reached both top-ten thresholds. In 1992, the entire tour fell short.
By “club” standards (and most others), Djokovic’s 2023 season was particularly impressive. Alex usually classifies players into round-number clubs, occasionally giving credit to a near-miss who makes, for instance, the “top 26” club. We can extend the concept a bit further and place every season into its best possible club: If a player ranks in the top three by both hold and break percentage, he’s in the “top-three” club; if he ranks among the top four in both, he’s in the “top-four club,” and so on.
In 2023, Novak led the tour in hold percentage and was bested by only Alcaraz and Medvedev in break percentage. Thus, he’s a member of the top-three club. More exclusive categories are hard to find. Here’s the complete list of top-three clubbers since 1991, along with their ranks in hold percentage (H% Rk) and break percentage (B% Rk):
Year Player H% Rk B% Rk CLUB 2023 Novak Djokovic 1 3 3 1999 Andre Agassi 3 1 3 1995 Andre Agassi 3 3 3
That’s it.
Sinner’s 2023 campaign was also sneakily great. He finished a deceptive fourth on the official ATP points table, but by ranking fifth in hold percentage and fourth in break percentage, he joined an absurdly elite group of top-five clubbers: only Djokovic, Agassi, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer.
Here’s the full list of top-ten club seasons since 1991:
Year Player H% Rk B% Rk CLUB
2023 Novak Djokovic 1 3 3
1999 Andre Agassi 3 1 3
1995 Andre Agassi 3 3 3
2021 Novak Djokovic 4 3 4
2013 Rafael Nadal 4 1 4
2008 Rafael Nadal 4 1 4
2002 Andre Agassi 4 3 4
2023 Jannik Sinner 5 4 5
2019 Rafael Nadal 5 1 5
2017 Rafael Nadal 5 2 5
2015 Novak Djokovic 5 1 5
2014 Novak Djokovic 5 2 5
2012 Rafael Nadal 5 1 5
2007 Rafael Nadal 5 2 5
2006 Roger Federer 2 5 5
2003 Andre Agassi 5 3 5
Year Player H% Rk B% Rk CLUB
2022 Novak Djokovic 6 4 6
2013 Novak Djokovic 6 2 6
2021 Daniil Medvedev 7 4 7
2020 Rafael Nadal 7 2 7
2019 Novak Djokovic 7 2 7
2012 Novak Djokovic 7 2 7
2011 Novak Djokovic 7 1 7
2010 Rafael Nadal 2 7 7
2008 Novak Djokovic 7 4 7
2004 Roger Federer 2 7 7
2021 Alexander Zverev 8 7 8
2020 Daniil Medvedev 8 8 8
2018 Novak Djokovic 8 5 8
2016 Novak Djokovic 8 2 8
2015 Roger Federer 4 8 8
2005 Roger Federer 2 8 8
2001 Andre Agassi 8 3 8
1998 Marcelo Rios 8 2 8
1991 Stefan Edberg 4 8 8
Year Player H% Rk B% Rk CLUB
2022 Daniil Medvedev 8 9 9
2020 Andrey Rublev 9 5 9
2018 Rafael Nadal 9 1 9
2017 Roger Federer 2 9 9
2009 Andy Murray 9 2 9
2007 Roger Federer 3 9 9
2000 Andre Agassi 8 9 9
2023 Carlos Alcaraz 10 1 10
2020 Novak Djokovic 10 4 10
2019 Roger Federer 3 10 10
2013 Roger Federer 7 10 10
1998 Andre Agassi 10 3 10
1994 Andre Agassi 10 5 10
1993 Thomas Muster 10 4 10
The list is heavily weighted toward the Big Three and the current era. Whether it’s surface speed convergence or something about the players themselves, it’s tougher to reach the top with a lopsided game these days. Stefan Edberg was a top-eight clubber in 1991 (and might have been as good for several seasons before that), but Pete Sampras didn’t get anywhere close. His best showing by this metric came in 1997, when he cracked the top-14 club. Andy Roddick never even cleared the top 30.
Finally, here are the 15 men who reached both top-30 thresholds in 2023:
Year Player H% Rk B% Rk CLUB 2023 Novak Djokovic 1 3 3 2023 Jannik Sinner 5 4 5 2023 Carlos Alcaraz 10 1 10 2023 Daniil Medvedev 11 2 11 2023 Andrey Rublev 17 11 17 2023 Karen Khachanov 18 16 18 2023 Alexander Zverev 15 18 18 2023 Grigor Dimitrov 19 15 19 2023 Taylor Fritz 6 19 19 2023 Casper Ruud 21 17 21 2023 Holger Rune 20 21 21 2023 Frances Tiafoe 9 26 26 2023 Ugo Humbert 29 23 29 2023 Roman Safiullin 30 24 30 2023 Sebastian Korda 14 30 30
Women’s clubs
The WTA gets the short shrift on topics like these, because much less historical data is available. I only have the necessary stats back to 2015, and even that season is incomplete.
Still, that doesn’t make some recent individual performances any less impressive. Iga Swiatek’s effort in 2023 predictably stands out: She came in third behind Aryna Sabalenka and Caroline Garcia in hold percentage, and she trailed only Sara Sorribes Tormo and Lesia Tsurenko in break percentage. By finishing third in both categories, she–like Djokovic–is a member of the top-three club.
Depending on how you define a full-season, Iga might be the first ever woman to reach such a standard, at least in the nine-year span for which we can do the math. Here is the full list of top-ten clubbers back to 2015:
Year Player H% Rk B% Rk CLUB 2016 Victoria Azarenka 2 1 2 2023 Iga Swiatek 3 3 3 2022 Iga Swiatek 5 1 5 2019 Serena Williams 1 6 6 2015 Serena Williams 1 7 7 2016 Serena Williams 1 8 8 2016 Angelique Kerber 10 6 10
Azarenka’s run in 2016 was really a partial season: She hurt her knee and didn’t play again after retiring from her first-round match at the French. Her first four months of tennis put her on the path toward a historic campaign, but we’ll never know how it would have turned out. Those 29 matches can’t really be set along the same measuring stick as Iga’s 75-plus in each of the last two years. Serena’s three entries on this table were almost as abbreviated, but again we’re reminded of the limited data. Surely the list would be much longer, with many more instances of the Williams name, if we had better data.
Anyway, all hail the great Iga. May her reign last until Sabalenka figures out how to become a top-ten returner.
At least this year, it was slightly harder to crack the top-25 and top-30 clubs in the women’s game than it was in the men’s. Here is the full 2023 women’s list down to the top-32 threshold, which allows us to include a few names of interest who missed out on the top 30:
Year Player H% Rk B% Rk CLUB 2023 Iga Swiatek 3 3 3 2023 Cori Gauff 13 8 13 2023 Jessica Pegula 16 5 16 2023 Madison Keys 6 16 16 2023 Barbora Krejcikova 12 18 18 2023 Victoria Azarenka 19 17 19 2023 Aryna Sabalenka 1 20 20 2023 Marketa Vondrousova 22 6 22 2023 Karolina Muchova 8 22 22 2023 Leylah Fernandez 20 27 27 2023 Jelena Ostapenko 28 12 28 2023 Marie Bouzkova 29 21 29 2023 Caroline Dolehide 23 30 30 2023 Elina Svitolina 31 24 31 2023 Beatriz Haddad Maia 18 31 31 2023 Ons Jabeur 32 9 32 2023 Belinda Bencic 5 32 32
More than ever, a well-rounded game is a necessity for players who hope to reach the top. For fans, “clubs” like these are a useful way to think about which stars are getting the job done on both sides of the ball.
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