2026 is not going to go down as a great year in ATP history. We began the year poised for some scintillating Sincaraz. Instead, we got a nice step forward from Ben Shelton, a breakthrough from Rafael Jodar, and soon, an utterly unconvincing new number one, in Alexander Zverev.
Sinner and Alcaraz didn’t disappoint on court. They just weren’t able to stay on court. Alcaraz missed four and a half months, including two majors. Sinner’s knee has kept him out of action since he beat Zverev for the Wimbledon title. Both men played enough–and well enough–to make it clear they are the best two players on tour. But neither stayed healthy enough to earn the year-end number one ranking.
By process of elimination, that leaves Zverev. My Elo ratings put the German in third place, at 2,106. That’s 43 points behind Alcaraz and a whopping 190 points behind Sinner.
Kind of an awkward situation: The year-end number one is nowhere close to the year’s best player. Using yElo ratings–Elo ratings calculated based only current-year results; here’s 2026–Zverev trails Sinner by more than 200 points. I calculated year-end yElo ratings back to 1985. Over those 41 years, the yElo number one was the ATP number one 25 times. Of the others, there were only four occasions when the ATP number one trailed the yElo headliner by more than 100 points:
Year ATP #1 yElo yElo #1 yElo Diff 2026 Zverev 2118 Sinner 2323 205 2022 Alcaraz 2116 Djokovic 2264 148 1988 Wilander 2164 Becker 2282 119 1992 Courier 2131 Becker 2238 107
Alcaraz’s 2022 season doesn’t quite feel like a fair comparison: He started the year outside the top 30, then his rating took a hit when he followed the US Open with four losses in ten matches. In any case, his underwhelming finish still left him closer to the yElo #1 than Zverev’s 2026 campaign puts him to Sinner.
The yElo of 2,118 is also weak in itself. Here are the lowest year-end yElos for full-season ATP year-end #1s since 1985:
Year ATP #1 yElo 2000 Gustavo Kuerten 2093 2022 Carlos Alcaraz 2116 2003 Andy Roddick 2117 2026 Alexander Zverev 2118 2002 Lleyton Hewitt 2119 1998 Pete Sampras 2121 1992 Jim Courier 2131 1988 Mats Wilander 2164 2001 Lleyton Hewitt 2176
Elo variants aren’t perfect for cross-era comparisons, but this list captures many of the less-convincing seasons from year-end number ones. Only Kuerten’s 2000 scored markedly lower than Zverev’s 2026. (In fairness, he could still improve it. In reality, he’ll probably lose to Jakub Mensik in Vienna next week.)
(Not) beating the best
The true knock on Zverev’s season is less abstract. For a number one (or even a number three), he hasn’t played many matches against high-quality opponents. Of those, he has won shockingly few.
Since 1985, the typical year-end number one has played 19.5 matches against top-ten opponents, winning 14.5 and losing 5. The average number one faces the rest of the top five 11 times, going 8-3.
To say that Zverev has not matched that standard is charitable:
That’s 3-8 against the top ten, 0-6 against the top five.
No year-end number one has posted as low as a .500 record against the top five since Federer in 2009. The last losing record was Sampras in 1998, when he managed only three meetings against such opponents.
For the last losing record against the top ten, we need to go all the way back to Stefan Edberg in 1991, when he went 5-8. And even he had three wins against the top five.
We can’t entirely blame Zverev for this. Most of the top ten wasn’t injured, they just lost too early to face the German. Zverev is an easy target, and he surely could’ve managed better, but the field underwhelmed as well.
Let’s be kind and say that the ATP is in a transition period. Jannik, my friend, we need you back.
Worth noting:
– Excluding Sincaraz Zverev holds a 3-1 record against top 10 players this year (also excluding players that became top 10 in live ranking during tournament which I guess is standard).
– Excluding only Sinner, Zverev holds a 3-2 record against top 10 players.
Very clear therefore, the main problem here are the other top 10 players not making quarters and semis. In a “perfect” no-upset 128-draw the 1-seed faces 3.25 top 10 players (starting in quarters). Historically, since there are upsets, the 1 seed has faced 1.4 top players in grand slams (according to AI…). Quite sure this year is an anomaly for how inconsistent players 5-10 have been.
if you tailor your parameters enough, you can get whatever conclusions you want! it’s fun!
Yes, but it is relevant considering the question, is it?
If you view Zverevs season it is not just cherry picking to evaluate his Major-success specifically because for a player – no ATG – of his caliber it is just extraordinary, regardless of who was there and who was not (will come back on that point later), everybody can just play who is there and no “ifs”, that goes for every player every moment in time.
On another note, question is if men’s tennis sucks because there are no dominant players. It seems that this argument is based on the assumption that the most dominant player(s) play(s) the best tennis and fans want to see the best tennis even if this means one or 2 guys win everything of relevance with ease (for the most part). I am not on this train because if there are not at least 2 very strong – almost equally strong players – in a given time, that means many boring games and few upsets. Truth is we need a couple of good players who take it to each other, that in my oppinion is still better than having 1 dominant player.
And i would say – even if the level of the best players is not astronomic – that this season has something going for the fans of the game. Many players have their chances, there are some breakthroughs, and in some matches players will not go on court with the inner feeling of having lost already, as it for sure was with Sinner and to a certain degree Alcaraz in the last couple of years.
And to take down the Sinner apologies: He lost 2 Majors fair and square and at Wimbledon the final was not “a walk in the park” at least for 2 1/2 sets. It is on Sinner also, that this season became what it is.
Last point: Season is not over. Let’s say Zverev wins Vienna or Paris plus ATP finals (not totally out of reach) – his resume and even his ELO will rise somehow. Let’s wait until last word is spoken.
Otherwise, i always appreciate your work, tyvm.
To tennis punditry in general (with the OP being less of a target):
A lot of ink (and integrity) could be saved if tennis pundits simply wrote “I don’t like Zverev” and moved from the anger to the acceptance stage, rather than carefully cherry-picking data or deliberately obscuring relevant context. It’s fine, it’s very obvious anyway!
In many other sports, the annual champion isn’t necessarily the player or team that reaches the highest “peak”, but often the one that is most consistent or stays healthiest. Nobody would blame a pitcher for protecting their shoulder or a soccer team for prioritizing late-game fitness over practicing bicycle kicks. To the contrary, pundits complaining that Atlético or Leicester won the league ahead of supposedly “better” teams despite scoring “far fewer bicycle-kick goals!!!” would rightly be dismissed as bitter.
Ending on a constructive note: Perhaps time would be better spent calling on the ATP to replace its 52-week ranking system with a year-end No. 1 decided by a journalists’ vote, to prevent such a horrible thing from ever happening again!
Also interesting looking at: What is the record against top 10 of the #3 in prime Fedal years (of course these things are path dependent and Fedal “blocked” some weaker top 10s to face Djokovic obviously).
E.g. 2008 Djokovic had a 11-11 record against top 10, 9-6 excluding Fedal.
The simple fact is that Zverev is not really in the top 3. Djokovic is still a better player, but cannot stay fit for long enough. Old Father Time is catching up with him very quickly, but when OFT has a day off, Zverev can’t live with him, no matter how well he plays. Not even close.
And is Zverev as good as Arthur Fils? Well… no, not really. Jodar? Probably not. Could he beat de Minaur? 50/50 this season. 50/50 against Fritz.
It’s an embarrassing end-of-year world number one.
That’s overkill. The one time he’s met them this season, Zverev handily beat both Fils and Jódar.
And a Đoković who’s losing to the Tirantes and Prižmićs of the world is not better than Zverev either. He may still have a higher peak (and probably does, as we saw in Beijing, but still, saying that Zverev “couldn’t live with him” in that match is an exaggeration), but that’s not quite the same thing.
I was also curious about this last week and looked at year-end Elo instead. List is different but comes out the with Zverev at top:
2026 Sinner 2296 Zverev (3) 2107 -189
1981 Borg 2427 McEnroe (2) 2321 -106
1992 Becker 2204 Courier (4) 2145 -59
2011 Federer 2284 Djokovic (3) 2227 -57
Of 54 years with ATP ranking, 20 times the #1 Elo is not #1 ATP. Of those Becker 4 times, Borg 3 times, Federer 3 times, Djokovic 4 times, Sinner 2 times [only Djokovic also was #1 in ATP and not in Elo twice]. Others number 1 in elo and not atp are Nadal 2018, Safin 2000, Agassia 1995 and McEnroe 1985.
Interesting how much higher Becker does in Elo than ATP.
Also, Courier lowest ELO to be atp #1. He was fourth in 1992. Along with Zverev this year, were three other #3 elo finishers: Alcaraz 2022, Djokovic 2011, McEnroe 1981. Latter two were shockers.
Becker’s Elo rating was inflated due to his performance on grass in the past and the fact that he had been able to play more grass-court tournaments in previous years. If you also factor in his specialization on carpet in smaller tournaments (with the exception of the ATP Finals), the result is an inflated Elo rating.