Djokovic – 25th No. 1 in the Open Era

Admittedly he reached No. 1 in men’s tennis on Friday (July 1) after beating Tsonga in Wimbledon semifinal, but officially he begins the leadership of the ATP ranking on July 4, 2011. The new leader says: “It’s definitely one of the most important achievements and days in my life, in my career. We are all dedicated to this sport [one] hundred per cent. When you know you’re going to be the best in the world and you’re reaching the finals of your favourite tournament, it’s something special.”
The dethroned Nadal admits: “One guy played unbelievable the first half of the year so he’s the new No. 1. We just can congratulate him because what he did this first part of the season is something really impressive, really fantastic. I am happy about how I did. I think in normal conditions I would be No. 1 or have a lot of chances to keep being the No. 1, because my results are really good the first part of the season, too. But one guy did unbelievable, and congratulations.” Nadal was No. 1 through 102 weeks in total (two periods, 46 & 56)… Djokovic with his excellent 48-1 (0.97) record this season, has a great prospect to notch the best year in the Open era! At the moment his supremacy is comparable only with years 1984 and 2005, when John McEnroe and Roger Federer after Wimbledon, had 55-1 (0.98) & 58-3 (0.95) records respectively. The Serb is the 14th European representative to settle at the top of the men’s tennis. Fifteen of the other 24 world No. 1s were younger than Djokovic (24 years, 1 month, 12 days)  when they first rose to top spot.   He’s got 2015 points advantage over the second Nadal and 4055 over the third Federer!

List of all (25) leaders of the ATP ranking (in parenthesis years to become the No. 1:

70s: Ilie Nastase (1973) – John Newcombe (1974) – Jimmy Connors (1974) – Bjorn Borg (1977)
80s: John McEnroe (1980) – Ivan Lendl (1983) – Mats Wilander (1988)
90s: Stefan Edberg (1990) – Boris Becker (1991) – Jim Courier (1992) – Pete Sampras (1993) – Andre Agassi (1995) – Thomas Muster (1996) – Marcelo Rios (1998) – Carlos Moya (1999) – Yevgeny Kafelnikov (1999) – Patrick Rafter (1999)
00s: Marat Safin (2000) – Gustavo Kuerten (2000) – Lleyton Hewitt (2001) – Juan Carlos Ferrero (2003) – Andy Roddick (2003) – Roger Federer (2004) – Rafael Nadal (2008)
10s: Novak Djokovic (2011)

Players by country:

6 – USA
3 – Australia, Sweden, Spain
2 – Russia
1 – Austria, Brazil, Chile, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Romania, Serbia, Switzerland

Djokovic’s 5 wins over Nadal in 2011:

Indian Wells
Miami
Madrid
Rome
Wimbledon

Nos. 1 (wikipedia)