Tennis is an ongoing sport that basically never stops, which means that the Tour changes along with it, and things looked vastly different five years ago.
August 4th, 2018, was exactly five years ago, and the Tour looked vastly different compared to now. It's not a huge surprise because tennis as a sport is ever-evolving, with new players coming in and older ones retiring. Roger Federer was active back then, but he's not anymore, leaving many sad about it.
The number one back then isn't the same number one we have today, so let's take a look at how different things were back then. We're going to compare how the current Top 10 on both the ATP and WTA side of tennis stacks up against their ranks exactly five years ago.
Novak Djokovic was number 10 while today he's number two. Stefanos Tsitsipas was ranked 32nd, while today he's 5th. Frances Tiafoe, Andrey Rublev, Daniil Medvedev, and Taylor Fritz were all ranked in the Top 100 back then and are now in the Top 10.
Current world number one Carlos Alcaraz was ranked 1424th back then while Holger Rune didn't even have a rank. On the WTA wide it's a bit more interesting. Aryna Sabalenka was 36th and now is 2nd. The current leader, Iga Swiatek, was 295th and now is first, while Coco Gauff was ranked 934th five years ago. Right now, the American is 7th.
Two players in the Top 10 have the exact same rank. Yes, as strange as it sounds, Petra Kvitova was 8th, and she's still 8th. Caroline Garcia is not only 6th like she was five years ago, she has almost the exact same point total; only five points more this year (4685 to 4680).
ATP
| Player | Rank on August 4th, 2018 | Rank on August 4th, 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| Carlos Alcaraz | 1424 | 1 |
| Novak Djokovic | 10 | 2 |
| Daniil Medvedev | 63 | 3 |
| Casper Ruud | 138 | 4 |
| Stefanos Tsitsipas | 32 | 5 |
| Holger Rune | unranked | 6 |
| Andrey Rublev | 46 | 7 |
| Jannik Sinner | 1164 | 8 |
| Taylor Fritz | 65 | 9 |
| Frances Tiafoe | 41 | 10 |
WTA
| Player | Rank on August 4th, 2018 | Rank on August 4th, 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| Iga Swiatek | 295 | 1 |
| Aryna Sabalenka | 36 | 2 |
| Elena Rybakina | 191 | 3 |
| Jessica Pegula | 287 | 4 |
| Ons Jabeur | 114 | 5 |
| Caroline Garcia | 6 | 6 |
| Coco Gauff | 934 | 7 |
| Petra Kvitova | 8 | 8 |
| Maria Sakkari | 49 | 9 |
| Marketa Vondrousova | 103 | 10 |
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