Tennis Since Wimbledon 2003

Since Roger Federer (currently world number 3) won his first Grand Slam tournament (Wimbledon 2003), there have been 32 grand slam tournaments (including that Wimbledon, but not including the Wimbledon which is going on right now).  I wanted to look at the numbers over the last 8 years and see the lack of competition that has existed within men’s tennis the last 8 years.  The numbers to the left are the current ATP rankings, and to the right of each name is the number of Grand Slam tournaments that the top 25 players in the world have won during this time (note that in the current Wimbledon, two players on this list, Djokovic and Nadal, will face off in the championship at Wimbledon).

1.  Novak Djokovic 2

2.  Rafael Nadal 10

3.  Roger Federer 16

10.  Andy Roddick 1

21.  Juan Martín del Potro 1

That adds up to 30 of the championships in that time.  The other two Grand Slams were won by the retired players Marat Safin (Australian Open 2005) and Gastón Norberto Gaudio (French Open 2004).  So in the last eight years, 32 championships have been won by 7 players.

Compare that with the four major championships of golf in the last 32 Majors, in which 21 golfers have won a major:

Tiger Woods 6

Phil Mickelson 4

Pádraig Harrington 3

Angel Cabrera 2

Charl Schwartzel 1

Trevor Immelman 1

Zach Johnson 1

Rory McIlroy 1

Graeme McDowell 1

Lucas Glover 1

Geoff Ogilvy 1

Micahel Campbell 1

Retief Goosen 1

Louis Oosthuizen 1

Stewart Cink 1

Todd Hamilton 1

Ben Curtis 1

Martin Kaymer 1

Yang Yong-eun 1

Vijay Singh 1

Shaun Michael 1

So, based on these results, there's a lot less of a competition in tennis today, and while it may be good for fans of Federer and Nadal, I'm not so sure it's good for the sport of tennis.