No. 4 Stat of the Year: Daniil Medvedev breaks Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray’s 15-year stranglehold on Top 2

This week we’re counting down our Top 5 Stats Of The Year, one day at a time…

… and coming in at No. 4 is Daniil Medvedev pulling off something no one had done in more than 15 years—breaking through Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray’s strangehold on the Top 2 spots on the ATP rankings.

In a variety of combinations—Federer-Nadal, Nadal-Federer, Djokovic-Murray, Murray-Djokovic, whatever—those four players held No. 1 and No. 2 for 794 consecutive weeks of ATP rankings between July 25, 2005 and March 14, 2021.

But then on March 15, 2021, Medvedev finally broke the stranglehold, rising from No. 3 to No. 2 after winning Marseille (and bumping Nadal from No. 2 to No. 3).

To illustrate just how long that Top 2 stranglehold was, the last time anyone other than Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray had been in the Top 2, the 25-year-old Medvedev was 9 years old (and 17-year-old Coco Gauff was 1 year old).

Nadal snuck back to No. 2 for two weeks during the clay-court season but apart from that Medvedev hasn’t budged, even coming within a few wins of No. 1 later in the year. And if he is to reach No. 1 one day, it would end an even longer stranglehold—no one other than Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray has been No. 1 on the ATP rankings since February 2, 2004, which was the Monday after that year's Australian Open (Andy Roddick held the top spot before Federer took over then).

No. 5 Stat Of The Year: Emma Raducanu becomes first qualifier in Open Era to win a Grand Slam title at US Open