Ranking Reaction

Taylor Fritz becomes first American man to finish a year in the Top 4 since 2006

Meanwhile, Carlos Alcaraz joins some exclusive company with his third consecutive Top 3 finish, as the ATP's year-end rankings for 2024 were released today.

ByJohn Berkok

Published Dec 02, 2024

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A few weeks ago, Taylor Fritz rose to a new career-high ranking of No. 4 in the world, becoming the first American man to be ranked in the Top 4 since Andy Roddick in August of 2007.

Now, his feat gets even better.

The ATP’s year-end rankings are out today, and Fritz—who’s still No. 4—is the first American man to finish a year in the Top 4 since James Blake in 2006. Blake finished at No. 4 that year, too.

Fritz won two ATP titles this year, at Delray Beach and Eastbourne, but his biggest results came at the big events, reaching the two biggest finals of his career at the US Open and the ATP Finals.

He actually reached the second week at all four majors this year, also making the quarterfinals at the Australian Open and Wimbledon, as well as the fourth round of Roland Garros.

The Californian is just the 12th American to finish a year in the Top 4 in ATP rankings history, since they officially began in 1973.

AMERICANS TO FINISH IN ATP YEAR-END TOP 4 (since 1973):

Jimmy Connors [14 times]: 1973 (No. 3), 1974 (No. 1), 1975 (No. 1), 1976 (No. 1), 1977 (No. 1), 1978 (No. 1), 1979 (No. 2), 1980 (No. 3), 1981 (No. 3), 1982 (No. 2), 1983 (No. 3), 1984 (No. 2), 1985 (No. 4), 1987 (No. 4)
Arthur Ashe [1 time]: 1975 (No. 4)
Vitas Gerulaitis [2 times]: 1977 (No. 4), 1979 (No. 4)
John McEnroe [9 times]: 1978 (No. 4), 1979 (No. 3), 1980 (No. 2), 1981 (No. 1), 1982 (No. 1), 1983 (No. 1), 1984 (No. 1), 1985 (No. 2), 1989 (No. 4)
Gene Mayer [1 time]: 1980 (No. 4)
Andre Agassi [8 times]: 1988 (No. 3), 1990 (No. 4), 1994 (No. 2), 1995 (No. 2), 1999 (No. 1), 2001 (No. 3), 2002 (No. 2), 2003 (No. 4)
Jim Courier [3 times]: 1991 (No. 2), 1992 (No. 1), 1993 (No. 3)
Pete Sampras [9 times]: 1992 (No. 3), 1993 (No. 1), 1994 (No. 1), 1995 (No. 1), 1996 (No. 1), 1997 (No. 1), 1998 (No. 1), 1999 (No. 3), 2000 (No. 3)
Michael Chang [2 times]: 1996 (No. 2), 1997 (No. 3)
Andy Roddick [3 times]: 2003 (No. 1), 2004 (No. 2), 2005 (No. 3)
James Blake [1 time]: 2006 (No. 4)
Taylor Fritz [1 time]: 2024 (No. 4)

At the US Open this year, Fritz became the first American man to reach a Grand Slam final since Roddick at Wimbledon in 2009.

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Here are some fun facts about the rest of the year-end Top 10:

Jannik Sinner, year-end No. 1: Not only is he the first Italian to finish a year at No. 1 in ATP or WTA rankings history, he’s the first to even finish a year in the Top 3. And with 11,830, he has the most points for an ATP year-end No. 1 since Djokovic in 2020 (12,030).

Alexander Zverev, year-end No. 2: This is the highest year-end ranking of Zverev’s career, surpassing his No. 3 finish in 2021. He briefly reached the No. 2 ranking during the first half of the 2022 season, but then missed the second half of the season with his ankle injury from Roland Garros and finished the year at No. 12.

Carlos Alcaraz, year-end No. 3: Alcaraz isn’t just the only man to finish each of the last three years in the Top 3, he’s actually the only man to finish each of the last three years in the Top 5. The 21-year-old Spaniard was the year-end No. 1 in 2022, the year-end No. 2 in 2023 and now the year-end No. 3 in 2024.

Daniil Medvedev, year-end No. 5: This is his fifth Top 5 finish in the last six years—he was the year-end No. 5 in 2019, the year-end No. 4 in 2020, the year-end No. 2 in 2021 and the year-end No. 3 in 2023. He dipped out slightly in 2022, finishing that season at No. 7.

Alcaraz is just the fourth man in the last 20 years to finish three straight years in the Top 3, after—you guessed it—the Big 3 of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic.

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Casper Ruud, year-end No. 6: This is Ruud’s third Top 10 finish in the last four years, having finished 2021 at No. 8 and 2022 at No. 3. He finished just outside the elite last year at No. 11.

Novak Djokovic, year-end No. 7: This is the former No. 1's 17th career Top 10 finish, now the standalone third-most in ATP rankings history. They’ve all come in the last 18 years—since 2007, his only non-Top 10 finish came in 2017 when he missed the second half of the year with an elbow injury and finished at No. 12.

MOST TOP 10 FINISHES IN ATP RANKINGS HISTORY (since 1973):

18: Roger Federer [2002-2015, 2017-2020]
18: Rafael Nadal [2005-2022]
17: Novak Djokovic [2007-2016, 2018-2024]
16: Jimmy Connors [1973-1988]
16: Andre Agassi [1988-1992, 1994-1996, 1998-2005]

Andrey Rublev, year-end No. 8: This is Rublev’s fifth consecutive Top 10 finish, one of only three men to finish in the elite every year this decade, alongside Djokovic and Medvedev.

Alex de Minaur, year-end No. 9: This is De Minaur’s first career Top 10 finish, and he’s the first Australian man to finish a season in the Top 10 since Lleyton Hewitt was year-end No. 4 in 2005.

Grigor Dimitrov, year-end No. 10: This is the second Top 10 finish of Dimitrov’s career—he was the year-end No. 3 in 2017. There was a six-week period earlier this year that marked the first time there were no one-handed backhands in the Top 10 in ATP rankings history, but now, with Dimitrov in the year-end Top 10, there’s still been at least one in every year-end Top 10 in ATP rankings history.

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