Top 40 players in last 40 years

Tennis.com is celebrating its 40th year by selecting who they think are the 40 best players in the last 4 decades. Males and females are rated together.

What does make a champion? Is it the number of singles titles won? Grand slam titles? Prize money? Types of surface? Length of time rated as number 1?

Tennis.com will rate their first 4 best players in the November/December issue. Let's see if we can work that out.

Our survey revealed that our number 1 was Steffi, our number 2 was Pete, our number 3 was Martina N and our number 4 was Evert. We were wrong! But I did guess who the top 4 would be, just not what order they would be.

Tennis.com' top 4
1-4
1. Pete Sampras
2. Martina Navratilova
3. Steffi Graf
4. Chris Evert
5-10
5. Bjorn Borg
6. Margaret Court
7. Jimmy Connors
8. Rod Laver
9. Billie Jean King
10. Ivan Lendl
11. John McEnroe
12. Andre Agassi

13-20
13. Monica Seles
14. Stefan Edberg
15. Mats Wilander
16. John Newcombe
17. Serena Williams
18. Boris Becker
19. Roger Federer
20. Ken Rosewall

21-30
21. Roy Emerson
22. Martina Hingis
23. Evonne Goolagong
24. Guillermo Vilas
25. Venus Williams
26. Jim Courier
27. Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario
28. Ilie Nastase
29. Lindsay Davenport
30. Arthur Ashe

31-40
31. Justine Henin-Hardenne
32. Tracy Austin
33. Hana Mandlikova
34. Lleyton Hewitt
35. Stan Smith
36. Jennifer Capriati
37. Gustavo Kuerten
38. Virginia Wade
39. Patrick Rafter
40. Gabriela Sabatini