A record of this century: Spain reaches 1,200 weeks without leaving Top 10 | ATP Tour

PIF ATP Rankings update

A record of this century: Spain reaches 1,200 weeks without leaving Top 10

The last time without Spaniards in this elite group was on Rafael Nadal’s 16th birthday

June 09, 2025

The domain of Spain in the Top 10 of the PIF ATP Rankings has no comparison in this century. So much so that the tennis of this country has reached 1,200 weeks this Monday with uninterrupted presence among the top ten of the ranks.

The last update of the PIF ATP Rankings that did not have at least a Spaniard in the Top 10 was that of June 3, 2002. It is paradoxical that just that day was Rafael Nadal’s 16th birthday, which at that time was outside the Top 500. And to think that it would later become the player with more weeks in the history of the Top 10 of the PIF ATP Rankings (912).

The truth is that a week after that Top 10 without Spaniards, an unmatched domain for other countries in this century would begin. On June 10, 2002, Albert Costa and Juan Carlos Ferrero appeared among the top ten and, from there, Spain has not left the group of the top ten of the ranks.

In fact, it has been quite common during this period that multiple Spaniards coincide in the Top 10, product of the regularity of players such as Ferrero, Costa and Carlos Moyà at the beginning of the streak, and then by Nadal’s unconditionality since he entered this group for the first time, on April 25, 2005.

In addition, many Spaniards have debuted after Rafa: David Ferrer (2006), Tommy Robredo (2006), Fernando Verdasco (2009), Nicolás Almagro (2011), Pablo Carreño Busta (2017), Roberto Bautista Agut (2019) and Carlos Alcaraz (2022).

But it has not been only quantity but also quality. In this period of 1,200 weeks, Spain has had three numbers one: Ferrero (2003), Nadal (2008) and Alcaraz (2022). In addition, when the Murcian was No. 1 and Nadal on No. 2 on October 3, 2022, they marked the first time that a country dominated the Top 2 since 2000, when the protagonists were the Americans Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras.

Weeks later, Alcaraz and Nadal marked the first time since 1996 that two players from the same country occupied the first two positions of the end of the year ranking, an honor presented by PIF. The protagonists 26 years ago had been the Americans Pete Sampras and Michael Chang.

At that time, Spain also became the first country other than the United States to have both No. 1 and No. 2 in an end of the year ranking, an honor presented by PIF.

Alcaraz and Nadal accompanied themselves in the Top 10 until March 19, 2023. A day later, Nadal first came out in almost 18 years, leaving a record still insurmountable. The Murcia, however, has managed to sustain the witness of his country since then.

With its great regularity, once again the last fortnight in Roland Garros, gives the feeling that the number of consecutive weeks of Spanish tennis in the Top 10 has a lot of growth margin.