Talk:List of male singles tennis players

All-time best known tennis pros
We don't want articles of transitory validity, do we ? It'd be much better to make a list of all time best known tennis pros, IMO. Kpjas 2002-11-17

List order
Is the list ordered in any particular sequence ? Jay 13:25, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * I'm going to sort it alphabetically then. Jay 09:56, 4 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't it be by last name? -- Jao 19:58, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
 * yes, pls do it! Jay 10:33, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Alternative Open-Era list
I generated a list of all players who have won four or more matches in the Open Era and filtered it into red/blue links. The good news: 490/755=65% of the links are already blue. The bad news: there's still 265 red links, and no guarantee that all the blue ones link to the correct articles! See User:Dantheox/players --Dantheox 01:24, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Supposed records
Federer doesn't hold record for most consecutive weeks as No. 1, he "just" holds record for most consecutive weeks as ATP No. 1 : the ATP ranking has first been published on August, 23 1973. Tennis has existed at least a century (born between 1858 and 1870 and not in 1874) before the ATP ranking was created. Players such as Gonzales or Tilden or Laver have been No.1 for 7 or 8 years but at the time there was no computer and weekly rankings. So Federer's records are just last quarter century records but not all-time records. Some players have been No.1 before 1973 and for very long periods (see World number one male tennis player rankings).

Carlo Colussi 12:17, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

candidate for greatest player of all time
ok for all without McEnroe !

Fred30 13 (talk) 09:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Birth years?
There is not a birth year for some notable recent or quite recent players, Anders Järryd (retired 1995), Felix Mantilla (active), Todd Martin (ret. 2004), Jarkko Nieminen (active) and Tommy Robredo (active). Each one's article has the year. Why not this one? 85.217.51.162 (talk) 22:44, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * info is incomplete, still (page should be tagged as such) - pitch in if you wish Mayumashu (talk) 11:16, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Redundant criterias in the header?
There are: ranked among the top 25 singles players in the "Open Era"; been ranked in the top five prior to the Open Era and ranked World No. 1 in singles or doubles

There is no need to furthermore list #1 in singles, as they all must be within the top 25 or top 5. Or am I wrong? 85.217.41.210 (talk) 10:10, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree - I've edited this out Mayumashu (talk) 11:17, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Masters Series event titles should be an additional list inclusion criterion
The present criteria don't have ATP World Tour Masters 1000/ATP Masters Series/Tennis Masters Series/Mercedes-Benz Super 9/Championship Series, Single Week/Grand Prix Tour Championship Series title wins as a criterion, but it very likely should. Will add it at some point unless there are objections. (Suggest just mentioning, in the notes right column, the number of such titles won without listing them.) Mayumashu (talk) 11:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
 * That would overcomplicate the article, in my humble opinion. Rovingrobert (talk) 10:55, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

grand slam semi-finalist instead of quarter-finalist as criterion?
the list when complete will be too long. why don't we limit it to grand slam singles semi-finalist or better? also, maybe we should say top 20 instead of top 25 ranking? Mayumashu (talk) 22:33, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

pre-1968 "pro grand slam" tournament finalists/titlists inclusion too?
I think so, but won't add it at this point. List is at Major professional tennis tournaments before the Open Era Mayumashu (talk) 00:47, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

shorten criteria
For the sake of greater brevity, this list definitely needs to includes a player's best performance at a Grand Slam rather than all of their quarterfinal-or-better appearances. Otherwise, why not include every period for which the player had been ranked in the top 25 as well? Which, of course, would make little sense. Rovingrobert (talk) 07:59, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I 100% agree. I'm not sure why the lengthy lists started happening. However if their best performance at a major is equal in 2 or 3 of them, which do we use? Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:19, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Then, and only then, we could use all of those results. Just as on their individual Wikipedia profile, it only shows their best result(s). Rovingrobert (talk) 08:25, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I would say go ahead and do it... it sounds logical. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:35, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the confirmation. You have been very helpful. Rovingrobert (talk) 08:42, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Separate articles for singles and doubles
This list was gratuitously complicated by having singles and doubles players in the same article. I split the article in two: "List of male singles tennis players" and "List of male doubles tennis players". Need help removing Doubles references from the Singles article, and vice versa. Rovingrobert (talk) 02:33, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Merger (2016)

 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

It has been proposed to merge List of male tennis players, List of male doubles tennis players, List of male singles tennis players, by in April 2016. -- 70.51.45.100 (talk) 04:48, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Survey

 * Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with  or  , then sign your comment with  . Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.


 * Oppose - they are two different disciplines and the notable players are very different. Having two different lists is appropriate. However, the lists have wrong players - Leander Paes is notable in doubles only, and Grigor Dimitrov is notable in singles only. --NaBUru38 (talk) 18:21, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Support - Having two separate articles has meant that the doubles page is hopelessly neglected. Rovingrobert (talk) 08:22, 22 April 2016 (UTC) [Merge proposer]
 * Oppose - Per NaBUru38, these are distinct lists with different notable players. Even when there is an overlap, mainly in the pre 1980s era when top singles players more often participated in the doubles event, the content in the 'Criteria for inclusion' column will be entirely different. The maintenance argument as such is not a sufficient reason to merge the articles. Any lack of maintenance may well have been caused by the fact that the doubles list has not been properly cleaned up after the article split; it contains many players who should not be on the list. Once cleaned up the much smaller doubles list should not be that hard to keep up-to-date.--Wolbo (talk) 13:41, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Update: the List of male doubles tennis players has now been completely updated, i.e. (singles) players who did not meet the inclusion criteria have been removed and the contents of the inclusion column has been updated to reflect the player's performance in the doubles event. Not sure why this necessary clean-up was not done, or at least initiated, after the article split in October 2015. As a result of the clean-up the article has almost halved in size.--Wolbo (talk) 22:36, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I guess I initiated the cleanup on the singles side only. My bad. I actually don't mind the new article format. I can live with it. Don't bother saying that you have completely updated the article. Just be honest and say that most of the work has been done. You would be surprised what singles players evade one's notice. They will go with time and as more editors see the page, so it doesn't matter. Don't get me wrong, you did a great job and it wouldn't be something I would have had the nerve to carry out. Rovingrobert (talk) 12:56, 5 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose - The two articles are about separate, but related subject matter. 62.64.152.154 (talk) 15:29, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Any additional comments:

There are many players who would be included on both the singles and doubles lists based on their significance in each, especially in past eras where playing singles and doubles was the norm. Having a combined list of singles and doubles players also makes the article broader and more likely to be read and edited. Rovingrobert (talk) 08:27, 22 April 2016 (UTC) [Merge proposer]

In response to User:Wolbo's comments, the criteria for inclusion obviously contains different information when the articles are separate, but I am not sure what reasoning there would be behind having one player on two different lists. Presumably you would want all relevant information on one player in one handy place. As for the lack of maintenance argument, I sincerely believe that separate singles and doubles articles leads to an esoteric audience. The subjects of each article are simply too specific for the purpose of the article(s) when separated. Rovingrobert (talk) 07:54, 24 April 2016 (UTC) [Merge proposer]
 * I'll let others decide this one as I have no preference either way. If at all possible we want to keep things together and I do fear the doubles article will be neglected once again. However the singles is already so large as to be difficult to navigate and adding the doubles would make it even more gargantuan. To be honest I'm not very fond of either article. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:12, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose Just to get this closed and finished up. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:51, 15 September 2016 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Split criteria to sortable columns
It is a lot of work, but I would start with highest ranking and highest ranking's year.

When create columns for GS, AO, RG, WIM, USO, OLY and Finals

Also, I think all doubles information should be removed:


 * of course, some template is needed to produce 19 / 29 / 42 / 50 from.

Update: Here it is:

Ilyan (talk) 14:03, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * To be honest, we have articles that cover these types of records. I'm not a big fan of this article but this is only a list of players with simply a column that proves why they are included. I think the rest of those stats are overkill and make the table incredibly wide. So I'd be in favor of keeping it as is. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:32, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Nationality can be cut, also only part of the columns can be left, e.g. highest ranking + data and total GS data. Ilyan (talk) 11:35, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
 * "Death" is also irrelevant column.

Please don't keep editing this list here... use your sandbox. I moved this stuff to your sandbox so you can work on it but I doubt many will want the change. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:12, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

"This article needs additional citations for verification."
There currently are no citations, so are citations actually needed? If they are, to verify what information? CharlesTStokes (talk) 07:19, 14 September 2022 (UTC)