While nationality plays less of a role in tennis than other sports, the end of the season has given us a chance to crunch the numbers and see which countries are the best in the world at producing high-level tennis players.
Away from the Davis Cup and the Olympics, a player’s nationality is only really thought of by his home crowd but data behind the ATP Tour reveals some interesting statistics about who are the most efficient and who are the best producers of top-level men’s players.
With the 2025 season over and the rankings locked into place, we have taken the top 100 men’s players currently, divided them up into nationalities and crunched the numbers to see which nation can have bragging rights.
There are some caveats though as the Russian-born Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev and Karen Khachanov all play under a neutral flag following the country’s invasion of Ukraine. Other than that, it’s all straightforward so here’s what the data says:
The United States is the biggest producer of players but not necessarily the best
While the US can often be found lagging behind in other sports, tennis has long been part of the American culture and it should come as little surprise that the country is the biggest supplier of top-level players currently.
15 of the top 100 players are Americans with Taylor Fritz the highest ranked amongst them at No.6. Joining him in the top 10 is Ben Shelton at nine.
However, the States is just one ahead of France with the best ranked French player being Arthur Rinderknech at No.29.
Despite this, France has never really had a superstar player in the same way that the other Grand Slam venues have. While Suzanne Lenglen is considered the best French woman to play the game, the men’s side is more up for debate.
Yannick Noah has a good claim and remains the last Frenchman to win the French Open while René Lacoste was a three-time Roland Garros champion.
After the US and France, there is a drop down in the numbers with Italy, Argentina, Australia and Spain all producing between six and eight players.
Countries sorted by number of top 100 players
1. USA – 15
2. France – 14
3. Italy – 8
4. Argentina – 7
5. Spain – 6
6. Australia – 6
7. Czechia – 4
8. Serbia – 4
9. Canada – 3
10. UK – 3
11. Germany – 3
12. Hungary – 3
13. Netherlands – 3
14. Kazakhstan – 2
15. Belgium – 2
16. Poland – 2
17. Chile – 2
18. Norway – 1
19. Denmark – 1
20. Brazil – 1
21. Monaco – 1
22. Greece – 1
23. Portugal – 1
24. Bosnia – 1
25. Croatia – 1
26. Austria – 1
27. Japan – 1
Italy produces the best players on average
As for which country produces the best players, the current kingmaker is Italy.
If we discount countries that have fewer than five players in the top 100, Italy has the lowest average ranking at 36.
Undoubtedly, Jannik Sinner being ranked second in the world helps with this but Italians are consistently ranked quite highly. Lorenzo Musetti is No.8 with Flavio Cobolli and Luciano Darderi in the 20s. Even their lowest-ranked player – Mattia Bellucci – is No.74.
The US averages 45.8 for their ranking with Fritz and Shelton helping to bring the average down while France is relatively low down with an average of 60.43.
If we include countries with fewer than five top 100 players, Norway is top of the list with No.12 Casper Ruud being their only player. They are closely followed by their Scandinavian neighbours Denmark with Holger Rune in 15th.
At the very bottom of the list is Japan with their sole representative being Shintaro Mochizuki who is ranked 100th.
Countries sorted by average ranking
1. Norway – 12.00
2. Denmark – 15.00
3. Canada – 23.00
4. Brazil – 24.00
5. Monaco – 31.00
6. Greece – 34.00
7. UK – 36.00
8. Italy – 36.00
9. Czechia – 41.00
10. Germany – 44.33
11. USA – 45.80
12. Portugal – 47.00
13. Hungary – 50.00
14. Kazakhstan – 53.00
15. Spain – 54.17
16. Argentina – 56.86
17. Serbia – 59.25
18. Netherlands – 59.33
19. France – 60.43
20. Belgium – 65.00
21. Bosnia – 65.00
22. Poland – 67.50
23. Australia – 67.67
24. Croatia – 75.00
25. Austria – 79.00
26. Chile – 80.50
27. Japan – 100.00
Serbia and Czechia produce the best in comparison to size
Of course, when you have a population size of over 300 million, the chances of some of those being good at tennis is quite high so what about when we factor in population?
If we take population as recorded by the latest United Nations Population Division divided by the number of top 100 players, we can see that there are a number of overperforming smaller nations.
While Monaco, with its 38,341 residents of which Valentin Vacherot is one, is top, the most impressive nations are Serbia and Czechia.
Serbia, led by Novak Djokovic, has a population size of 6,689,039 and four top 100 players, meaning that for every 1,672,260 people, there is a top tennis player amongst them.
Czechia is not far behind with a population size of 10,609,239. That means they have a top tennis player in every 2,652,310 in the country.
At the other end of the scale, Brazil are the biggest underachievers with one player in the top 100 of the 212,812,405 living there.
Worse still would be India and China who have over 1.4 billion residents but no player in the top 100 with the countries focusing on other sports.
Countries sorted by population per top 100 player
1. Monaco – 38,341
2. Serbia – 1,672,260
3. Czechia – 2,652,310
4. Bosnia – 3,140,095
5. Hungary – 3,210,762
6. Croatia – 3,848,160
7. Australia – 4,495,671
8. France – 4,760,772
9. Norway – ,623,071
10. Belgium – 5,879,302
11. Denmark – 6,002,507
12. Netherlands – 6,115,606
13. Argentina – 6,550,197
14. Italy – 7,393,283
15. Spain – 7,981,660
16. Austria – 9,113,574
17. Chile – 9,929,961
18. Greece – 9,938,844
19. Portugal – 10,411,834
20. Kazakhstan – 10,421,877
21. Canada – 13,375,574
22. Poland – 19,070,455
23. USA – 23,151,720
24. UK – 23,183,777
25. Germany – 28,025,025
26. Japan – 123,103,479
27. Brazil – 212,812,405
Who is the best of the Grand Slam hosts?
Of the four Slam hosts, the US comes out on top in almost all of them.
The country had produced 15 players compared to France’s 14, Australia’s six and the UK’s three. Average ranking wise, only the UK (36) has a better average ranking than the US’ 45.8. France is on 60.43 while Australia’s is on 67.67.
However, in comparison to how many players they have per population size, France and Australia are the leaders at 4,760,772 and 4,495,671 respectively. The US is on 23,151,720 while the UK is the biggest underachiever at 23,183,777.
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The post Which country produces the most and best ATP players on the tour? appeared first on Tennis365.
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