ATP: The Top 10 in 2004: When Federer became number one for the first time

Roger Federer became number one in the world for the first time in 2004. At that time, interesting names were among the top 10 in the world rankings – with a German.

The 2. February 2004 was a special day in the history of tennis.

Roger Federer became number one in the world for the first time. 14 (!) years later he is back on the throne and has proven it to all critics. The “old man” is still the best tennis player in the world and has been doing so for 303 weeks now. At least.

If you take a look at the top 10 list in 2014, you will find legendary and amazing names. Federer replaced Juan Carlos Ferrero at the top and took the lead. Alexander Zverev’s current coach celebrated his high point in his career and crowned himself the winner of the French Open a year earlier. The American service legend Andy Roddick held third place. He joined the group ahead of surprise top 10 player Guillermo Coria. The Argentinean played at his highest level at that time.

Among the top 5 was Andre Agassi. The US-American is still one of the best tennis players of all time and should have exciting duels with the primus Federer in the following years. The German Rainer Schüttler missed the list of the world’s top five tennis players by a narrow margin at this time. Only one month later, Schüttler was to make it into fifth place in the illustrious circle and celebrate his best career achievement.

The current coach of Rafael Nadal is in seventh place. Before the turn of the millennium, Carlos Moya was number one on the world ranking list and five years later he was still among the top 10.

David Nalbandian, a passionate Argentinean, was in eighth place in the top 10 in 2004, leading to spectacular matches at the time. Two years later, Nalbandian was to advance to third place in the world and celebrate his career high. The Australian Mark Philippoussis, who had to face Federer in the final of his first Grand Slam title in Wimbledon, took ninth place and thus went down in history. The strong serve counted his time as an unpleasant opponent and “hardhitter”.

Tenth place was taken by a player who is not known to a large extent and not many of whom are on the bill. The Thai Paradorn Strichaphan celebrated his personal tennis fairy tale and was named the sports ambassador of his country.

The men’s world ranking list