Pantheon considers the following individuals to be the top ten most legendary Serbian tennis players of all time. The HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a measure that collects information about a biography's internet popularity, is used to rank this list of notable Serbian Tennis Players. To see the complete list of Serbian tennis players, go to the rankings page.
1. Novak Djokovic (1987 - )
Novak Djokovic is the most well-known Serbian tennis player, with an HPI of 73.39. On Wikipedia, his biography has been translated into 128 other languages.
Novak Djokovic (Serbian Cyrillic: овaк окови, romanized: Novak okovi, pronounced [nôak dôkoit] (listen)) is a Serbian professional tennis player who was born on May 22, 1987. The Association of Tennis Professionals has him rated No. 1 in the world (ATP). Djokovic has held the No. 1 ranking for a record 342 weeks and has ended the year as the ATP year-end No. 1 on a joint-high six times. He has a total of 20 Grand Slam men's singles championships, which is a joint record. He has 85 ATP singles championships to his credit, including a record nine Australian Open wins and a joint-record of 36 Masters titles. Djokovic is the first player in Open Era history to accomplish a non-calendar year Grand Slam and a double lifetime Grand Slam. He is also the first player on the ATP Tour to accomplish the Golden Masters twice in his career. In 2003, Djokovic started his professional career. In the age of 20, he won his first Grand Slam championship at the 2008 Australian Open, breaking Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal's 11-major winning run. By 2010, Djokovic had distanced himself from the rest of the men's tennis field, joining Federer and Nadal in the Big Three, a trio of players who had dominated the sport for more than a decade. Djokovic was ranked No. 1 for the first time in 2011 after winning three of the four majors and a season-high five Masters tournaments. For the remainder of the decade, he was the greatest player in men's tennis, dominating the circuit in major and Masters championships and won four of his five ATP Finals titles in a row from 2012 to 2015. Djokovic finished No. 1 for six years and No. 2 for three years after four straight year-end finishes at No. 3 from 2010 to 2015. In 2015, Djokovic had another outstanding year, reaching fifteen straight finals, including all four major finals and eight Masters finals, and won three majors, a season-high six Masters tournaments, and the ATP Finals. He won the 2016 French Open the following year, completing the Open Era's first and only non-calendar year Grand Slam and his maiden career Grand Slam. He became the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to simultaneously hold all four major championships, and the first person in history to do it on three distinct surfaces. Djokovic won the French Open in 2021, becoming the first player in the Open Era to win the Grand Slam twice in his career. Djokovic led the Serbian national team to their maiden Davis Cup victory in 2010 and the first ATP Cup title in 2020 while representing Serbia. He also represented Serbia in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, winning a bronze medal. Djokovic has received the Order of St. Sava, the Order of Karaore's Star, and the Order of the Republika Srpska, as well as the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year award four times. Apart from tennis, Djokovic is a philanthropist and the former head of the ATP Player Council. Djokovic and Vasek Pospisil, the first player-only organization in tennis, announced the creation of the Professional Tennis Players Association in August 2020, citing the need for players to have a greater influence on the tour and pushing for a fairer prize money system for lower-ranked players.
read also: Best Tennis Players from Croatia
2. Monica Seles (1973 - )
Monica Seles is the second most renowned Serbian tennis player, with an HPI of 67.24. Her life story has been translated into more than 60 languages.
Monica Seles (; Hungarian: Szeles Mónika; Serbian: оника еле, romanized: Monika Sele; born December 2, 1973) is a former professional tennis player who represented Yugoslavia and the United States. She was a former world No. 1 who won nine Grand Slam singles championships, eight while representing Yugoslavia as a youngster and the last while representing the United States. At the age of 16, Seles won the youngest-ever French Open winner in 1990. She went on to win eight Grand Slam singles championships before turning 20 and was ranked No. 1 at the end of each year in 1991 and 1992. She was, however, the victim of an on-court assault on April 30, 1993, when a guy stabbed her in the back with a 9-inch (23-cm) long knife. Seles did not play tennis again for almost two years. She had considerable success after returning to the tour in 1995, including a win at the 1996 Australian Open, but she was unable to maintain her best form. She retired from professional tennis in February 2008, after playing her last match at the 2003 French Open. Many in the sport consider Seles to be one of the best tennis players of all time, and Time named her one of the "30 Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present, and Future." Seles had the potential to become the most accomplished female player of all time, according to many players and historians, had she not been stabbed. In 2009, she was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
3. Momčilo Tapavica (1872 - 1949)
Momčilo Tapavica is the third most renowned Serbian tennis player, with an HPI of 60.55. His autobiography has been published in 25 languages.
Momčilo Tapavica (Serbian Cyrillic: омило аавиа; Hungarian: Tapavicza Momcsilló [tpvits momtillo]; 14 October 1872 – 10 January 1949) was a multi-sport athlete who excelled in tennis, weightlifting, and wrestling. Tapavica's greatest tennis performance was a bronze medal in singles at the 1896 Summer Olympics, making him the first ethnic Serb, Slav, and Hungarian to earn an Olympic medal. Tapavica went on to become a well-known architect after his athletic career.
