Highest Ranked ATP Player You've Never Heard Of

Here's a game to pass a few minutes:
Go to http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/rankings/singles
Scroll down until you come to a player you've never heard of
And post here who it is. Possibly read his wikipedia or ATP article and post something about him
If you get all down to 100, you can select 101-200
And suggest do the same with WTA.

46 is a close one ive JUST about heard about Guido Pella
56 though has me Inigo Cervantes is a new one to me im pretty sure

About 5 or 6 i dont know from the top 100

75 Daniel Munoz De La Nava another Spaniard I know nothing of.

Marco Chettinato
Malek Jaziri
Facundo Bagnis
Thomas Fabbiano
Guys n the 90's i dotn know

A hing kong player and a Japanese player are pretty vague too but I think i know of them

OK all the top 32 I know well.
Then suddenly I pause at Steve Johnson (rank 33, age 26). Where did these guy come from? I honestly couldn't tell you a single thing about him but I think have heard of him. Not sure how he passed me by. Just looking up his ranking history. OK, he seems to win a match or two at each slam or masters series, just not quite enough to get on my radar. Has managed to boost his ranking by picking up points at a few minor 250s and 500s.
I think I have heard of him, though.
So, carrying on down.
Inigo Cervantes, at 56. That's my man. You would have thought I'd have heard of him with such a cool name, but no, I haven't. Looking at his rankings breakdown he seems to have picked up points at challenger level. You can get into about the 50s or so just by playing challengers, I remember Zeballos doing it a few years ago.

WTA don't really know Belinda Bencic at 10, I'm sure I must have heard her name mentioned at some point, but cannot think of a single fact about her. 16 and 17 Elina Svitolina and Bacsinsky, never hard of either. Elina Svitolina does sound like a cool name, it almost sounds like a Russian spy from a bond movie, so you would think I would have heard of her, but no.

Steve Johnson was the most decorated and successful collegiate player out of USC, I think he was undefeated like his last two years in singles. Has a monster forehand. For me it was Cervantes as well at 56. I have no idea who he is, Pella as well I think I might have seen him play or heard the name somewhere. So those two are the ones I have very little or no clue who they are. The rest of the top 70 pretty much seen them all except who is John Millman at 65?

PS Steve Johnson is one of the rare players who has changed his BH from a single hander into a double hander. And by the way it is awful, by far the worst part of his game.

Got to 65 Dusan Lajovic... new one on me

Jozef Kovalik - at 139. He was outside the top 250 at the start of the year so he is on a good run of form. Lost a really close match to Thiem at IW.

Heard of him but never seen him play - Rogerio Dutra Silva. No 100.

First one I've literally never heard of - Saketh Myneni. No 151.

socal1976 wrote:PS Steve Johnson is one of the rare players who has changed his BH from a single hander into a double hander. And by the way it is awful, by far the worst part of his game.

Steve Johnson rarely hits the two hander though. He slices nearly all of his backhands.

109 - Yuichi Sugita
114 - Roberto Carballes Baena
120 - Adam Pavlasek
126 - Konstantin Kravchuk
129 - Andrej Martin

That'll do.

For #32 Steve Johnson and #47 Guido Pella, I knew nothing but their nationality.

The first one I knew absolutely nothing about was #56 Inigo Cervantes.

He has an interesting story. He lost his thumb in a hoovering accident during his childhood and had his big toe attached in its place. He's adjusted his movement to allow for the lost toe (he often stands like a flamingo when receiving serve), but his toe-thumb means he has to play with an extreme western grip.

Wow! Where did you find that Bruce?

Another vote for Inigo Cervantes from me. Johnson I've seen play a couple of times, he beat Edmund at the US Open I think last year and lost to Murray in Shanghai. Big serve, decent forehand, very much in the American school of Roddick, Isner, Querrey, etc. (obviously with varying degrees of ability there).

HM Murdock wrote:For #32 Steve Johnson and #47 Guido Pella, I knew nothing but their nationality.

The first one I knew absolutely nothing about was #56 Inigo Cervantes.

He has an interesting story. He lost his thumb in a hoovering accident during his childhood and had his big toe attached in its place. He's adjusted his movement to allow for the lost toe (he often stands like a flamingo when receiving serve), but his toe-thumb means he has to play with an extreme western grip.

What? That is the most bizarre yet inspiring story I have heard in some time. Dude has a freakish big toe/thumb and is now missing a digit on his feet, now that is dealing with adversity. Almost as good a story as Ronnie Lott the safety for the 49ers having the doctor cut off the ends of two of his fingers so he could play in the super bowl against Cincinnati.

Guest82 wrote:

socal1976 wrote:PS Steve Johnson is one of the rare players who has changed his BH from a single hander into a double hander. And by the way it is awful, by far the worst part of his game.

Steve Johnson rarely hits the two hander though.  He slices nearly all of his backhands.

I have a better topspin two handed BH than Steve Johnson that is probably why he doesn't hit it very often. You are right he chips almost every BH, seems to use the two hander really mainly for its benefits on the return and the passing shot. I don't even think his topspin BH is challenger or future level frankly, but it just shows how good the FH and serve are that he can manage a top 40 ranking with it. I am actually happy for Stevie, not a lot of people go 4 years of college anymore. Now he is making big money and had the college experience and degree in the back pocket as well. He was like the Novak Djokovic of college tennis that is how dominant he was in his day.

HM Murdock wrote:For #32 Steve Johnson and #47 Guido Pella, I knew nothing but their nationality.

The first one I knew absolutely nothing about was #56 Inigo Cervantes.

He has an interesting story. He lost his thumb in a hoovering accident during his childhood and had his big toe attached in its place. He's adjusted his movement to allow for the lost toe (he often stands like a flamingo when receiving serve), but his toe-thumb means he has to play with an extreme western grip.

- you do realise everyone is now going to make a special effort to watch his next match?

Born Slippy wrote:

HM Murdock wrote:For #32 Steve Johnson and #47 Guido Pella, I knew nothing but their nationality.

The first one I knew absolutely nothing about was #56 Inigo Cervantes.

He has an interesting story. He lost his thumb in a hoovering accident during his childhood and had his big toe attached in its place. He's adjusted his movement to allow for the lost toe (he often stands like a flamingo when receiving serve), but his toe-thumb means he has to play with an extreme western grip.

- you do realise everyone is now going to make a special effort to watch his next match?

Dude that is the biggest understatement ever, I want tv listings of his next match. A guy who is missing a big toe that is now on his hand that is straight up creepy but cool. In fact, if he is halfway watchable I am thinking of starting a fan club for him.

Lol - I suspect HMM might not have been being exactly truthful.

Yeah I googled that story this morning and didn't find any source of such toe thumb story. Yeah, I also want to know if it was a joke.

Cervantes also the highest ranked one for me.  I really like his thumb story - true or not

hmm, Íñigo (pronounced Inyigo) won first set before losing 8-6 in a final set tiebreaker to Paire.

Here's another variation if anyone wants to join in:

Highest ranked player I've never seen play: I reckon either Cuevas (25) or Johnson (32). Just can't remember if I have seen Cuevas play or not for sure.

Highest ranked player I've never seen play live: Nishikori (6). If it wasn't for him I'd have all the top ten.

Henman Bill wrote:Here's another variation if anyone wants to join in:

Highest ranked player I've never seen play: I reckon either Cuevas (25) or Johnson (32). Just can't remember if I have seen Cuevas play or not for sure.

Highest ranked player I've never seen play live: Nishikori (6). If it wasn't for him I'd have all the top ten.

Highest Ranked player I've never seen play: Rogerio Dutra Silva (100)

Highest ranked player I've never seen play live: Gasquet (10)

Highest I've never seen play might be Guido Pella at #47, not sure (if I have seen him play he clearly didn't make much of an impression). Otherwise Ranjeev Ram at #57, having watched a few points of Cervantes yesterday.

Highest I've never seen live is Nishikori. Haven't seen Berdych either. Next would be Goffin.

I have never seen STan play live, have seen Kei. Also Pella is the highest ranked player I never have seen play and don't know anything other than his name and I am assuming he is a clay courter.

Don't remember seeing Ramos-Vinolas play.

I have never seen Rafa play live.

As I go down the list there are very familiar names, familiar names, names that ring a bell, and then names that are too uncertain to hear the bell from the general background of other bells associated with named persons in other sports and elsewhere.

The first person on the list for me that falls into background bells is No 32 Steve Johnson (rings several bells but not distinctly enough a tennis bell amongst them).  Next one Albert Ramos Vinolas (No. 47).

Yeah, it's a bit hard to understand what "never heard of" actually means (what if you must have seen the name looking at a list of results, but don't remember now) or even to remember whether you have heard of or not. I guess the test if you're unsure has to be can you name one thing about them (old/young, which country, tall/short) if nothing then call it never heard of them.

Not sure seeing a few points would count as seeing someone play either, again that is a grey area but I would have thought watching at least about 3 games or 10-20 minutes worth.