Who is the champion of tennis as a matter of direct succession?

The Belt 🔗

You can find the website I’ve made here.

Inspired by the College Football belt, I started my own tracker for the men and women’s tennis belt. Essentially, the first champion on tour is given the belt. When that player is beaten, the winning player takes the belt. As long as the belt-holder wins, they keep the belt until someone comes and usurps them. And so it travels around between the players. It’s as simple as that.

While it may seem at first glance that the belt will bounce around in a mostly random fashion, the long-run stats of the belt interestingly compile a solid list of the all-time greats. The names you see at the top of the men’s lists include Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, McEnroe, and Borg. On the women’s side you have Navratilova, Graf, Evert, Seles, and Williams. It makes some sense, as these players generally tend to win more than all the others, so they tend to be more likely to win matches where the belt is on the line.

Anything else? 🔗

Not really. I have an About section on the website that gives some detail on design decisions. Honestly what I’m happiest with is that the website itself looks pretty nice and runs smooth. I regret to say that it outshines my blog here by quite a margin. Maybe that’s a good sign of growth, though.

One final comment is on a recent anomaly of the belt: those that keep up with tennis will know the story of Valentin Vacherot. He had a meteoric, life-changing rise in the rankings from world no. 204 to 40. Not only did he manage this, but he also got the belt! After nearly a year of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner hoarding it, Cameron Norrie finally pulled an upset to take it from Carlos a few weeks back. Who would be there to take it from Norrie the very next match but Val Vacherot. The likelihood of this happening just a month prior must’ve been in the sub .01% range.

Anyways, give the website a scroll and let me know what you think.