WITH no live tennis on currently due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, Draft Central will take a look back at some of the best players of past and present and rank them based on a specific set of guidelines. In our first Top 10 countdown, we look at the Top 10 ATP Players to never have won a Grand Slam title, moving onto number eight with one of the most underrated British players who prior to Andy Murray might well have been their best player of the modern era.

#8 Tim Henman (770 matches – 64.4% winning record, 11 career titles, #4 career-high ranking)

A criminally underrated tennis player who does not receive the same plaudits others in his era got, some forget just how good Henman was on his day. He reached a career-high ranking of fourth overall, and claimed 11 titles in his time before wrapping up his career fittingly guiding Great Britain into the Davis Cup World Group back in 2007. In almost the opposite to Fernando Gonzalez in our last countdown piece, Henman was often criticised for his clay court work, but his grass court ability was as good as anyone’s on tour – running at a 71.2 per cent success rate. With hard court being the dominant surface and tour, that is where he did all his work, winning eight titles, with a further three on carpet.

Looking across his titles, it took him four years to win one (1997), but it was a good one, when he was ranked 24th in the world coming in at Sydney. He defeated world number one, Goran Ivanesevic in a come-from-behind three-set win in the semi-finals, before downing Carlos Moya in straight sets with the Spaniard going on to win Roland Garros the next year. Henman’s victory catapulted him into the top 20 for the first time, and outside of one week where the Brit dropped to 21st, he did not exit the top 20 for more than six years in a remarkable run of consistency. He reached as high as fourth through the winter of 2002, and for 12 months was lodged inside the top 10. He drifted back out to as far as 40th at one stage, but if anyone thought his career was dwindling, then he proved them wrong from March, 2004 until June, 2005 when he was once again inside the top 10.

Henman eventually retired in 2007 at the age of 33, with his last title being an ATP Masters 1000 tournament on carpet in Paris. Unfortunately for Henman, he could never win one in his home nation, coming runners up at Queen’s Club three times in four years, as well as twice at Indian Wells. He might have finished his career with 11 titles, but with 17 finals also in his repertoire it certainly could have been more. The writing was on the wall for Henman in his final year of 2007, going 7-12 on the ATP Tour and first round losses to players such as 416th ranked John Isner at Washington and 110th ranked Marin Cilic at London gave the veteran the indication that the next wave of players was coming and his time was up.

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Top 10 ATP Players without a Grand Slam title:

#10 Wojciech Fibak (Poland)
#9 Fernando Gonzales (Chile)
#8 Tim Henman (Great Britain)