Follow us on Google Discover Andy Roddick has noticed a significant change in players on the ATP Tour in recent years.
Roddick, who won the US Open in 2003, played on the ATP Tour for 15 years until he officially retired in 2015.
Nowadays, the former world number one has a big media presence and comments on current goings-on in the sport, with Roddick recently outspoken against the current tennis schedule.
The American has now spoken about current tennis players and how he thinks they are completely different to even five years ago.
Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesAndy Roddick explains the big change in tennis players over the past five years
Roddick usually voices his opinion on his own podcast, but this time he was a guest on the Armchair Expert podcast.
In this podcast interview, Roddick was asked about how tennis has changed in recent times.
This prompted the now 43-year-old to speak about the physicality of players, with Roddick claiming that you now need to be ‘insanely athletic’ on the ATP Tour to be successful, using Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner as examples.
“They are big now,” said Roddick. “Like Rafa [Nadal] was an animal. They are all huge now. That is the thing that has changed.
“We used to have a skill and now you can’t have that skill without being insanely athletic. So now you are seeing Alcaraz. He explodes. And Sinner is 6ft 5 and he’s like a skier and he gets in and out of the corners. The athleticism of tennis has completely changed in the last five years. It’s crazy.”
How does the height of the ATP top 10 compare to five years ago?
Although Roddick claimed that Sinner is 6’5″, according to the ATP website he is actually two inches shorter at 6’3″.
While height is not the only factor that Roddick was speaking about in terms of physicality, it certainly is a relevant one and comparing the heights of the top 10 from five years ago provides an interesting insight.
While the average heights of the top 10 in the ATP rankings is marginally taller in 2025 (2.2cm taller), a lot of that is down to the now retired Diego Schwartzman, who was just 5’7″.
ATP Top 10 (2020.10.12)HeightATP Top 10 (2025.10.13)Height1. Novak Djokovic6’2″ (1.88m)1. Carlos Alcaraz6’0″ (1.83m)2. Rafael Nadal6’1″ (1.85m)2. Jannik Sinner6’3″ (1.91m)3. Dominic Thiem6’1″ (1.85m)3. Alexander Zverev6’6″ (1.98m)4. Roger Federer6’1″ (1.85m)4. Taylor Fritz6’5″ (1.96m)5. Stefanos Tsitsipas6’4″ (1.93m)5. Novak Djokovic6’2″ (1.88m)6. Daniil Medvedev6’6″ (1.98m)6. Ben Shelton6’4″ (1.93m)7. Alexander Zverev6’6″ (1.98m)7. Alex de Minaur6’0″ (1.83m)8. Diego Schwartzman5’7″ (1.7m)8. Lorenzo Musetti6’1″ (1.85m)9. Matteo Berrettini6’5″ (1.96m)9. Jack Draper6’4″ (1.93m)10. Andrey Rublev6’2″ (1.88m)10. Karen Khachanov6’6″ (1.98m)
The two tallest players inside the top 10 of the ATP rankings are Alexander Zverev and Karen Khachanov, who stand at 198cm tall.
Alcaraz and Alex de Minaur are the two shortest players in this list, but no-one is below six foot tall.