![\"Patrick](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/rafter-number-one-club-rise.jpg\")
<\/p>\n No 1 Club
\n On This Day: Rafter begins his lone week at No. 1 in 1999<\/p>\n
Australian holds a unique place in ATP No. 1 Club history<\/p>\n
July 26, 2025<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Clive Brunskill \/Allsport<\/p>\n
Patrick Rafter in action at 1999 Wimbledon, where he secured his rise to World No. 1.
\n By Andy West<\/p>\n
Patrick Rafter<\/a>\u2019s time as No. 1 in the PIF ATP Rankings may have been short, but the Australian\u2019s journey to the top of tennis\u2019 mountain was anything but. <\/p>\n On 26 July, 1999 the then-27-year-old Australian was rewarded for 12 months of hard graft by becoming the 17th man to reach top spot. His stay there lasted just one week: He remains the only man to have such a short reign in the position, while he is also the only man not to contest a single match during his stint as World No. 1. <\/p>\n Rafter\u2019s rise to No. 1 began with his stunning 1998 North American hard-court season, during which he went 25-2. That tally included the Australian becoming just the second man to complete the Canada-Cincinnati ATP Masters 1000 double, lifting another ATP Tour trophy in Long Island, and completing his second consecutive title run at the US Open<\/a>. <\/p>\n Despite a less successful late-season indoor swing and a moderate start to his 1999 season, Rafter remained as high as World No. 4 heading onto the European clay in May. Clay was never the Australian\u2019s favoured terrain, but he excelled at that year\u2019s Internazionali BNL d’Italia<\/a>, where he defeated Andre Agassi<\/a> en route to his only Masters 1000 final on the surface (l. to Kuerten). <\/p>\n It was back on the more familiar territory of grass courts where Rafter completed his ascent to No. 1. He reeled off 10 straight wins across \u2018s-Hertogenbosch and Wimbledon<\/a> before falling in the semi-finals of The Championships to Agassi. Despite that loss, it was Agassi who Rafter replaced as No. 1, just under a month later. <\/p>\n After just seven days as No. 1 during which he did not contest a match, Rafter was usurped from No. 1 by the familiar face of Pete Sampras<\/a>. The Australian\u2019s brief reign was just one feature of a topsy-turvy 1999 at the top of the PIF ATP Rankings: He was one of three (alongside Carlos Moya<\/a> and Yevgeny Kafelnikov<\/a>) new World No. 1s that year, which remains a record high. With Agassi and Sampras also holding top spot during 1999, the tally of five different World No. 1s in a calendar year has also never been topped. <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No 1 Club On This Day: Rafter begins his lone week at No. 1 in 1999 Australian holds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-39540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"It](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1753562410_303_it-all-adds-up-banner.jpg\"\/)
<\/a><\/p>\n