Turkey is known as a country where the passion for sports is extremely high. In the 21st century, Turkey has had a lot of success on the sports field, especially when it comes to football, basketball, volleyball, wrestling and weightlifting. However, there has been no success in tennis despite large investments. We present to you the 5 best Turkish male tennis players of all time, looking at their position on the ATP singles rankings.
Third place at the 2002 World Cup in football and semi-final of Euro 2008. Vice-champions of Europe in 2001 and vice-champions of the world in 2010 in basketball. The first title at the European Women’s Volleyball Championship in 2023. These are some of the successes of Turkish national sports in the 21st century that are well known to everyone. Large investments are noticeable in almost all popular sports in Turkey, which have attracted many stars such as Allen Iverson, Didier Drogba, Robinho and many others to play for Turkish clubs.
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Investments were not absent in tennis either. This is primarily reflected in the organization of numerous tournaments at the ATP, Challenger and Futures level. The tournament in Antalya was once one of the few that was played on a grass surface outside Great Britain. Along with it, a clay court tournament was also played in Istanbul. The dates of these tournaments were not suitable for the cream of world tennis to play, but it was still a good chance for the local players to test their strength against rivals from the top.
However, Turkey has so far managed to produce only one tennis player who has made it into the top 100 on the ATP rankings and it really seems incredible that a country of 85 million people has not had more quality players despite the investments that exist. Below, you can see the list of the top 5 Turkish male tennis players in history according to their best position on the ATP rankings.
5. Anil Yuksel (#492)
Anil Yuksel had a rather modest career which ended in 2018 at only 28 years of age. During his career, he represented Turkey in the Davis Cup, where he has a record of 4 wins and 3 losses.
Erzurum’da devam eden #KardelenCup‘ta Anıl Yüksel, Ukraynalı Marat Deviatiarov’u 6-4’lük iki setle geçerek adını yarı finale yazdırdı. pic.twitter.com/8FEPj24LdC
— Tenis Federasyonu (@TTForgtr) August 3, 2017
He achieved his best ranking on the ATP rankings on November 21st, 2016, when he was in the 492nd position, which puts him in fifth place of all time when it comes to players from this country.
4. Ergi Kirkin (#251)
Ergi Kirkin is second on this list with a good chance to improve and maybe even secure himself the status of the highest ranked Turkish tennis player ever in the foreseeable future.
🎾 Milli tenisçi 🇹🇷Ergi Kırkın, Sırbistan’da düzenlenen M15 Belgrad Turnuvası’nda şampiyon oldu. 🏆
Tebrikler Ergi! 👏 pic.twitter.com/gOnh1J9aPm
— TRT Spor Yıldız (@trtsporyildiz) July 2, 2023
The tennis player from Antalya is only 25 years old and the best position for him on the ATP rankings was the 251st position, which he achieved on May 6th, 2024. after winning his maiden ATP Challenger title in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
3. Altug Celikbilek (#154)
The next player on this list is still active and therefore has a chance to improve his best ranking at some point.
Altug Celikbilek has won three career titles at the ATP Challenger tour (2x champion in Porto and 1 title in Pozoblanko) and achieved a career-high ranking of 154 on February 21st, 2022.
A historic moment for 🇹🇷 tennis.@AltugCelikbilek joins Marsel Ilhan and Cem Ilkel as just the third Turkish champion in #ATPChallenger history. pic.twitter.com/RYDLklXVi1
— ATP Challenger Tour (@ATPChallenger) July 4, 2021
He is currently on the 208th position of the ATP rankings.
2. Cem Ilkel (#144)
One of the few Turkish tennis players who played in the main draw of one of the Grand Slam tournaments is Cem Ilkel. His only appearance at the Grand Slam was at the 2021 US Open, when he managed to pass the qualifications on the ninth attempt and was immediately eliminated by Alex Molcan in the first round, although he won the opening set.
Shortly after the greatest success in his career and playing the first round of the US Open, Ilkel achieved his best ranking on the ATP rankings – 144th place on November 29th, 2021.
Cem Ilkel shines in Bratislava 💫
The 🇹🇷 defeats Van Rijthoven 6-4, 7-5 to advance to his second Challenger semifinal of the year!#ATPChallenger | @TTForgtr pic.twitter.com/LwIgJmxY6q
— ATP Challenger Tour (@ATPChallenger) November 11, 2022
Ilkel won one ATP Challenger title in his career in Quimper, France in 2020, and is currently ranked 218th on the ATP rankings.
1. Marsel Ilhan (#77)
And here we come to the first place on this list and (to this day) the best Turkish tennis player of all time – Marsel Ilhan.
This tennis player, born in Uzbekistan, immigrated to Turkey with his mother as a 17-year-old, where he started writing his tennis fairy tale with coach Can Uner.
Wimbledon 2015: Marsel Ilhan ‘getting closer’ in bid to be Turkish hero (Guardian) – http://t.co/rRWdY1LrYb pic.twitter.com/WLNCNeuHV7
— Tribun Dergi (@tribundergi) July 2, 2015
Marsel Ilhan is the only Turkish tennis player who managed to play in the main draw of each of the 4 Grand Slam tournaments and is also the only one who reached the second round of each of these tournaments. His most successful season was in 2015, when he managed to reach the second round of Wimbledon and the second round of the US Open, and that year he also reached his best ranking in his career – 77th position on March 2nd, 2015.
During his career, he won four titles on ATP Challenger tournaments (Ramat HaSharon, Banja Luka, Kazan and Izmir) along with two medals for Turkey at the Mediterranean Games in 2009 and 2013.
Ilhan is still active and performs occasionally in tournaments without much success, and is currently ranked outside the top 1000 in the world.
