Thanks for visiting the Australian Open Website. We can see you’re using Internet Explorer, and wanted to let you know that we will no longer be supporting this browser in future. We’d recommend you download a new browser if you'd like to continue keeping up with all of the latest tennis news!

Grass-court guns: Who are the leaders on the lawns?

  • Matt Trollope

The grass-court season is a short but memorable five-week swing on the tennis calendar, where players make the abrupt switch from clay to grass and try and get as much time as possible on the lawns in the run-up to Wimbledon.

Despite only a fraction of total professional tennis events being contested on grass, clear front-runners emerge when we delve into the grass-court records of active players.

With the grass-court season kicking off this week, these numbers could signal who might have the biggest impact at this exciting time in the season.

[Note: figures don't include 2024 grass-court results, and focus only on the tour-level, main-draw records of active players on grass]

Most matches on grass

Six players – Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Venus Williams, Angelique Kerber, Richard Gasquet and Adrian Mannarino – are the only active players with 100+ matches on grass.

Murray, Djokovic, Williams and Kerber are all Wimbledon champions, while Frenchman Mannarino and Gasquet have also banked plenty of time on grass; Mannarino has won two grass-court titles among his five overall ATP trophies, while Gasquet owns three grass titles among 16 career ATP titles.

Most match wins on grass

It's no surprise to see the Wimbledon-winning quartet at the top of these leaderboards.

Williams played her first pro matches on grass at Eastbourne way back in 1997, where she qualified for the main draw. Her first main-draw wins on grass came the following year at Wimbledon, a trophy she would eventually lift five times.

Murray made his tour-level debut on grass at the Queen's Club in 2005, reaching the last 16 as a wildcard. Djokovic debuted on grass just a few weeks later, winning three rounds of 2005 Wimbledon qualifying and going on to make the third round. He would go on to win that event seven times. Murray won it twice, plus a record five Queen's titles.

Kerber first played on grass in 2007, reaching the third round at the WTA event in Birmingham. She eventually became a champion there, as well as at Wimbledon and Bad Homburg.

Top-10 wins on grass

Venus leads the way here, with 19. Her most recent came against then No.7 Johanna Konta in the 2017 Wimbledon semifinals, a win vaulting her into her ninth Wimbledon final.

Among men, Djokovic is the leader with 16; in the seven Wimbledon finals he has won, six of those have come over top-10 players.

Best winning rate on grass

Carlos Alcaraz significantly boosted his winning percentage on grass last year by going a perfect 12-0 as the back-to-back Queen's and Wimbledon champion.

RELATED: Alcaraz becoming a great, by dethroning a great, in epic Wimbledon final

Williams leads among women, and for a time earlier in her career her strike-rate was even higher. From 2000 to 2009, she went 56-5 on grass, a winning percentage of 91.8.

Career titles on grass

Djokovic and Murray are joint leaders here, although Djokovic gets a nod for the fact seven of his eight career grass-court titles came at Wimbledon. He also won at Eastbourne in 2017.

WIMBLEDON CHAMP 2022: Djokovic’s longevity could prove greatest triumph of all

Murray won five trophies at Queen's, two at Wimbledon, and a gold medal at the London 2012 Olympics, an event played on grass at the All England Club.

Williams leads among women thanks for her five Wimbledon titles. Behind her, Kerber, Madison Keys, Caroline Garcia and Karolina Pliskova are tied with three grass-court titles, although Kerber is the only other Wimbledon champion.

Keys' first career title came on grass at Eastbourne in 2014, over Kerber in the final.

Most tournaments played on grass

Mannarino's love for the laws is apparent; the Frenchman typically plays grass-court tournaments in all three weeks leading up to Wimbledon, plus the post-Wimbledon grass-court event at Newport, Rhode Island.

British veteran Heather Watson debuted at tour-level on grass at the 2010 Birmingham tournament; she is a two-time Eastbourne semifinalist and also reached the same stage in Birmingham and Nottingham.