On Monday, Medvedev officially topped the world with 8615 points, breaking the monopoly of the Four Giants of Fernard mohamm for 18 consecutive years.
For 6,601 days since February 2, 2004, Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray have held the number one position in the ATP rankings, swapping the world number one throne 19 times, but have not been able to sit away.
Today, this monopoly phenomenon has come to an end once and for all.
On Monday, Medvedev became the first player since February 1, 2004, when U.S. player Roddick broke the big four's monopoly on world number one position, and the first post-90s player to become the world number one.
To illustrate how long ago February 1, 2004 was, here are a few examples of what tennis and the world were like at the time.
Federer won his second Grand Slam title that day. He defeated Safin 7-6, 6-4, 6-2 in the Australian Open final and rose to first the next day.
Nadal's singles ranking is in the top 50 for the first time, but he has yet to win the title. On the same day, the 17-year-old Nadal set a career high with a career-best record of 21 wins and 15 losses: 41st.
Djokovic and Murray are both only 16 years old and have not yet played at tour level. Murray won the Junior Division of the U.S. Open later that year.
Medvedev himself was under 8 years old. He turned 8 years old on February 11, 2004.
American player Gauff hasn't been born yet! She was born on March 13, 2004.
Facebook is still called FaceMash. It was renamed The Facebook on February 4, 2004, and then Facebook in 2005.
Twitter doesn't exist yet. It was launched in 2006.
Finally, the Grand Slam number of titles ratio between the "Fernard" Big Three is 2-0-0. But since then, the three players have won 59 of the 70 Grand Slam tournaments. Now, Nadal has 21, Federer and Djokovic are 20 Grand Slam titles.
"I'm happy to be number one in the world, that's what I've been aiming for since I was a kid." Medvedev said, "I've received a lot of congratulatory text messages from friends and players and I want to thank everyone for the tremendous support they have given me. When you're still young, you dream of being number one in the world because you feel like it's impossible. But when you get closer to this position, you rarely dream, but try to achieve it. Because this is no longer a dream, but a goal. (Source: Tennis House Author: Wu Li Fun)