The tennis season is behind us, and before the sport picks up again in some 20 days, we’ve got a chance to crunch the numbers and dig into some interesting stats. One of the most fascinating? Just how dominant some of the best in the world truly were.<\/p>\n
Match wins and tournament trophies are fine markers of success, but if we really want to see dominance at its purest, we need to look at the set level. And the most brutal way to win a set? The bagel: 6-0, no games dropped, no mercy shown.<\/p>\n
So we’ve run the numbers and found the top 10 players who served up the most bagels in 2025. Some names will surprise you. Others… well, you’ll see them coming from a mile away.<\/p>\n
If you’ve watched even a handful of Jannik Sinner matches this year, you won’t be remotely surprised to find him at the top. The man plays like a machine: clinical, relentless, always looking for the most efficient path to victory. When you’re operating on a level above most of the tour, these things happen naturally.<\/p>\n
Ten bagels in a single season isn\u2019t staggering, but it makes perfect sense when you consider how Sinner dismantles opponents. He doesn’t just beat you. He systematically removes your options until there’s nothing left to try.<\/p>\n
Carlos Alcaraz is less a machine, more an artist. Sometimes that’s a beautiful thing. Sometimes it costs him.<\/p>\n
His US Open demolition of Sinner showed what happens when he locks in with that machine-like focus. He never lets up, never gives an inch. But that intensity doesn’t always show up. He can lose focus mid-match and drop sets to players who realistically shouldn’t be winning sets against him. The same thing happens at the game level.<\/p>\n
Still, eight bagels is pretty good, especially considering how rarely Alcaraz truly locks in outside of finals. When the talent is this overwhelming, even the casual version is usually enough.<\/p>\n
Alex de Minaur brings a bit of that Sinner-like clinical approach, mostly because he’s a grinder who fights for every point and every game. You never see him tank anything, which is exactly why he’s third on this list.<\/p>\n
He’s also just too good for most of the tour, even if he’s not quite good enough to win a Grand Slam yet. Seven bagels from a player without any signature weapons might shock some people, but it shouldn’t. De Minaur’s consistency is the weapon. He simply wears you down until there’s nothing left.<\/p>\n
Given how Lorenzo Musetti finished the year, seeing him this high might raise some eyebrows. But the Italian is deceptively hard to beat when he’s on. His defensive skills and ability to camp behind the baseline, sending ball after ball back into play, make him infuriating to face.<\/p>\n
With that style, it’s no wonder he frustrated opponents into bagel territory six times this year, even if the overall season was underwhelming. Sometimes the most annoying players to face are the ones who simply refuse to miss.<\/p>\n
Denis Shapovalov doesn’t top many statistical lists these days, but he’s got that type of devastating game that can materialize out of nowhere. The serve can be impeccable (good enough to carry him to a Wimbledon semifinal once upon a time). The baseline play can overwhelm you in a hurry.<\/p>\n
Four times this year, he found that best version of himself and served up the fairly rare bagel set. It’s a reminder that on any given day, Shapo can still be dangerous.<\/p>\n
Munar shouldn’t shock anyone on this list. He took a massive step forward this year, and his grinding, rally-heavy style is perfectly designed to produce bagels. He plays exhausting tennis: long points, relentless defense, never giving up on a ball.<\/p>\n
With that approach, he’s going to frustrate plenty of opponents into simply quitting on sets, which is often what a bagel really represents. Four of them in 2025 feels about right.<\/p>\n
Francisco Cerundolo remains one of tennis’s great enigmas. On his day, he’s capable of incredible tennis, which is exactly what four bagels tells us. But consistency remains elusive for the Argentine.<\/p>\n
We’re talking about top 10 talent if he ever finds it. For now, he’ll have to settle for placing in the top 10 of the bagel rankings, which honestly isn’t a bad consolation prize.<\/p>\n
Novak Djokovic being on this list is mildly surprising, though it wouldn’t have been a decade ago. The surprise comes from where he is in his career: playing just enough to win, conserving energy, picking his spots carefully.<\/p>\n
When you play like that, bagels don’t come often. But three of them still materialized, which tells you that even in conservation mode, Djokovic can still erase opponents from sets when he chooses to turn it on. At 38, that’s pretty damn impressive.<\/p>\n
Corentin Moutet is nowhere near top 10 level as a player, but when it comes to bagels, he managed three. The reason? His unconventional style catches people completely off guard.<\/p>\n
This is the same guy who nearly bageled Sinner last year with his chaos-ball approach. When the weirdness works, it really<\/i> works, and occasionally that means opponents have no idea what’s happening until they’ve lost six straight games.<\/p>\nLuciano Darderi (3)<\/b><\/h4>\n
“Lucky” Luciano Darderi has been improving rapidly for years now. The clay court specialist brings an attacking style that can overwhelm opponents quickly, and that’s exactly what allowed him to crack the top 10 on this list with three bagels.<\/p>\n
It’s a sign of things to come. Players who can serve bagels are players with weapons, and Darderi’s arsenal is getting more dangerous by the season.<\/p>\n
The bagel list tells its own story about dominance, consistency, and the ability to utterly dismantle opponents when everything clicks. Some players live here because they’re simply better than everyone else. Others show up because their style is perfectly designed to frustrate and exhaust. And a few? They just catch fire at the right moment and don’t let go.<\/p>\n
Ten bagels or three, they all count the same: six games to zero, and the opponent left wondering what the hell just happened.<\/p>\n
Main photo credit: Mike Frey-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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