Why teams look for a ESPN alternative
ESPN doesn't offer an official public tennis API; what circulates are undocumented endpoints that can change or disappear without notice. If your product depends on tennis data, a documented API with stable IDs and a deprecation policy is the difference between a dependency and a gamble.
What tennisapi.dev brings to the table
| Area | tennisapi.dev |
|---|---|
| Historical depth | 1968 → today: 1.7M matches incl. qualifying, Challengers, ITF |
| Rankings history | Every published ATP & WTA week — 5.5M rows, queryable by date |
| Head-to-head | Any pairing ever, with surface/finals/Slam splits + multi-player matrix |
| Draws & calendars | 58k tournament editions with round-by-round brackets |
| Live scores | REST scoreboards + WebSocket & webhooks |
| Getting started | Self-serve free tier — key in minutes, no sales call |
We only make claims about our own product here — evaluate any vendor, including us, against your requirements. Competitor characteristics change; verify current details with them directly.
$ curl "https://api.citoapi.com/api/v1/tennis/h2h?player1_id=atp_103819&player2_id=atp_104745" \
-H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"
{ "player1": { "name": "Roger Federer", "wins": 17 },
"player2": { "name": "Rafael Nadal", "wins": 24 },
"summary": { "total_matches": 41, "grand_slam_matches": 14 } }
The dataset in one glance
Frequently asked
Is tennisapi.dev a drop-in replacement for ESPN?
Schemas differ, so expect a mapping layer — but the coverage areas developers use most (results, rankings, head-to-heads, draws, live scores) are all first-class endpoints here.
How fast can I evaluate it?
Self-serve: create a free key and make your first call in minutes — 500 free requests/month to test against your use case.
How deep is the historical data?
1.7M matches from 1968 to today for ATP and WTA, plus every published weekly ranking (5.5M rows) and 58k tournament editions with draws.
Your first call is thirty seconds away
Free tier to prove it, production tiers when you ship.