An ESPN tennis API alternative you can start today
Weighing ESPN for tennis data? Here's how tennisapi.dev compares — and why tennis-first depth plus self-serve onboarding might be the better fit for your build.
$ 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 } }Why teams look for an 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 push |
| 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 own requirements. ESPN's characteristics change over time, so verify current details with them directly.
The dataset behind it
1,730,276 matches
Every ATP and WTA match since 1968 — main draws, qualifying, Challengers, and ITF — with set scores and serve stats.
5,566,184 ranking rows
Every published weekly ranking Monday for both tours, queryable by exact date.
137,410 players
Bios, handedness, countries, activity status, and career statistics with surface and year filters.
57,910 tournaments
Editions with tier, surface, dates, season calendars, and round-by-round draw brackets.
Head-to-head engine
Any two players in history — or a whole group via the H2H matrix — with surface, finals, and Slam splits.
Live scoreboards
In-progress matches with per-match detailed state, plus recent results the moment they finish.