Roger Federer’s genius can hardly be defined by tangibles. But as the Swiss turns 39, we look at 39 facts that shine a light on his his success and longevity:
39 years of age: Federer is the oldest active player in the top 100 in singles.
22 Years: Since Federer made his Tour debut. Federer’s first match as a professional was in Gstaad in 1998. Current top 20 players Stefanos Tsitsipas, Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime weren’t even born then.
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20: Number of Grand Slam titles. Federer currently holds the record for the most number of singles majors by a male player. Nadal is hot on his heels with 19 major titles, while Djokovic is at 17.
8: Number of Wimbledon titles. With his latest Wimbledon title in 2017, Federer overtook Pete Sampras and William Renshaw, who have seven titles each.
10: Most successive Grand Slam finals. Federer made the successive finals from 2005 Wimbledon to 2007 US Open, a record for men’s tennis. Only Steffi Graf has a better record, when she reached 13 back-to-back major finals from the 1987 French Open to the 1990 French Open.
31: Number of Grand Slam finals. Federer holds the record for the most major finals played. He has won 20 of them.
23: Consecutive Grand Slam semi-finals. From Wimbledon 2004 to the Australian Open in 2010, Federer reached the semi-final in 23 consecutive Grand Slams. The streak ended when he lost to Robin Soderling in the 2010 French Open quarterfinal.
5th: Player to win a Career Slam. Till date, only eight men’s players have won all four Grand Slams. Federer became the fifth in that list, and first of the Big 3, to win a Career Slam when he won the 2009 French Open.
1 of 4: To win Channel Slam (French Open and Wimbledon in the same year) in Open Era. Federer accomplished the feat in 2009, becoming the fourth player, after with Rod Laver (1969), Bjorn Borg (1978-1980), and Nadal (2008 and 2010) to win the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year.
2nd: To win Grand Slams on three different surfaces. When Federer won the 2009 French Open, he became only the second men’s player to have won a Grand Slam on grass, hard and clay courts. The first player to achieve this was Andre Agassi. Since Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have also accomplished the feat.
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5: Successive titles at two different Grand Slams. Federer’s five consecutive titles at Wimbledon from 2003 to 2007, and five titles at the US Open from 2004 to 2008 make him the only player to have won successive titles at two different Grand Slams.
100+: matches won at two different Grand Slams: With 102 wins at the Australian Open and 101 at Wimbledon, Federer is the only player to have won 100+ matches at two different Grand Slams.
421: Record for most number of Grand Slam matches played. Federer leads the list, ahead of Djokovic on 330 and Nadal on 314.
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362: Record for most number of matches won in Grand Slams.
79: Record for most number of Grand Slams played. Federer, who will miss the US Open this year, is ahead of Feliciano Lopez’s 73 appearances.
5: Successive US Open titles. He won back-to-back titles at the US Open from 2004 to 2008 making him the only man to have won five in a row at the American Slam.
310: Record number of weeks Federer has spent as World No 1. Pete Sampras is second at 286 weeks.
237: Record consecutive weeks as world no 1. It’s a record that stretched over four years from February 2, 2004 till August 18, 2008. Novak Djokovic is second, with 122 consecutive weeks at No 1.
36 years and 195 days: Oldest player to be ranked No 1 in the world. Federer regained the top spot in February 19, 2018 to claim the record. He surpassed Andre Agassi (33) and Serena Williams (35).
14 years: Duration between the first time he was ranked No 1 and the latest. Federer first reached the spot in February 2004 and the last time he regained No 1 ranking was in 2018.
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1006: Consecutive weeks in top 20. The last time Federer was ranked outside the top 20 was on April 16, 2001. Since then, he’s been in the top 20 for 1006 consecutive weeks.
5: Year-end no 1. Federer has finished a season as the world no 1 five times, the same number as Nadal, Djokovic and Jimmy Connors. Sampras has the record, finishing on top in six seasons.
103: Tour titles won. Federer’s tally is only six short of Connors’ record of 109 titles.
10 or more: Titles on three surfaces. Till date, Federer has won 71 hard court events, 19 on grass courts and 11 on clay, making him the only players to win at least 10 titles on three different surfaces.
65: Longest winning streak on grass. From the first round at Halle in 2003 till the 2008 Wimbledon semi-final, Federer was unbeaten on the surface. Nadal snapped his streak with an epic win in the 2008 Wimbledon final.
56: Longest winning streak on hard courts. Federer was unbeaten from the first round at Rotterdam in 2005 till the semi-final in Dubai in 2006
1242: Tour matches won. Federer’s tally is second only to Connors’ 1274 wins.
224: Wins against top-10 players. So far, Federer has won 224 matches against top 10 opponents, the most by any player on the men’s tour. Djokovic is second on the list with 212, and Nadal is third on 171.
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6: Number of times Federer has won the season-ending ATP Tour finale. He holds the record for the most number of Tour Finals titles, one more than Djokovic, Ivan Lendl and Sampras.
12: Most number of title wins in a single season. Federer won 12 events in 2006 and is tied with Thomas Muster (1995). Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal’s best is 11 titles, in 2015 and 2005 respectively. Federer has won 11 titles in a season twice, in 2004 and 2005.
15: Straight years of winning at least one title. From 2001 to the 2015 season, Federer won at least one title per year.
24: Finals won in a row. From October 2003 to September 2005, Federer won each of the 24 finals he made.
41: Longest winning streak. Federer won 41 matches in a row from August 2006 to March 2007. Among active players, only Djokovic has a longer winning streak at 43.
0: Number of matches Federer has retired from, after play started.
11,344 aces: Federer is third on the leaderboard for most aces served. Ahead of him are only Ivo Karlovic (13,599) and John Isner (12,237). Goran Ivanisevic is fourth with 10,131 aces, and together they are the only four players to have crossed 10,000 aces.
$106.3 million: The amount Federer earned, before tax, to become the first tennis player to top Forbes’s list of highest-paid athletes in May, 2020.
2nd: Highest earner in prize money. So far, Federer has won $129,946,683, second only to Djokovic’s earnings ($143,631,560).
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105: Consecutive points without an unforced error. In the third round of the 2007 US Open against big-serving wild card John Isner, Federer went 105 successive points without an unforced error. Remarkably, he lost the first set in the tiebreaker.
13: Number of Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Awards won, also a record. In the 43 years that the ATP Sportsmanship Award, now Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award has existed, Federer has won it a record 13 times. Edberg won it 5 times.
