Roger and Records

A run of match wins and titles of late by Fed has put him a little closer to some all-time giants in terms of career records. Rog is now on 823 total wins and 72 titles. Last autumn the prospect of catching McEnroe (77 titles) seemed remote. But five wins in seven tournaments (I think that's right) has put the Johnny Mac record within sight.
Similarly Rog could, conceivably this year, catch Agassi (870 match wins) and Mac (875). This will probably be easier to do than the titles as Fed is well capable of a 60-plus victory season - tournament victories or no tournament victories.
Then there's the little matter of GS wins. Fed is equal with Connors for the most GS match victories (232) and a first round win at the French this year will do it. It will also give Rog 50 wins at all four GS venues - a unique record and impressive in terms of consistency and longevity.
Can anyone still playing match this ? Of course, Rafa is most likely to but Rog has won five tourneys to Rafa's none over recent months so has at least put some daylight between them. As Rog is still playing it's difficult to know what sort of target he can set. Thoughts?

Of all the records, it is Fed's consistency that is perhaps the most astonishing. What is the QF run at slams now?

I think TMF will most probably catch and overtake Mac on 77 titles if he can retain this kind of form during the indoor hard swing.

I just don't really know (and don't want to jinx him) but when he is playing the kind of aggressive and joyful tennis that we saw in Dubai it is a pleasure to watch him compete and I would hope, on that kind of form, that the QF streak at slams would continue for at least this year.

TP - the quarter final streak is 31 and Rog, of course, already holds the s-f streak of 23 which is an even more staggering achievement.
He's already chalked up 1,800 points that he can take in to 2013 if he chooses to carry on after this year. Reckon the whole of 2013 is a possibility if he can continue to compete with - and occasionally beat - the best.

Consistency is great but I woudl never watch a sport or an athlete for his consistency. Sport for me is about displaying skills and performance never attained by anyone else before.

That's what in my view makes Federer special. Having said that, Federer's game is extremely fragile as it requires perfect timing over the length of a match.....and having such a beautiful timing day in day out over tournaments, months and years is absolutely amazing.

If you look at players who relied on perfect timing for success, Nalbandian, McEnroe, Mecir, Davydenko etc....and the list is long..... they all have sudden dip and long period where their edge (Timing) goes off and sometimes never quite come back. THat timing also tends to disappear under pressure moments. Not for Federer. He has been playing amazingly for 10 years, able to produce the most difficult shots technically whether in or slightly of form. Take Davydenko as a comparison who can also produce a brillant game. However his game/timing can disappear for months and getting it back is a tough and long process. Federer's game is much more fragile than teh other top 4 as he plays with much less margins...yet he can still produce teh sharpest game when it matters..and only slow conds, extraordinary power and long rallies can finally blunt his edge.

Its fair to say his records are amazing. He'll break the #wins for Agassi and McEnroe this year no doubt. Maybe will get the career titles too...but that might take 2 seasons not one. I think the challange for Federer will start from IW/Miami now as the other players start to refine and up their games for 2012...and we know Dubai is probably the fastest court he'll play on all year so its going to become a grind from here on in. He's also racking up quite alot of tennis already in 2012...I wonder come Wimb/Olympics, etc...how fresh he's going to be...but I'm sure he'll look at his schedule closely now, and expect him not to enter Monte Carlo or Madrid (although thats faster with its high altitude so less likely to miss).

Slow conds, long ralleys, etc....were always meant to be the test of a players mettle...just not every tournament.
Viva la difference in events in the future...

I think the sf final streak is an extraordinary one - isn't Lendl second on that list with 10 consecutive grand slam semis? When you think that a great champion with a real power game like Nadal has a personal best streak of 5, and is currently on a streak of 4 with Novak on a streak of 7 - it really puts it into perspective.

What are the odds on Novak, currently on 7, beating Lendl's streak?

If you look at Fed's streak records in slams they are usually either x2 the next best or, if they are the equal best he's usually done it x2 as often as anyone else. It is extraordinary.

I agree that the x23 SF's in a row is probably the most impressive (if not the most glamorous), but x10 and then x8 Finals in a row with only the Aus Open 2008 SF defeat separating the Final run from W 2005 through to Aus 2010 is also extraordinary.

Another extraordinary record is that during W 2004 to Aus Open 2010 Fed was the Slam gatekeeper. In order to win a slam you had beat Federer in either the SF or F match.

TP - The Novak semi streak is set to continue as I don't really see anyone outside the top four beating him in a slam. Agree totally with Tenez about the remarkable feat of combining consistency with flair. There's also something I didn't discuss earlier - the question of being injury free. Sooner or later somebody misses an entire slam or has to retire/offer a walkover. Rog has chalked up a very high number of successive appearances which is remarkable in itself.

lydian wrote:Slow conds, long ralleys, etc....were always meant to be the test of a players mettle...

You see, I actually think it's the opposite. The mettle is tested under tension moments. Finding, or even keeping your edge when it really matters. Being able to take a risk you know is going to make or break you. That is what mettle is about.

Keeping a flying ball in the court and even attack that flying ball requires great timing and composure and doing it under pressure, even more so. THis is what was really interesting in Dubai in the Semis and finals.

However if you have long rallies and know that there is no point risking shots but more rely on your fitness, teh mind intervenes much less than teh physique.

ANd this is what we can see typically between Nadal and Federer. Federer starts almost always teh better and you can see Nadal being nervous and having to do lots of scrambling .....until Fed's arm tires and Nadal calms down seeing finally Roger tiring and misfiring.

Just look at the Sampras wins over Agassi, Goran and others. It;s was Pete's gutsy play that made the difference, his mettle as you say. It had little to do about being able to run for 5 hours like it is now and this is why I consider Sampras one of teh mentally toughest player. He coudl produce a tough second serve when it mattered. Very unlike Murray and Nadal in that respect.

Agree completely that Pete was really mentally tough. How many times did he use that serve to ward off break points ?
Where Pete differed from Rog was in their pomp. Look at the bagels and breadsticks Rog handed out in the years, say, 04 to 07. He would wipe people away.
Contrastingly, Pete - and you could see him doing it - would prowl like a cat, waiting for his moment. Very little would happen for six or seven games at the start of a set. Then suddenly Pete's opponent would be 15-15 or 15-30 and Pete would pounce. Consequently - and possibly the stats will prove me wrong - you saw Pete winning, say, 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 while Roger would have been, say, 6-4, 6-1, 6-1. This is not to say that Rog was the better of the two, so much as Pete conserved energy, fully confident on his serve and fully confident of securing the break.

That's true SF. I think in that respect Federer had a more complete game and much better return so he coudl exploit any weakness from his opponents and that is why he was virtually strolling to titles (24 finals won in a row - BTW That's what I consider his least breakable record ever).

Pete was dealing with maybe faster surfaces and therefore may hav had less occasions to break and I dont think he had teh best return game either. I actually think the surfaces were not that different from the early 2000s but the new string technology allowed much better control of returns, whereas Pete was playing with the old natural strings making returns harder.

agree spf, tenez. Its not the surface that tests a player's mettle , its the situation in a match.

Watch this clip. I can't see either player with any bit of mettle shown in this highly appraised by the commentator and hugely applauded rally on clay ( hamburg masters). In fact quite the opposite, neither of them having enough courage to take the risk and go for the shot. Both just looking to keep the ball in play, and hoping that the opponent will attempt a shot and miss it. Poor play really.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8iunyDh4ms

agree spf, tenez. Its not the surface that tests a player's mettle , its the situation in a match.

Watch this clip. I can't see either player with any bit of mettle shown in this highly appraised by the commentator and hugely applauded rally on clay ( hamburg masters). In fact quite the opposite, neither of them having enough courage to take the risk and go for the shot. Both just looking to keep the ball in play, and hoping that the opponent will attempt a shot and miss it. Poor play really.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8iunyDh4ms


What an awful rally. It was many strokes before either player really attempted an attacking shot. For most of the first part of the rally it looked like the knock-up ! Mind you, they would have had to go some to beat the women's record when the ball went over the net something like 600 times in one rally (always wondered if they just played the soccer equivalwent of keepie-uppie in that match).

Good points all. But when I say test a players mettle what I mean is that the variety on tour should be the test itself too, not just specific moments in matches. i.e. I mean this from a macro-view. The whole tour should test a players ability on carpet, clay, slow hard, fast hard, grass, etc....then the #1 player in the world should be the guy who is best able to adapt to more of the surfaces than the others, i.e. has the more complete game. Its not about all fast, or all slow...we need balance and we dont have that. So mettle for me works on different levels...macro and micro.

Yes Pete was the guy to be very efficient in his game play. You would see him coast through matches up to 4-4 in a set then you just knew the effort would come in the next game to break and he did it so often that it was an impressive aspect, the mental strength to go up through the gears and rely on his base game to serve the set out. In subsequent years I think he did rely on this tactic too much though and it affected his all round game in my opinion but there was no doubt he was the ultimate attacking player in his pomp. Its a shame the tour has moved to the grind really, just one speed...to the denigration of the game as a whole. Its wiped out the evolution of tennis to around 2000...and replaced it with a one-dimensional, monotone game.

Anyway, I dont see the SF record by Federer being beaten again...its an amazing record.

sirfredperry wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8iunyDh4ms


What an awful rally.

Yes but are they really to blame? A risky angled shot is retrieved almost as easily as those gutess rallies, plus (I mentioned that many times), with the string technology and the fitness they have, being in the tramleine, off balanced becomes an advantage.

Remember how Federer lost v Nadal at the AOs? He does all the work, sends Nadal in the tribunes but the ball comes back past him.

I personally woudl not blame Monfils and Simon...but the crowd who applauds such rallies! Was Socal in the crowd?

lydian wrote:
Yes Pete was the guy to be very efficient in his game play. You would see him coast through matches up to 4-4 in a set then you just knew the effort would come in the next game to break and he did it so often that it was an impressive aspect, the mental strength to go up through the gears and rely on his base game to serve the set out. In subsequent years I think he did rely on this tactic too much though and it affected his all round game in my opinion but there was no doubt he was the ultimate attacking player in his pomp. Its a shame the tour has moved to the grind really, just one speed...to the denigration of the game as a whole. Its wiped out the evolution of tennis to around 2000...and replaced it with a one-dimensional, monotone game.

I think Sampras has a fair few parallels with Nadal actually - their huge mental strength is helped by their development of a 'go-to' weapon which was very well suited to the conditions of their era and which they had honed to a very high degree so that it would eventually put telling pressure on their opponent. Equally, when not at home (Sampras on slow surfaces, Nadal on truly fast surfaces - which have been greatly reduced in his time, lucky old him), the tactic proves nothing like so efficient against top players.

The main difference I would suggest is that Sampras' go to weapons were offensive and slightly more risky and so more dependent on cojones - I am thinking of his ability to pull out a 2nd serve at the critical moment or his camping out on the back-hand daring his opponent to set up one of those running forehands.

Fed strikes me as a different player who has relied (against top players at least) more on all facets of his game working to a certain standard and for that reason I would say that his ability to dig it out in the toughest situations is more finely balanced with what looks on the face of it to be a corresponding adverse effect on his respective mental toughness - although you might argue that since there's more to go wrong with his A game it requires more mental toughness to get it working in the first place.

I would accept that Fed has gotten through many tough matches with his serve - just not to the same extent as Sampras.

Just checking the records again, Roger (49) is third behind Edberg (54) and Wayne Ferreira (56) for most CONSECUTIVE Grand Slam appearances. So clearly Fed would have to go through - and be fit enough to play - until Sep 2013 to at least equal this record.
Not sure it's high up on his list of ambitions but again shows his consistency and again sets the bar high.

sirfredperry wrote:Just checking the records again, Roger (49) is third behind Edberg (54) and Wayne Ferreira (56) for most CONSECUTIVE Grand Slam appearances. So clearly Fed would have to go through - and be fit enough to play - until Sep 2013 to at least equal this record.
Not sure it's high up on his list of ambitions but again shows his consistency and again sets the bar high.

Interesting stats, but like you I doubt it's high up on his list - always assuming he's actually aware of it ....!

With all due respect to Wayne Ferrerira (can remember watching him practise at Wimby years ago on an outside court .... ) I think it's fair to say Federer and Edberg are in rather different categories.

And perhaps 'appearances' is the key word here. Doesn't need a supreme level of fitness to actually show up at a Slam, but it's all about what you actually do once there. In Ferreira's last seven Slam appearances of his career he exited in R1 three times, R2 once and R3 three times.

Not sure Fed would want it all to end like that ......

Well Wayne F was good enough to get to six in the world and while I accept he was not in Fed or Edberg's league, his GS record is not to be sneezed at.
It means you' ve been good enough, and fit enough and eager enough to play in GS for FOURTEEN YEARS. Not bad. I can remember WF giving Henman a hell of a match at Wimbledon towards the end of his career, with Tim guilty of a bit of gamesmanship over a crucial line call at one point (no hawkeye in those days).

sfp - I think we're basically on the same wavelength here, I certainly have no wish to knock Ferreira.

I've said more than once on various threads that I think anyone who even makes top 100 (let alone No. 6 ) is, by definition, amazingly good. One only has to think of all the countless thousands around the world who slog their guts out day in day out in an effort to get to such a level, but we all know that the competition is such that the vast, vast majority can never come even close ......

Lags72. Quite agree that even someone ranked 100 is, on a worldwide scale, quite outstanding. Yet here we are constantly disappointed that Andy M is "only" four in the world for four years running, is "only" winning more than 20 tournaments, is "only" getting to three GS finals etc etc !
Professional tennis is such a cutthroat, dog-eat-dog business that one can only marvel at the players' professionalism and dedication.
At least they know their careers are comparatively short and can give their all for the time they've got.