The Insane Achievements of Roger Federer

First topic message reminder :

It's been an epic career, and perhaps more to come. I know we all know this stuff, but it bears repeating;

6 Wimbledons
5 US Opens
4 Australians
6 WTFs

only when we get to the French do we have to resort to invoking finals to show a staggering record, but when we do that we get 5 - more than many excellent clay court exponents.

Throw in 1 week short of Sampras' weeks at No 1.

Oh, and a run of 10 consecurive Slam finals, and the 2nd best run of 8 too. And those runs were separated by a semi-final, so 18 Slam finals out of 19 events.

And all done by playing with a virtuosity that most observers - including his peers - consider quite exquisite.

Yeah, I'm a fan!

Yes, the achievements keep coming, so what are the greatest of them ? Personally, I think it's the ones relating to Grand Slams as they are the tourneys when everybody is up for it and you have to earn your corn over five, often gruelling, sets
Fed is soon to overtake Connors for the most GS match wins. He's already got the most GS titles and he's soon to be the first player to win FIFTY MATCHES AT EACH OF THE FOUR SLAM venues. He's not missed a slam since God knows when and he's made the last eight at all of them since, ooh - 1869 - it seems.
Argue if you like about the merits of the year-end champs when everyone's on their last legs. But there's no denying, surely, the GS record.

I hate to bring everyone back down to earth, but let's not forget he did have a ponytail early in his career

All of this would be merely interesting were it not for the virtuosity of his play - every fair-minded tennis watcher will be saying to their grandchildren about Fed, "yes, the numbers are amazing, but you needed to see him play".

Nonetheless, the numbers are amazing.

It's slams where he stands out:

* 16 slam wins including a career slam
* two runs of 10 then 8 consecutive slam F's punctuated only by a SF
* 23 consecutive slam SF's (perhaps the most outstanding of all)
* 3 slams in a calendar year x3
* 3 consecutive slam wins x2 (each time it was Wimb-US-Aus)
* five consecutive wins in a slam at both Wimbleon and the USO, including 4 years on the trot when he won both
* 23 slam finals - at least 5 in each slam

If you look at those records what astonishes is how far ahead of the competition he is.

Other massive achievements

* 6 WTF wins
* 18 TMS wins out of 30 finals
* 285 weeks at No. 1
* 5 year-end No. 1's
* 6th all-time tour level match wins at 807
* 7th all-time tour level matches played at 993
* Match win percentage of >80%
* 70 title wins out of 100 finals of which 40 of his wins and 20 of his losses were at TMS, WTF or Slam level

Who says Federer is arrogant...?

"Yeah, of course I'm extremely happy and extremely proud. I still don't feel like I'm better than Pete Sampras, or Lendl for that matter. I still believe they are one of the all time greats to play the game. I'm just happy to be compared to them.
I'm actually happy that they are mentioned while I'm doing this because they have done amazing things in our sport. Sometimes legends do get forgotten rather quickly, which is unfortunate.
So for me to hear we are talking about Pete, Ivan, other players, I think is great for the sport and great for them. I mean, that I hold both records, sure, I'm very happy about it, I'm proud, because I know the effort that has gone into it. It's longevity, it's something you can't just do over a short period of time.

Fantastic.

For me, it's greatest achievement is not related to his record.


It's his game. I can have tears watching him play live like I would listening to a Mozart opera.

I have never seen anyhting like this across all sports.

Tenez wrote:For me, it's greatest achievement is not related to his record.


It's his game. I can have tears watching him play live like I would listening to a Mozart opera.

I have never seen anyhting like this across all sports.

TENEEEEEEEEZ!!!!!

Watch your heart, please....mind you when I look at myself, who am I to give any advice

laverfan wrote:Who says Federer is arrogant...?

"Yeah, of course I'm extremely happy and extremely proud. I still don't feel like I'm better than Pete Sampras, or Lendl for that matter. I still believe they are one of the all time greats to play the game. I'm just happy to be compared to them.
I'm actually happy that they are mentioned while I'm doing this because they have done amazing things in our sport. Sometimes legends do get forgotten rather quickly, which is unfortunate.
So for me to hear we are talking about Pete, Ivan, other players, I think is great for the sport and great for them. I mean, that I hold both records, sure, I'm very happy about it, I'm proud, because I know the effort that has gone into it. It's longevity, it's something you can't just do over a short period of time.

Fantastic.

Oh, this makes me want to give him a big hug

Did not see anyone referencing this article on 606v2 (published before the WTF win)...

http://msn.foxsports.com/tennis/story/Rod-Laver-predicts-Roger-Federer-Grand-Slam-drought-will-end-112111

laverfan wrote:Did not see anyone referencing this article on 606v2 (published before the WTF win)...

http://msn.foxsports.com/tennis/story/Rod-Laver-predicts-Roger-Federer-Grand-Slam-drought-will-end-112111

It seems clear to me that Roger Federer will now go on to win several grand slam tournaments just like he did after winning the World Tour Final in 2010.

laverfan wrote:Who says Federer is arrogant...?

"Yeah, of course I'm extremely happy and extremely proud. I still don't feel like I'm better than Pete Sampras, or Lendl for that matter. I still believe they are one of the all time greats to play the game. I'm just happy to be compared to them.
I'm actually happy that they are mentioned while I'm doing this because they have done amazing things in our sport. Sometimes legends do get forgotten rather quickly, which is unfortunate.
So for me to hear we are talking about Pete, Ivan, other players, I think is great for the sport and great for them. I mean, that I hold both records, sure, I'm very happy about it, I'm proud, because I know the effort that has gone into it. It's longevity, it's something you can't just do over a short period of time.

Fantastic.

Indeed there are many things to admire about the man.

Nore Staat wrote:It seems clear to me that Roger Federer will now go on to win several grand slam tournaments just like he did after winning the World Tour Final in 2010.

A healthy dose of skepticism with a dash of anticipation always helps keep one's feet firmly planted on terra firma.

laverfan wrote:

Nore Staat wrote:It seems clear to me that Roger Federer will now go on to win several grand slam tournaments just like he did after winning the World Tour Final in 2010.

A healthy dose of skepticism with a dash of anticipation always helps keep one's feet firmly planted on terra firma.

... and it keeps us watching the sport. Two of the biggest uncertainties for me are can Novak show the same level of intensity and fitness that he showed in 2011? Will Del Potro get back to challenging for slams? Everything else seems more or less as before but who knows

NS, unfortunately, Borg and Laver both are very bad at predictions.

by the way, i now have discovered why Federer lost the second set yesterday. if any one of you have been reading today's Evening Standard, you will also have discovered.

amongst the crowd of CELEBRITIES and STARS watching the final yesterday was this most famous celebrity and star Pippa Middleton.

i am sure Federer was so flattered and humbled by her presence that he lost the second set.

Tenez wrote:For me, it's greatest achievement is not related to his record.


It's his game. I can have tears watching him play live like I would listening to a Mozart opera.

I have never seen anyhting like this across all sports.

You are not alone. If he had all these achievements but his play was uninspiring I would be impressed but that is all. It is the play that moves me. The achievements are so important because they validate the virtuosity; without them the skill would be without purpose. To have the greatest talent also enjoy the greatest success is incredibly satisfying and a great affirmation for the sport.

Indeed. To produce that talent in the most extreme situations, also reveals a special mind. We had patches like that with McEnroe, Edberg, etc...but with Fed, talent is alsmost ssytematically delivered at a very high level. "I try my best to stay calm"...when we, behind our screens, if not sofa, can't take it anymore.

I am sure one day people will realise who the guy is.

Oh I think the world knows Mr Federer and his achievements pretty well but the time for true reflection back on a career is when a player has hung their racquet up...he's still planning to add to his cabinet yet!

lydian wrote:Oh I think the world knows Mr Federer and his achievements pretty well.

That's one thing but people are still shared between him, Nadal, Djoko, whoever...and can't quite see the huge gap there is, actually. It's not 6 slams....it's much more.

I think most people see Federer has having the best achievements of this century - people dont often know the detail like hardcore fans do, same for all sports really. Like I say, there'll be a true review once he's hanged his hat up - often people arent fully appreciated whilst they;re still in action.

No again, it's not his achievements, it's the sheer talent which is part of his game. Those who see it live can give him a standing ovation without having experienced any drama in a routine straight sets win.

I understand what you're saying, I thought you were alluding to other results beyond the 6 slams difference.

From Rafa's biography...


"All except Federer, at any rate. I’ve had to push and mold my body to adapt it to cope with the repetitive muscular stress that tennis forces on you, but he just seems to have been born to play the game. His physique—his DNA—seems perfectly adapted to tennis, rendering him immune to the injuries the rest of us are doomed to put up with."

...

The gap in talent with Federer existed, but it was not impossibly wide.



Amazing statements and acknowledgement from Nadal.

Yes, it's a fine tribute from Rafa. But Nadal's game is so all-out, with his fighting like mad for every point even when 40-love down, that it's bound to bring injuries with it.
I appreciate some of the above posts in their reference to HOW Fed plays and what it's like to see him in action. Power and style don't always mix in sport, but they do in Fed.
It's given to few to have that power-plus-style mix. In football I reckon Pele and Bobby Charlton had it. You can often have one without the other. In cricket, for example, Kevin Pietersen has power but not style. In tennis, Fabrice "The Magician" Santoro had style but not power. Sampras had wonderful power and moved effortlessly but, somehow - certainly for me - he lacked style. Laver, though, probably had both.

The power and style mix is interesting.

I used to be a big Carl Lewis fan (mostly retrospectively). He used to epitomise the mixture of power, grace and style.

Does anyone remember the Pirreli advert.

'Power is nothing without control'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPUz1HBOdQc

Loved that ad emancipator, what a pure athelete Lewis was.
Remember it well and I use that phrase at work alot too.

Another tennis player I used to love watching who I thought could crack the ball but play with grace was Michael Stich, a guy who I think had the best serve of all in terms of grace/power. He looked to barely touch it yet it flew at 135mph then (probably would be timed over 140 now).

SFP... from Cricket, I would add Gavaskar, Sobers, Vivian Richards, Imran Khan, Tendulkar, Lara, Ponting, Warne....

PS: and Bradman... (how can I forget... )

I am not fan just coz of his game, but for the way he conducts himself on and off the court, he is a tribute to the game. I like him more for the human he is more than the player he is.

He sets a benchmark in every aspect.

If you see Djokovic at such a young age started to do lot of social activities and fund raisers this year after becoming no.1, people these days think if u become no.1 its ur responsibilty to care for the society, and this is fed into the young generations mind by the greate feeder the Federer.

He not only raised the youngsters level of play, stamina etc,.. he raised the way they conduct themselves outside the court.

Proud to be born on his generation.

L'fan - yes , all the cricketers you mentioned do come into this power-plus-grace category (perhaps you could add Gower, although some would say he was all grace). I didn't originally mention Sobers but he, perhaps more than anyone, combined the two. Watching him run up to bowl off his long run (as opposed to his spinners) was to watch an artist in action. But hey, this is supposed to be a tennis thread. Forgive me.

What I find so impressive is how Fed deals with NOT being #1 anymore after such a long period of extreme dominance. The way he handled tough losses without any negative body language and without trying to find excuses is simply amazing.

Nadal of course has not been such a dominant #1 as Fed, and he has always been quick to point out that he is not (or not yet) the best even when he held the top rank. Just recently in London he again said that Federer would beat him on any surface "if he plays like that".

After his amazing run this year, Djokovic seems to be struggling with accepting that he cannot always be the best. I didn't like his body language at the US Open when it looked like he would lose again in the semis to Federer. Shrugging his shoulders, shaking his head, laughing ("How is it possible that I am losing to this guy?!").

With regard to Murray: obviously he hasn't yet been #1, but clearly has a lot to learn about on-court behaviour and also in his post-match interviews he should learn to "act like a man". But maybe he will! Federer himself claims that the moment he learned to always think positive was the turning point in his career.

Agassi and Sampras were closer to Fed in how they dealt with no longer being the best. But then again: maybe this comes only with age!

Nice points; I do agree that Nadal has a better approach to the handling the twin imposters of winning and losing than his young contempories.

Prostaff85 - good points about Murray. I fear his on-court demeanour/behaviour works against him. Unless you're the showman type (Baggy, JWT, Monfils) you simply CANNOT let your opponent know how you're feeling/thinking.
With Fed still capable of great tennis and Djoko now such a competitor I'm reluctantly coming round to the conclusion - reached already by some - that Murray will NEVER win a GS. I hope I'm wrong.

sfp : agreed, 'on-court demeanour' is so often a crucial factor as regards the outcome of a match - not least in those seesaw matches with dramatic fluctuations in scoreline

I think it's fair to say that Murray has improved a lot in this area. These days, he (mostly) shows great resolve after dropping a set. But at times he can still be his own worst enemy with outward signs of frustration or despair, whereas keeping an outward calm would perhaps give him a better chance of clawing his way back in a match that's seemingly slipping away. That said, Johnny Mac would of course very often benefit from his mid-match rants (even if it wasn't exactly a good example to any aspiring youngsters in the crowd....)

As for Djokovic .... well we now see him as the steely one, the strongest of the lot - and with good reason, after his stellar year. But it's not that far back that he too had his on-court troubles, and there are valuable lessons for Murray in the Djokovic transformation

Long before the introduction of the hawkeye system I have clear memories of Borg showing not even a hint of anger when a succession of close line calls had seemingly gone against him, or when his own game was going off the boil. He remained near-enough inscrutable and buckled down to put 100% focus into taking the next point.

Federer is undoubtedly the closest we have seen to Borg when it comes to controlling the emotions. The majority of Fed's career wins have been relatively smooth but in a good number of awkward matches his cause has undoubtedly been helped by that familiar combination of his own remarkable calm and his opponent's emotional displays. Last Sunday's final was the most recent example. Tsonga put up an impressive fight (and I was amongst those who gave him an excellent chance of taking the title). But the raw emotion that makes Tsonga good to watch can also be his undoing, and that clear sign of despair after going down a break in the third was surely just what Fed was hoping to see.

My comments do come with this qualification : as an armchair observer who has never experienced anything approaching the sort of competitive pressure and tension that is part & parcel of playing a sport at the world-class level that Murray has reached, I shall never know just how I would handle myself in such a situation.

Like Borg, Federer was a bad boy. For the Star Trek enthusiasts, they are both almost Vulcan, in the sense that the Vulcans are a highly emotional species - volatile to the point of self-destructiveness - who to survive learned to completely control and suppress emotion.

lags 72

Very aptly put by you. You could be the best armchair critic

"I shall never know just how I would handle myself in such a situation. "

Lags,

you don't need to be a top athlete to know how you'd hold your temper under stress and pressure.
As far as I'm concerned you can be as brutal as you like towards yourself, but never towards the others.

Lags72 :hatoff: (Wish there was a smiley )

BB... Vulcans also had the mind-meld and became absolutely logical before the advent of android Data.

WoW... perhaps LK needs to add an 'Armchair Critic' award and you and I can vote for Lags72.

laverfan wrote:Lags72 :hatoff: (Wish there was a smiley )
.

WoW... perhaps LK needs to add an 'Armchair Critic' award and you and I can vote for Lags72.

Tenez wrote:For me, it's greatest achievement is not related to his record.


It's his game. I can have tears watching him play live like I would listening to a Mozart opera.

I have never seen anyhting like this across all sports.

Agreed. He is simply a virtuoso. Sure, there may be a player that may come along and eclipse his statistical records, but would he be able to revolutionize the game the way Roger played with his flawless footwork and devastating forehand. Roger's balletic grace belies his extraordinary fitness because his body is the perfect build for a tennis player.

Like others here, I may need some form of counselling when Roger hangs up his racquet.

au contraire - his balletic grace actually emphasises his fitness - have you any idea just how fit you need to be as a dancer? Ballet dancers are insanely fit and strong - if you are a male dancer you have to leap, and lift and not visibly puff because it is a bit off-putting and detracts from the narrative of the dance.

Just think what an athlete you have to be to make the effort look effortless!