Tennis champion Roger Federer has set many records in his sport. He is widely regarded as the greatest men’s singles player of all time. He has the most men’s Grand Slam singles titles (20), the highest hard court match win percentage (87.6%) and, at 36 years old, Federer is the world’s oldest number one male competitor in the history of the ATP.
Federer’s “50 Grand Slam quarterfinal” appearances, a record Federer continues to extend to this day thanks to a quarterfinal outing at the 2017 US Open and his outright success at the 2018 Australian Open.
He has competed 52 times in the final eight of a major and, as he shows no signs of slowing down, could surely feature in a few more.
Future generations will struggle to surpass many of Federer’s records as he is a “different, once-in-a-lifetime, best of all times beast.” The most unbreakable record was regarded to be the 237 consecutive weeks Federer spent ranked as the world’s number one men’s player from February 2004 to August 2008.
Annabel Gong explained: “For someone from the next generation to beat this record that would mean he would have to stay at number one for over four and a half years!
“This would be insanely hard because you can’t have a major injury that makes you withdraw from a Grand Slam or a major tournament, and you have to win a fair share of tournaments to keep your points higher than the number two seed.”
Though Federer is unlikely to extend that consecutive run now, one streak he can continue to stretch is another record of his — total weeks spent as world number one, which is currently 308. That’s almost six years, in total, at the very top of the game.