Longest No. 1 run, Grand Slam streaks: Which Roger Federer records are unbreakable ahead of retirement?

ByJames Walker-Roberts

Updated 18/09/2022 at 07:15 GMT

Roger Federer has seen Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic overtake him in the Grand Slam standings, but which records of his are likely to prove unbreakable? Federer, 41, is going to retire after the 2022 Laver Cup, where he will team up with Nadal, Djokovic and Andy Murray on Team Europe. Federer has spent the most consecutive weeks as world No. 1 and holds some remarkable Grand Slam streaks.

The Laver Cup will be Roger Federer’s last competitive tennis event before he retires from the sport.

The 41-year-old will step away with 103 titles, second in the Open era to Jimmy Connors’ 109, 1,251 singles wins, second again to Connors’ 1,274, and 310 weeks as world No. 1, behind only Novak Djokovic's 373.

Even though he will not leave the sport with the most Grand Slam titles, with his total of 20 having been passed by Rafael Nadal (22) and Djokovic (21), Federer holds several records which may never be beaten.

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World No. 1 for 237 weeks in a row

Although Federer has played into his 40’s, the period from 2004 to 2008 will likely be remembered as his most impressive, and certainly his most dominant, on tour.

He replaced Andy Roddick as world No. 1 after winning his first Australian Open in 2004 and would not slip from the top of the rankings until August 2008.

During that time he won 10 Grand Slam titles and in 2006 enjoyed arguably his best-ever season, winning 12 singles titles, including the Australian Open, Wimbledon, the US Open and the ATP Finals. He was eventually displaced as No. 1 after Nadal won gold at the Beijing Olympics.

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Nobody has come close to Federer’s 237 straight weeks as world No. 1.

Connors is second in the standings with 160 weeks, 77 short of Federer. Djokovic’s best run at the top was 122 weeks, which ended in 2016.

Five US Open titles in a row

Maybe not a record that immediately stands out, but Federer is the only player to win five consecutive US Open titles in the Open era.

The US Open is perhaps the toughest major to dominate.

It is played on a surface that most players enjoy, unlike the French Open and Wimbledon, and it is late in the summer so there are often injuries or niggles to contend with.

Federer won his first US Open as a 23-year-old in 2004, beating Andre Agassi in five sets in the quarter-finals and then easing past Tim Henman and Lleyton Hewitt. Federer followed up by beating Agassi, Andy Roddick and Novak Djokovic in the next three finals. In 2008 he had lost the world No. 1 ranking and was yet to win a Grand Slam title, but he beat Djokovic in the semi-finals and then Andy Murray in the final to clinch a fifth straight US Open.

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Federer came so close to making it six in a row. In 2009 he was beaten in the final by a 20-year-old Juan Martin del Potro having led by two sets to one.

“It probably feels like one of those matches I would like to play over again,” said Federer in 2017 about the final. “I feel like I would probably win it somehow because I should have been up maybe 2-0 or should have been up 2-1.”

Federer’s achievement of winning five in a row is highlighted by the fact nobody has defended the men’s title in New York since his last victory. And in the Open era, John McEnroe and Ivan Lendl are the only men to have won more than two consecutive US Open titles.

Federer also won Wimbledon for five straight years but that could be matched by Djokovic in 2023.

Grand Slam final and semi-final streaks

Federer’s peak was a staggeringly high level of consistency.

Between Wimbledon 2005 and the 2007 US Open he reached 10 Grand Slam finals in a row, winning eight of them. And from a year earlier – Wimbledon 2004 – to the 2010 Australian Open he made 23 consecutive Grand Slam semi-finals.

Federer also reached 36 Grand Slam quarter-finals in a row before his shock loss to Sergiy Stakhovsky in the second round of Wimbledon 2013.

It’s hard to imagine that any these crazily consistent streaks will ever bettered.

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Winning 24 finals in a row

Iga Swiatek has been dominant in finals so far in her career, but even she has some way to go to match Federer’s incredible run of 24 wins in a row in finals.

The streak started in Vienna in 2003 and ran until the season-ending Masters Cup in 2005 when he lost to David Nalbadian.

The run included victories in finals over Agassi, Hewitt, Roddick, Marat Safin and Nadal.

No straight-set losses in 194 matches

From 2004 to 2006, Federer played nearly 200 matches where he won at least one set.

He only suffered 10 losses during the incredible run, five of which were against Nadal.

Carlos Alcaraz has gone 65 matches in a row winning at least one set after his US Open victory, but it’s testament again to Federer’s remarkable consistency and quality that he was able to string together a run of 194 matches without a straight-set loss.

Federer’s run ended in Cincinnati when he was beaten in the second round by Murray.

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