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Roger Federer may be retired from professional tennis, but there’s no reason we can’t celebrate him turning 42 years young today! Here’s a stat for each one of his 42 birthdays so far:
1 is for No. 1, where Federer spent 237 straight weeks from 2004 to 2008, the longest streak at No. 1 in either ATP or WTA rankings history. He would spend a total of 310 career weeks at the top spot.
2 is for winning two different majors five years in a row each. He’s the only player in tennis history—male or female—to achieve that feat, winning five Wimbledons in a row from 2003 to 2007 and five US Opens in a row from 2004 to 2008.
3 is for winning three different majors five (or more) times each. He’s the only man in tennis history to achieve that feat with six Australian Opens, eight Wimbledons and five US Opens to his name (he also won one Roland Garros title in 2009).
4 is for the four years in a row where he was in the finals of Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open. He reached the final of all of those majors in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009—he also reached the Australian Open final in three of those years.
5 is for his five year-end No. 1 finishes in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009. That’s tied for third-most in ATP rankings history with Jimmy Connors and Rafael Nadal, trailing only Novak Djokovic (seven) and Pete Sampras (six).
6 is for his six ATP Finals titles in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2010 and 2011. He’s tied with Djokovic for most titles in the history of the season-ending championships, which began in 1970.
7 is for going 7-0 in his first seven Grand Slam finals. It’s the best undefeated start to a career in Grand Slam finals for any player in the Open Era, male or female, with Monica Seles coming in right behind him at 6-0 in her first six.
8 is for his eight Wimbledon titles in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 and 2017, which is the all-time men’s record at the most famous tennis tournament in the world.
9 is for being ranked No. 1 at some point in nine different years. He touched the top spot in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2018.
10 is for reaching the final at 10 consecutive Grand Slam events, from Wimbledon in 2005 to the US Open in 2007, the longest streak of major finals for a man in tennis history. Even crazier: after falling to Djokovic in the semifinals of the next one at the 2008 Australian Open, he reached the final at the next eight majors in a row—the second-longest streak of major finals for a man in tennis history.
11 is for 11,478 career aces, the third-most on record since the ATP began tracking the stat in 1991. He only trails John Isner (14,391) and Ivo Karlovic (13,728).
12 is for winning 12 ATP titles in 2006, still the highest single-season tally since Thomas Muster in 1995 (Muster also won 12 that year). Federer’s haul in 2006 included three majors (Australian Open, Wimbledon, US Open) as well as the ATP Finals title.
13 is for winning the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award a record 13 times, from 2004 to 2009 and 2011 to 2017 (Nadal won it in 2010). They’re among his record 40 overall ATP Awards.
14 is for spending more than 14 straight years in the Top 10, from October 2002 to November 2016. His run of 734 weeks in the elite is the third-longest Top 10 streak in ATP rankings history after Nadal’s 912 weeks from 2005 to 2023 and Connors’ 789 from 1973 to 1988.
15 is for winning at least one ATP title for 15 straight years, from 2001 to 2015. He didn’t win one in his knee injury-marred 2016 season, then won at least four a year from 2017 to 2019.
16 is for winning 50 or more matches in 16 different seasons, the most for a man in the Open Era. He achieved the feat every year from 2002 to 2012, then in 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2019.
17 is for reaching the final of 17 straight tournaments between 2005 and 2006. After falling to Nadal in the semis of Roland Garros in 2005, he reached the final at all six events he played the rest of the year (winning five) and then at the first 11 events he played the next year (winning seven). Andy Murray snapped the streak by defeating him in the second round of Cincinnati in 2006.
18 is for his 18 year-end Top 10 finishes, tied for the most in ATP rankings history with Nadal. Federer finished in the Top 10 every year from 2002 to 2020 except for 2016.
19 is for winning ATP titles in 19 different countries in his career. He won 103 ATP titles in his career. The country breakdown: the United States (23), Germany (16), Switzerland (11), Great Britain (10), Australia (8), the UAE (8), China (4), France (3), the Netherlands (3), Qatar (3), Spain (3), Austria (2), Canada (2), Thailand (2), Italy (1), Japan (1), Portugal (1), Sweden (1) and Turkey (1).
20 is for his 20 career Grand Slam titles. He was the first man in tennis history to hit that number, and has since been surpassed by Nadal and Djokovic, who now have 22 and 23, respectively.
21 is for his age when he captured the first of his 20 Grand Slam titles. He won his first major at Wimbledon in 2003, a month before his 22nd birthday.
22 is for his age when he first reached No. 1. That came on February 2nd, 2004, after he won his second major at the Australian Open that year.
23 is for reaching 23 consecutive Grand Slam semifinals, between Wimbledon in 2004 and the Australian Open in 2010. It’s the longest Grand Slam semifinal streak for a man in tennis history.
24 is for winning 24 finals in a row between October 2003 and November 2005, the longest winning streak in tour-level finals for a man in the Open Era, and by a long way—Bjorn Borg is next with 15.
25 is for playing 25 years on the tour without a single retirement. He played 1,526 singles matches (1,251-275) and 224 doubles matches (131-93) in his career.
26 is for 26 career indoor titles, just over a quarter of his overall career haul (26 of 103, or 25.2%). He has the fourth-best indoor winning percentage for a man in the Open Era at 81.0% (trailing only John McEnroe’s 85.3%, Ivan Lendl’s 83.0% and Connors’ 81.6%).
27 is for the 27 Davis Cup ties he played for Switzerland in his career, including leading his team to the title in 2014. He had a 52-18 career record in the competition (40-8 in singles, 12-10 in doubles).
28 is for his 28 career Masters 1000 titles, the third-most in series history after Djokovic (38) and Nadal (36). Federer’s most successful Masters 1000 event was Cincinnati, which he won seven times.
29 is for his 29-match winning streak at Masters 1000 events from 2005 to 2006, which brought him four straight titles at Hamburg, Cincinnati, Indian Wells and Miami and to a fifth final in a row at Monte Carlo in 2006, where Nadal ended his run.
30 is for being named the highest-paid athlete in the world by Forbes in 2020, the first tennis player to finish No. 1 in the 30-year history of the list. He earned $106.3 million that year.
31 is for his 31 career Grand Slam finals, the second-most for a man in tennis history after Djokovic’s 35. Federer went 20-11 in his 31.
32 is for 32% of first serve return points won in his career, and it’s not far off being rounded to 33% (it’s actually 32.49%). He won 24,113 of the 74,206 first serve return points he ever played.
33 is for his 33 career wins in five-setters, tied with Sampras for fifth-most in the Open Era after Ilie Nastase (42), Djokovic (37), Lendl (36) and Marin Cilic (34).
34 is for when he won 34 sets in a row at Wimbledon, the longest consecutive set streak for a man in the tournament’s history, and he actually did it twice, from the third round in 2005 to the final in 2006 and from the first round in 2017 to the quarterfinals in 2018.
35 is for winning 35 matches in a row in 2005, the second-longest winning streak of his career, which brought him titles at Halle, Wimbledon, Cincinnati, the US Open and Bangkok before David Nalbandian finally snapped it in the final of the ATP Finals.
36 is for reaching 36 consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinals, between Wimbledon in 2004 and Roland Garros in 2013. It’s the longest Grand Slam quarterfinal streak for a man in tennis history.
37 is for his age when he won his 28th and final Masters 1000 title at Miami in 2019. That’s still the record for oldest player ever to win a Masters 1000 event.
38 is for his age when he won his 103rd and final ATP title at Basel in 2019. He has the second-most career ATP titles in the Open Era (after Connors’ 109).
39 is for his age when he played the final singles match of his career at Wimbledon in 2021, falling to Hubert Hurkacz in the quarterfinals. His final tour-level match, period, came in doubles at the Laver Cup in 2022—41 at the time, he partnered Nadal and fell to Jack Sock and Frances Tiafoe in a nail-biter.
40 is for his 40-match winning streaks at Wimbledon (2003 to 2008) and the US Open (2004 to 2009). His Wimbledon winning streak is the second-longest for a man in the Open Era (after Borg’s 41 in a row from 1976 to 1981) and his US Open winning streak is actually the longest in the Open Era for any player, male or female.
41 is for his career-best 41-match winning streak between 2006 and 2007, which included his last 29 matches of 2006 (bringing him titles at the US Open, Tokyo, Madrid, Basel and the ATP Finals) and his first 12 matches of 2007 (bringing him titles at the Australian Open and Dubai). His streak was snapped in his opening match at Indian Wells by Guillermo Canas.
And finally, 42 is for Federer winning his record-breaking 42nd consecutive match on grass in the first round of Wimbledon in 2006, with a 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 victory over Richard Gasquet. With that victory, he surpassed Borg for longest grass-court winning streak for a man in the Open Era, a record that still stands strong.
“It’s nice to get any streak,” he said afterwards. “I’m still going, so even better if I can maybe postpone it and make it even last longer.”
He would eventually extend the streak to a ridiculous 65 in a row before Nadal finally snapped it in the 2008 Wimbledon final.
