The news of the last few days on the presence of Roger Federer at the next edition of Wimbledon have frozen fans of the Swiss. One of his coaches Severin Luthi has in fact declared that, despite the rehabilitation process is progressing well, seeing him on the field at the British slam is really very unlikely.
Although the last appearance of the Swiss champion dates back to 7 July 2021, when he was clearly defeated by Hubert Hurkacz also thanks to a knee injury, Federer has an incredible longevity record. The 40-year-old from Basel, who currently occupies the 27th position in the world ranking with 1,665 points to his credit, achieved a truly extraordinary record this year.
Federer is in fact the only player to have always remained in the top 30 in the last twenty years. The Swiss tennis player made his debut in the top 30 at # 25, thanks to his second place finish at the Swiss Indoors in Basel in 2000.
Since then he has remained in the top 30 for over 1,113 weeks, proving his incredible longevity. In these two decades of extraordinary tennis, The Swiss Maestro has conquered the beauty of 103 titles, including 20 slam tournaments, 6 ATP Finals and 28 Masters 1000 and remained at the top of the ATP ranking for 310 weeks.
In the midst of the many successes, however, the downside are the many injuries that have forced the Swiss tennis player to take long breaks more than once, especially in recent years. Federer’s last triumph dates back to 27 October 2019, when he won his home ATP 500 in Basel, beating Alex De Minaur in the final.
The record achieved by Federer was however conditioned by the freezing of the ATP ranking due to Covid. The ATP announced that he would move to a best-of-24-month ranking from the traditional 12-month system. As a result, Federer has retained the points in the rankings of his tournament results dating back to 2019, which has helped him stay in the top 30.
However, the Swiss champion may soon drop out of the Top 30, probably as early as April, when they will be stolen. his points for the title won at the 2019 Miami Masters. The 20-time slam champion still holds points from his 2019 campaigns at Wimbledon, Miami Masters, Madrid Masters and Halle Open and if he doesn’t participate in any of these tournaments he would risk plummeting in the rankings, slipping out of the top 100.