Roger this, roger that

Swiss tennis star Roger Federer claims 1,000th career win

By Michael Sopow, Sports Reporter

On January 11, famed Swiss-born tennis player Roger Federer claimed his 1,000th victory in the finals of the Brisbane International tennis tournament against promising Canadian-talent Milos Raonic. Federer won the best of three sets, 6-4, 6-7 (2), and 6-4.

Only two other players in the history of tennis have ever accomplished this feat: Jimmy Connors, who ended his career with 1,253 wins, and Ivan Lendl, who totaled 1,071 victories.

“Clearly it’s a special day for me, winning a title plus getting to the magic number of 1,000,” Federer said to the Telegraph after the match. “It feels very different to any other match I’ve ever won.

“All those [milestone] numbers didn’t mean anything to me, but for some reason 1,000 means a lot because it’s such a huge number. Just alone to count to 1,000 is going to take a while.”

Federer, who is currently ranked second in the world, holds other career accomplishments under his belt besides his newly achieved 1,000 career victories.

Federer has been credited for holding the world’s number one ranked position for over five years, winning 17 Grand Slam singles titles, and reaching the Wimbledon final nine times.

Federer has reportedly been playing tennis since age of eight, and three years later was considered among the elite junior tennis players in Switzerland, entering tennis professionally in 1998.

At 20 years of age, Federer eliminated reigning champion at the time Pete Sampras in the fourth round at Wimbledon. Federer then went on to become the first ever Swiss Grand Slam title winner after defeating Mark Philippoussis at Wimbledon in 2003.

In 2004, Federer won the Australian Open, the US Open, the ATP Masters, and retained the Wimbledon singles title against Andy Roddick. It was also the year he moved from the second overall spot, to first overall. In 2006, Federer won his second Australian Open title, his fourth consecutive Wimbledon singles title, and his third consecutive US Open.

Federer held the title of the “number one ranked tennis player in the world” from 2004 to 2008, and in 2009, after a brief break from the top, he reclaimed the number one spot. Younger players such as Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic served as rivals and resilient competition for Roger Federer, but in 2012 he was able to overcome Djokovic in the semifinals, and beat Andy Murray to become the Wimbledon 2012 champion. This allowed Federer to once again regain the number one spot, and tie Pete Sampras’ first-place ranking record of 286 weeks.

Currently 33, Federer has not expressed the possibility of retirement.