Federer Beats Tsitsipas In Dubai For 100th Career Title

What a milestone – Congrats Fed!

March 2nd, 2019 at 11:36 pm

Incredible. The Legend still lives on. Keep it comin’ Fed! Congrats!

March 3rd, 2019 at 2:57 pm

The Tennis WORLD reacts;

http://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/26119658/tennis-world-reacts-roger-federer-100th-singles-title

March 3rd, 2019 at 6:45 pm

At some point, you just run out of superlatives.

March 4th, 2019 at 12:24 pm

Roger’s incredible record makes me wonder about Connors – and how long it took him to amass 109 wins. That’s mind-boggling.

Does anyone have an idea how many years Jimmy needed to get to 109? I know he played until almost 40…

March 4th, 2019 at 2:26 pm

congratulations federer, for your wonderful achievement

March 5th, 2019 at 4:40 am

PK – Jimmy he won his last title in 1989 when he was 37, which would have made him roughly the same age as Federer. He won his 1st title in 1972, so it took him roughly 17 years to amass his titles. Very comparable overall to Federer. Connors had one advantage in that he didn’t have to travel nearly as much as Federer as the tennis explosion in the US afforded him the opportunity to compete in numerous events without traveling the globe as players must do now. On the downside, Connors played World Team Tennis for 4 years which prevented him from playing at the French Open for 4 years and he only played the Australian Open a couple of times. Had he been as focused on major titles as the guys are today, he would have possibly picked up a half dozen more titles at least.

March 5th, 2019 at 9:46 am

‘Had he been as focused on major titles as the guys are today, he would have possibly picked up a half dozen more titles at least.’
====================

The players in the 70s did focus on the major, best money paying events then as now. It is just they were different save USLTA Championships (USO) and Wimbledon. RG was for clay players. Davis Cup was bigger than RG, as was the WTC national championships at Madison Square garden. Canada’s Rogers Cup paid more than the Australian National Championships in the 1970s and easier to get to. Same with the Pacific Championships. Borg and McEnroe skipped the Australian Championships most years as well.
Too little and too long, too bad a time. As in too little money, Too long for travel (also at high cost in those days). Save “the locals” of course. Too bad a time because the thing was set in late December to middle January based on what the frigging school superintendent decided in Sept what would be school days off for the Christmas/Boxin Day holidays.

1983 to me, marks when it was finally considered a Major.

Similar happened with the Olympics. McEnroe said he skipped it as not worth the bother, the pay hadn’t been set by many sponsors of pros. He regrets it now, he says. Sampras played in 1992, skipped it in 1996 and 2000. Now the Olympics are rightly considered a major, high audience, high prestige event and Everybody it seems, wants to compete after 2000.

March 5th, 2019 at 12:19 pm

Really interesting points by Truthsquad in regards to Connors. Imagine a scenario where air travel is the way it is now and there isn’t a WTT distraction. Perhaps Connors and Mac both have double digit slam counts and Borg wins some Australians to further beef up his slam numbers as well. They were already a Big 3 at that time but they could well have been as dominant as today’s Big 3 at the major events. It makes you realize just how good Connors, Borg and Mac were and how much more they would have accomplished if they had been born 30 years later. It puts the “Best of All Time” arguments in a different light.

March 5th, 2019 at 12:47 pm

Connors may not have been a likable person but he was an incredible fighter and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player with better tactical instincts than him. He was an aggressive baseliner but he knew how to get to net when he had to and he knew what to do when he got there. He was also incredibly fast and his return was the best ever at that time. And he did most of it with that Wilson T-1000 which probably had a sweet spot only slightly bigger than a quarter.

When you win 109 titles, you have to be pretty damn good.

March 5th, 2019 at 12:55 pm

Once upon a time it was very knowledgeable poster on TX with Ben Pronin moniker.
I am pretty sure that he commented once about tournaments and formats of those tournaments in Connors time, basically saying that you just can’t compare tournaments from those days with today’s ones. He was talking about tournaments in America, where the players were literally traveling from town to town on weekly basis, playing few rounds, winning, collecting money and moving on to next tournament in the town around the corner.
I apologise in advance if I misunderstood or misinterpreted your posts Ben, even we disagreed few times I respected you as one of the most knowledgeable posters on TX ever.
I checked Connors titles, 75% of them are won in North America and if you look at the names of tournaments one wouldn’t have a clue they even existed and you can’t find them on today’s tennis map. He didn’t have to play 5-6 rounds to win them either, majority of them. Completely different time, different format and just not comparable with what today’s players have to go through to win 1 tournaments nevertheless 100 of them.

As for his equipment, I don’t see how disadvantaged was he when he played with excatly the same equipment like any other player of his time, neither better nor worse, if he had better equipment so would his opponents?
What I am trying to say is that Federer 100 titles are much much heavier than Connors 109 title, but so are Rafa’s and Nole’s.
You just can’t compare oranges and apples, nor you can compare different eras.
This is coming from Connors fan.

March 5th, 2019 at 6:50 pm

WB is right. If you look at some of Jimmy’s pro titles you see wins at the Rubbermaid Invitational, the Tri-Cities N Carolina event, Orange Growers of Florida Tournament in Orlando.
And before that, the Australians were riding around together in station wagons and Willies and buses from event to event on a weekly basis, sometimes playing twice a day and living off the gambler organizers appearance fees given under the table so they didn’t lose their amateur status.

Fed’s titles are weightier. Same with the others.

But also true is that medicine and improved scientific conditioning training keeps our era’s pros around longer. Had he played in the 1970s, Nadal would have been gone on injury before he turned 25.

March 6th, 2019 at 10:01 am

I agree that Roger’s 100 titles are a more impressive feat but ask Ivan Lendl if he thinks Jimmy’s 109 titles are somehow diminished by the era he played in. Ask Borg or McEnroe. Jimmy beat them all when many had already gone to graphite and he was still wielding that glorified tuning fork. Jimmy played in a tough era. All I was trying to say is that he would have likely won few more majors had he played the AO and FO throughout his career (which was what Truthsquad stated). He likely missed out on the chance to compete in 14 or 16 slams when he had legitimate chance to win them.

Jimmy wasn’t the most powerful guy or the most talented guy on tour. But he was the smartest. Jimmy always did things his way. Most of his peers considered him a bit of a jerk. Perhaps more than a bit of one. However, I don’t any of us should belittle a guy with his tennis record just because Federer now has 100 wins on tour.

March 6th, 2019 at 12:46 pm

No one else could play with that tuning fork, has anyone tried to play with one? Fuggitaboutit,

March 6th, 2019 at 1:00 pm

Yes CF1, that’s what I was talking about, the numbers are beefed up thanks to the way they were competing at the time. No way he should have collected so many titles in today’s tennis.
I mean the guy had 15 titles at the age of 20 (imagine that happening today) all of them won in America, he didn’t have to travel anywhere else to win so many titles, not around the globe.
Nobody is this disputing that he is a legend, top 10 all time player, it was similar era as today quality wise, Borg, McEnroe and later Lendl.

March 6th, 2019 at 2:12 pm

Might be wrong but I think Eddie Dibbs played with some sort of spaghetti string set-up in his glorified tuning fork. Eddie had a very respectable career. Gael Monfils would take his career in a heartbeat.

March 7th, 2019 at 12:46 pm

Eddie Dibbs! SG1 you are going waaay back lol. Didn’t Nasty Nastase use those illegal strings at one time?

March 7th, 2019 at 6:17 pm

Not sure about Nasty and those funky strings. Eddie had some decent slam results though. A couple of FO semis and a USO quarter I believe. I think he won some clay court events in Europe as well.

I also think he played some some doubles with Harold Solomon who I saw play in an EXO in Montreal in the early 80’s. Solomon had a decent career of his own.

March 8th, 2019 at 12:54 pm