Fed will not play rinky dink tournaments to break Connors record

ibbi said:
He says after playing a random 500 to get a record...
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It's not random, his first appearance was in '99, won in '05 & '12 and previous appearance in '13. In addition to this, he explicitly stated that him being so close to #1 made the decision to play it (not with the intention of surpassing 109) since he may never get a better opportunity again.
 
EloQuent said:
All players are officially required to play 4 ATP500 events.
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No they're not. Fed has been exempt from the mandatory tournaments for years (so is Rafa now that he is 31). The ATP has an age and total tournaments played formula which exempts older players from any criterion. Fed even skipped a slam last year when he was perfectly healthy with no repercussions. He doesn't have to play any Masters 1000's, 500's or 250's anymore.
 
He might change his mind in coming years, give the man a pass for crying out loud. He’s certainly entitled to play wherever he wants to as he sails off into the sunset.
 
BeatlesFan said:
No they're not. Fed has been exempt from the mandatory tournaments for years (so is Rafa now that he is 31). The ATP has an age and total tournaments played formula which exempts older players from any criterion. Fed even skipped a slam last year when he was perfectly healthy with no repercussions. He doesn't have to play any Masters 1000's, 500's or 250's anymore.
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I was reacting to ppl saying that playing Rotterdam is like chasing after minor titles. He doesn't have to play 500s like he doesn't have to play anything, but they are part of the tour.

If he was playing only 250s and 500s that would be different.
 
Chasing a record isn’t the same as chasing ranking points. A higher rank means a higher seed.
 
Given Connors’ opposition for the vast majority of the tournaments he won comprised of retired gym teachers and country club members we can conclude that Connors had a higher finals conversion record than Federer.

Therfore it would be interesting for one of the historical statisticians to remind us how many finals Fed has made versus Connors.

Don’t you suspect Federer has already far surpassed Connors on that metric?
 
Fed absolutely SHOULD aim to break the record by playing more inferior tournaments, on 2 conditions:

- He puts the slam number far away from Nad's reach, that is, by adding at least 2 more.Then he can play whatever tournaments for the sole sake of reaching 110.

- He can't win any more slams and considers retirement. Then there will be no harm in breaking another record before hanging the racket.
 
I'd be curious if anyone has a breakdown of Connors' titles broken down by quality of event. Size of draw, rank of entrants, any other way you can think of to map out which are equivalent to masters, 500, 250, challengers
 
YetAnotherFedFan said:
Given Connors’ opposition for the vast majority of the tournaments he won comprised of retired gym teachers and country club members we can conclude that Connors had a higher finals conversion record than Federer.

Therfore it would be interesting for one of the historical statisticians to remind us how many finals Fed has made versus Connors.

Don’t you suspect Federer has already far surpassed Connors on that metric?
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Federer has 97/146

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Federer_career_statistics

Connors 109/164

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Connors_career_statistics
 
EloQuent said:
I'd be curious if anyone has a breakdown of Connors' titles broken down by quality of event. Size of draw, rank of entrants, any other way you can think of to map out which are equivalent to masters, 500, 250, challengers
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Only 28 big titles out of 109. That's 81 titles at 500 level or below. Federer has 53 big titles out of 97 currently and most of the remaining ones are events he plays every year like Basel, Halle or Dubai.
 
tennis_pro said:
Only 28 big titles out of 109. That's 81 titles at 500 level or below. Federer has 53 big titles out of 97 currently and most of the remaining ones are events he plays every year like Basel, Halle or Dubai.
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yeah I mean I hear a lot about how a bunch of the tournaments Connors won are challenger level. Curious if anyone can quantify it.

Also, and correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the tour less structured, so there weren't as many big titles, was basically slams, tour finals and tiny events.
 
Maybe Fed should play Istanbul again as a clay warm up and vulture another tournament win?
 
Federer played far tougher opponents than Connors did. This is why I like to look at how many top 5 and top 10 wins each player has in his career, along with top 20:

Vs top 20 opponents:
Connors: 232-132
Federer: 356-145

Vs top 10 opponents:
Connors: 121-100
Federer: 214-108

Vs top 5 opponents:
Connors: 51-78
Federer: 102-67

Federer has played far more top ranked opponents and did far better against them than Connors did.

My favorite stat above is that Federer has twice as many wins against top-5 players than Connors does.

Nobody can accuse Federer of taking the easy road, when looking at the numbers above.
 
I think Fed should aim to get about 7-8 titles (250s and 500s) and hopefully win enough M 1000 or slams to make up the difference.

Fed, if you’re reading this, come play Houston! Great tournament and you have a good chance on the clay!
 
Pheasant said:
Vs top 5 opponents:
Connors: 51-78
Federer: 102-67

Federer has played far more top ranked opponents and did far better against them than Connors did.
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LOL when you see that most of those 67 loses are by the three members of the Big 4. 57/67 loses are to Nadal/Djokovic/Murray, that only a few of those 57 loses are likely to be when the three were not in Top 5.
 
If he gets to 108 tournament wins we'll find out...I suspect he'd find his way to a nice easy 250 if he thought slam/masters wins were getting out of reach.
 
Prabhanjan said:
LOL when you see that most of those 67 loses are by the three members of the Big 4. 57/67 loses are to Nadal/Djokovic/Murray, that only a few of those 57 loses are likely to be when the three were not in Top 5.
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Nice call. 54 of his losses to the Big Four were when they were ranked in the top 5.

That makes Federer’s record against the top 5 that much more impressive. He really faced some tough opponents.
 
Nadalgaenger said:
I think Fed should aim to get about 7-8 titles (250s and 500s) and hopefully win enough M 1000 or slams to make up the difference.

Fed, if you’re reading this, come play Houston! Great tournament and you have a good chance on the clay!
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Haha, you really want him to pop by Houston. He should, it’s a nice city. I reckon his last year or two may be a global tour - like a U2 travelling roadshow.
 
250 level tournaments are supported by fans who do not live in larger more lucrative markets. Maybe he could support the tennis fans at all levels who made his very lucrative career possible along with his talent. A little less philanthropy and rubbing elbows with the uber rich would leave time to play tourneys that those of us who drive the hotel shuttle might access.
 
Greatgatsby said:
250 level tournaments are supported by fans who do not live in larger more lucrative markets. Maybe he could support the tennis fans at all levels who made his very lucrative career possible along with his talent. A little less philanthropy and rubbing elbows with the uber rich would leave time to play tourneys that those of us who drive the hotel shuttle might access.
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Perhaps you didn't intend to come across this way, but it seems you feel awfully entitled to 36.5-year-old family-man Fed's finite reserves of time and physical exertion.
 
FederErizeD said:
Fed absolutely SHOULD aim to break the record by playing more inferior tournaments, on 2 conditions:

- He puts the slam number far away from Nad's reach, that is, by adding at least 2 more.Then he can play whatever tournaments for the sole sake of reaching 110.

- He can't win any more slams and considers retirement. Then there will be no harm in breaking another record before hanging the racket.
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I'm in agreement. I actually hope he DOES go for the 250's as he nears 40 years old. He's already ancient and will have difficulty remaining competitive in slams after a couple of years. At 39 or so, why not go for this record rather than retire?

It's not our call, ofcourse. If he says he doesn't want to do that, then he doesn't want to do it. I just think that if he finds himself within 2-3 tournaments by the end of 2020, he'd reconsider.
 
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