{"id":1109,"date":"2013-03-06T14:42:21","date_gmt":"2013-03-06T19:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=1109"},"modified":"2013-03-06T14:42:21","modified_gmt":"2013-03-06T19:42:21","slug":"federer-nadal-and-semifinal-or-later-streaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/06\/federer-nadal-and-semifinal-or-later-streaks\/","title":{"rendered":"Federer, Nadal, and Semifinal-or-Later Streaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Indian Wells men’s draw has been released<\/a>, and a big question has been answered. \u00a0Rafael Nadal<\/a>, about as dangerous a floater as can be imagined with a #5 seed, landed in Roger Federer<\/a>‘s quarter. \u00a0(Sorry Roger, it had to happen to someone, and David Ferrer<\/a> has suffered enough<\/a> lately.)<\/p>\n

If Fed and Rafa both win three matches, they’ll face each other in a quarterfinal match. \u00a0That’s something that’s never happened before. \u00a0The pair has met 28 times<\/a>, 26 of them in a semifinal or final. \u00a0The only exceptions are their first match in 2004, when Nadal was seeded 32nd in Miami, and a round-robin pairing at the 2011 tour finals. \u00a0Ignoring the round-robin, that’s 26 matches in a row in one of the last two rounds of an event.<\/p>\n

That’s a historically great streak, but it’s not the record. \u00a0In fact, one player is a part of\u00a0two<\/em> streaks–the only two streaks–that are better.<\/p>\n

Jimmy Connors<\/a> is 1st, with 28 consecutive semis or finals<\/a> against Ivan Lendl<\/a>, and 2nd, with 27 consecutive semis or finals<\/a> against (who else?) John McEnroe<\/a>. \u00a0He’s also eighth (21 straight<\/a> against Bjorn Borg<\/a>) and 12th (14<\/a> with Ilie Nastase<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Until the threat of this week’s draw, Federer and Nadal were right on Connors’s tail. \u00a0If Roger and Rafa meet in the quarters, the heir presumptive pair will have to include Novak Djokovic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here’s the all-time top ten:<\/p>\n

Streak  Player1          Player2           \n28      Jimmy Connors    Ivan Lendl        \n27      Jimmy Connors    John McEnroe      \n26      Rafael Nadal     Roger Federer     \n23      Rafael Nadal     Novak Djokovic    \n22      Stefan Edberg    Boris Becker      \n22      Roger Federer    Novak Djokovic    \n22      John McEnroe     Ivan Lendl        \n21      Bjorn Borg       Jimmy Connors     \n19      Stefan Edberg    Ivan Lendl        \n17      Ivan Lendl       Boris Becker<\/pre>\n
If Nadal stays #5 for long (unlikely as that seems), both the all-time #3 and #4 streaks could be halted. \u00a0But as long as Federer stays within the top four, the current #6 streak will climb the rankings.<\/p>\n
Of course, there are a couple of other combinations with the potential to crack this list, even reach the top:<\/p>\n
Streak  Player1         Player2        \n11      Andy Murray     Roger Federer  \n10      Novak Djokovic  Andy Murray<\/pre>\n
But we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. \u00a0It took five years for Fed and Nadal to get from 11 up to 26. \u00a0As the top of the list shows, it takes two consistently great players to put together a streak like this.<\/p>\n
All is not lost, though. \u00a0If they play in the quarters, they’ll just have to shift their focus to a new record: consecutive meetings in\u00a0quarterfinals<\/em> or later. \u00a027 straight would put them behind Connors-McEnroe (32), Connors-Lendl (29), and one pair they’re unlikely to chase down: Nadal-Djokovic (29).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Indian Wells men’s draw has been released, and a big question has been answered. \u00a0Rafael Nadal, about as dangerous a floater as can be imagined with a #5 seed, landed in Roger Federer‘s quarter. \u00a0(Sorry Roger, it had to happen to someone, and David Ferrer has suffered enough lately.) If Fed and Rafa both … Continue reading Federer, Nadal, and Semifinal-or-Later Streaks<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-head-to-heads","category-records"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}