There are records in Tennis that an average fan remembers because of his or her emotional connect to a player or as a tribute to the competitor’s popularity on the court. For instance, you will hardly find an admirer in the present era that would not be aware of Roger Federer’s Grand Slam record or Rafael Nadal’s winning streak on clay or Novak Djokovic’s uninterrupted run of wins in 2011. And then, there are records that may have not caught the eye of an ordinary enthusiast, but these are records that can be virtually put in the category of being hailed as ‘Fascinating’.
Records in Tennis are generally synonymous with the top stars of the game – the likes of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic hold the major chunk of records accomplished since the turn of the century. Although, there are some records that are still owned by yesteryear legends like Pete Sampras, Jimmy Connors and Boris Becker.
Nonetheless, we can split the records in two categories – the ones who honor their holders, while there are others that simply put their possessors in a unique position. Let us look at 5 such records.
Roger Federer — Most Successive Points Won on Serve in a Match: The maestro owns virtually every record that is there to be recorded on a tennis court, be it the most Grand Slams won or the maximum weeks spent as the World No. 1 or the number of semifinals reached in a row at the Majors. However, the one record that he holds which many would not be familiar with came at the US Open in 2007.
In his fourth round duel against Feliciano Lopez, he did something that only he could have done – after losing the opening set, he barely managed to pocket the second and had to fend off three break points in the first game of the third before getting on a roll on his serve – remarkably he won the next 35 points on his first and second delivery. Yes, he didn’t lose a single point thereafter on his serve.
Samuel Groth — Fastest Serve Ever Recorded: The 30 –year-old Australian is a new entrant in the record books of the sport as he fired the fastest serve ever on the men’s circuit at a Challenger in Busan in 2012. Currently ranked in the 247th in the official ATP rankings, the Melbourne resident sent down a ball that the speed gun showed travelled at an astonishing pace of 163 MPH (263 KPH), breaking the previous record held by Albano Olivetti of France who had hit a serve at the rate of 160 mph (257 km/h) during the Bergamo Challenger earlier in the same year.
Sam Querrey — Maximum Consecutive Aces Hit in a Contest: Two-time Grand Slam semifinalist Sam Querrey hit 10 aces on the trot in his triumph over the former World No. 4 James Blake at the Indianapolis Tennis Championships in July 2007 – many consider this to be an Open Era record.
Marc Rosset — Highest Number of Double Faults Committed in a Clash: Marc Rosset, the proud owner of the Gold Medal at the Barcelona Olympics, committed a terrible 26 double-faults in his loss to Michael Joyce of the United States in the first round of Wimbledon in 1995. Nonetheless, the Swiss who was one of the heroes of the superstar Roger Federer made tremendous improvements to his play by the end of the season as he reached his career best ranking of No. 9 and also made it through to the semifinals of the French Open the following year.
Bill Scanlon — Golden Set: For starters, who does not know what a Golden Set in Tennis means; it is a set that is won by a player without dropping a single point. Surprisingly, the only man to achieve this feat was the former US Open semifinalist and the former World No.9 Bill Scanlon, who took Marcos Hocevar to the cleaners in the first round of the WCT Gold Coast Classic Tournament at Delray Beach, accomplishing a 6-2, 6-0 win over him, not allowing the Brazilian to even collect one point in the second set.
