[The Federest]

For all the record-breaking prowess of the Big 3, most of the important records in men's tennis are not as big as the equivalent records on the women's side. Steffi Graf, Serena Williams, Margaret Court and Martina Navratilova all hold formidable records that have been unmatched by male players.

Just to be clear: I know the games are separate, and I'm not trying to draw any equivalences. The exercise in comparison is just out of curiosity and is a way of appreciating the greats on both sides.

Anyway, the one big record that springs to mind is consecutive weeks at #1 (Federer: 237; Serena and Steffi tied on 186).

What else have we got?

 

[sheep85]

golden slam, obviously.

 

[The Federest]

I meant the other way around: records in the men's game that have not been achieved in the women's...

 

[Pirao666]

12 wins at the same slam.

 

[cmchelsea]

Off the top of my head.

Most wins at a single slam - Nadal RG.

Only player male or female to win 2 Olympic gold medals in singles - Murray 2012 and 16

 

[bighax]

Novak's all M1000?

 

[Supercell]

12 wins at the same slam.

This one is huge, toughest to beat in the future.

Other than the records mentioned above also Federer's 23 consecutive GS semis comes to my mind, amazing consistency.

 

[Servebots=GOAT]

Off the top of my head.

Most wins at a single slam - Nadal RG.

Only player male or female to win 2 Olympic gold medals in singles - Murray 2012 and 16

That’s the one thing that boosts Murray’s career big time and is an achievement that not even the big 3 or anyone else have done so he won’t be in the big 3’s shadow in every regard.

 

[The Federest]

Novak's all M1000?

The WTA has messed around with the format so often that comparisons are not straightforward, but arguably Martina Hingis equalled this feat by winning all 9 of the Tier 1 events that were held for most of her prime playing years (Tokyo, Miami, Hilton Head / Charleston, Rome, IW, Berlin, Toronto/Montreal, Zurich, Moscow). She never won San Diego, but that was only introduced in 2004.

 

[The Federest]

This one is huge, toughest to beat in the future.

Other than the records mentioned above also Federer's 23 consecutive GS semis comes to my mind, amazing consistency.

You have inspired me to do some stat trawling and I came across Chris Evert's record of reaching 34 consecutive semi-finals in GS she entered (which is not the same as Fed's record, because Evert missed a lot of slams, including many AOs, but is still pretty staggering.)

In fact, here are some other Chris Evert records/stats taken from Wikipedia:

• She was the year-ending World No. 1 singles player in 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, and 1981. Overall, Evert won 157 singles championships and 32 doubles titles.
• Evert reached 34 Grand Slam singles finals, more than any other player in the history of professional tennis.
• She holds the record of most consecutive years (13) to win at least one Grand Slam title.
• In singles, Evert reached the semifinals or better 52 of the 56 Grand Slams she played, including the semifinals or better of 34 consecutive Grand Slams entered from the 1971 US Open through the 1983 French Open
• In Grand Slam women's singles play, Evert won a record seven championships at the French Open and a co-record six championships at the US Open (tied with Serena Williams).
• Evert's career winning percentage in singles matches of 89.97% (1309–146) is the highest in the history of Open Era tennis, for men or women.
• On clay courts, her career winning percentage in singles matches of 94.55% (382–22) remains a WTA record.

Regarding the last one, this is a higher clay-court winning percentage than Rafa!

(Although the stat specifies WTA record, so I guess someone on the men's side beats it. Borg maybe?)

Anyway, hats off to Chris Evert!

 

[Bella&Mirka]

Hmm not many, the women also hold the record for number of times they've said "I'm gonna shove this ball down your f***ing throat".

 

[bry17may]

Grand slam matches won, Federer 357 and Serene 349.

 

[guitarra]

One thing I really like about WTA, even if it’s not a record, is their desire to win at any cost. Most of them are ready to sell their mothers to win and wouldn’t retire with a broken leg.

 

[pururin]

One thing I really like about WTA, even if it’s not a record, is their desire to win at any cost. Most of them are ready to sell their mothers to win and wouldn’t retire with a broken leg.

Men not the same?

 

[pururin]

Obviously GOATdal's records on clay. I would even say these are the most dominant in any sport.

 

[monfed]

Feds 5 consec at 2 diff slams, Wim 03-07 and USO 04-08.

 

[Supercell]

One can see that there are few men's records that weren't topped by women and it's not easy to find them. Searching for further records requires more specificity (additional conditions), which means less importance.

 

[masterkey]

Two very important records hold by men are Laver’s 200 single titles and Rosewall’s 1665 match wins (single) !

 

[chilazon]

Maybe not important but longest match records and most aces records.

 

[masterkey]

By the way, I suspect either Laver's total titles count to be fairly inflated (Bud Collins had him at 184 titles, but the would still make him the overall record holder, for both men and women), or his total match wins to be highly underestimated : his match wins/titles is incredibly low. For most relevant champions in that category, who have a %match wins around 80%, this ratio is generally somewhere beetween 11 and 13 (this is the case for Tilden, Gonzales, Rosewall, Connors, McEnroe, Lendl, Federer, Nadal, Djokovic...). Borg is at a staggering 10, but his career is quite uncharacteristic and short for an all-time great. But Rod Laver's ratio is 7.4 (1473/200) ! This is literally unbelievable.