Reigning champion Roger Federer dropped his opening match in Shanghai, and his first ATP match since the U.S. Open final, to qualifier Alberto Ramos, 6-7 (4), 6-2, 3-6. Check out some of the ugly numbers.
1. The Fed lost to qualifier Frederico Delbonis in Hamburg in his lost season of 2013. Other than that and Tuesday’s defeat, he’s 39-2 against qualifiers over the past eight years, a stretch which included a 32-match winning streak. Since winning his first major, he’s 65-5 versus qualifiers. Overall, he’s 93-15 against such players in his career.
2. This was only the second time Federer has played Ramos. The first time was in the first round of Wimbledon in 2012. Federer won 6-1, 6-1, 6-1.
3. Ramos entered the match 0-15 against top-10 opponents.
4. He was 5-35 against top 20 opponents, with his best win coming in his first try against a top 20 player: a 6-4, 6-7 (8), 6-3 win over No. 12 Fernando Gonzalez in 2010.
5. Federer hadn’t lost to a player ranked No. 70 (Ramos’s ranking) or below since that Delbonis match two years ago. That snapped a winning streak of 27-straight against players ranked so low.
6. Since May 23, 2005, Federer is a staggering 147-5 against players ranked No. 70 or below. That includes winning streaks of 45 and 61 during that stretch. However, the two losses that ended those streaks were against Mardy Fish and Tommy Haas, both former top 20 players battling back from injuries.
7. So if you really want to break it down, Federer went 11 years and 109 matches without losing to a truly middling player. The streak was snapped in his shock loss at Wimbledon to Sergiy Stakhovsky in — you guessed it — 2013.
8. Federer is 254-34 in his career against players ranked below No. 69 in the world.
9. The loss snaps a 59-match winning streak Federer had on hard courts against players ranked No. 60 or below.
10. When he won the tournament in Shanghai last year, Federer struggled in his opening round, having to save five match points against Leonardo Mayer.
11. This is only the fifth time this decade Federer has lost his opening match at a tournament.
