Roger Federer's stint as the Cal Ripken Jr. of professional tennis soon may come to an end.
On the same day that USA TODAY Sports' For the Win announced that Roger Federer never has retired in a middle of a tennis match during his 16-year career, tennis-x.com reported that Federer has vowed not to play hurt ever again.
Federer played the majority of the 2013 tennis season nursing an injured back and fell to No. 8 in the world rankings - the lowest ranking he had been in 11 years.
He played with a back injury during the 2013 BNP Paribas Open ATP, and the injury kept him from training properly for the clay and grass seasons.
"The injury," Federer said, "took me three weeks probably. And out of those seven weeks I was looking forward to taking two weeks off and then training for five weeks basically, and I could only train for like two weeks. So actually, instead of coming out of the training block strong and fit like a fiddle, I came out like, you know, halfway.
"That's why my results were mediocre. I think they were okay. I mean, I did play the finals in Rome and quarters in Paris, won Halle. It was okay, but I realized I'm missing training, I'm missing things, my confidence is not there.
"So the rest I took, I had to take it at the end (after Wimbledon), and I believe my results would have been different could I have trained 100 percent because then many things happened with my mind. I lost confidence in my movement. The back issue didn't quite go away really ever through that entire stretch.
"But I did decide to play Hamburg and Gstaad, added that to the schedule, but then got hurt again in Hamburg, should not have finished the tournament there, should not have played Gstaad, but I was like, I'm already here. It's not crazy bad, but it's bad enough that I shouldn't be playing but I want to play.
And then from then on I just had to take a clear decision that I will just not play when I feel this way anymore in the future. That's the promise I made to myself."
Federer had a career 1,154 matches, 290 more than any other active player, going into the 2014 Indian Wells event. The rest of the top 10 in matches played, according to For the Win, averaged 12.4 retirements over their careers.
Cal Ripken Jr. played in 2,632 consecutive baseball games, the record for a professional athlete.
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