Tennis: Richard Gasquet plays and loses his 1000th match, his incredible longevity in figures

He already had his place in the Pantheon of French tennis. Richard Gasquet definitely entered the world of tennis this Thursday. At 37, he lost his first round at the Masters 1000 in Madrid against the Italian Lorenzo Sonego (6-2, 7-5) but the Frenchman played his 1000th match on the ATP circuit. An extremely rare performance, embellished with completely crazy figures.

1,000 matches – Gasquet among the giants

On April 15, 2002, a 15-year-old kid dressed in a red polo shirt too big for him arrived on the central court of Monte-Carlo to teach a lesson to the Argentinian Franco Squillari, former world number 11. Richard Gasquet then signed his first success on the ATP circuit at 15 years and 10 months. To this day, he remains the youngest match winner since the start of the ATP Tour in 1990 ahead of Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz.

22 years later, give or take a few days, “Richie” has reached the 1,000 match mark. According to the calculation methods and the matches counted, he is the 18th player in the Open era to reach this total. Record holder Jimmy Connors, and his 1,557 matches played, remains far ahead. Richard Gasquet still invites himself to the table of the Big 3 (Federer, Djokovic, Nadal) or even John McEnroe and Ivan Lendl.

✅ 6-4, 6-3 vs Napolitano
✅ 6-2, 7-5 Ajdukovic

Richard Gasquet wins his two matches and qualifies for the main draw of the Masters 1000 in Madrid. 👏🇫🇷

The 37-year-old Frenchman will face Lorenzo Sonego in the first round for the victory of his career. 🤯 pic.twitter.com/dfNMVh0Qef

— Univers Tennis 🎾 (@UniversTennis) April 23, 2024

With 604 victories in total, he is part of a very small clan of active players with at least 600 victories along with Nadal, Djokovic and Murray. Further proof of his longevity, the Biterrois has just completed a 22nd consecutive season in 2024 with at least one victory on the circuit. Only Federer (24) and Nadal (23) are ahead of him in history.

On the French side, no one, obviously, does better than him in terms of his statistics. In comparison, among the 4 Musketeers, Gilles Simon played 898 matches, Gaël Monfils 876 and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 705. The last two, however, have a higher winning percentage (Tsonga: 66.2% – Monfils: 63% – Gasquet : 60.5% – Simon: 56.1%).

In Grand Slam – on the verge of a final

Waiting for an invitation to Roland-Garros for next month or else having to go through qualifying, Richard Gasquet should play his 73rd Grand Slam tournament in a month, only Federer and Feliciano Lopez (81) are doing better among the men. A tournament category that smiled on him… at times.

On three occasions, he reached the semi-finals of a Grand Slam (Wimbledon 2007, US Open 2013, Wimbledon 2015) with each time winning the quarter-finals in five sets against a member of the Top 5 (Roddick, Ferrer , Wawrinka). When it came time to secure a place in the final, he always lost to the winner of the tournament without taking a single set (Federer Wimbledon 2007, 7-5, 6-3, 6-4/Nadal US Open 2013, 6 -4, 7-6, 6-2/Djokovic Wimbledon 2015, 7-6, 6-4, 6-4).

With 115 victories on the clock in Majors, none of which since the 2022 US Open, Richard Gasquet is best known for having (too) often failed at the start of the second week. With 17 defeats in the round of 16 of a Grand Slam, he has a sad record. At Roland Garros, in 20 appearances, he has never done better than a quarter-final in 2016 lost to Andy Murray in four sets (5-7, 7-6, 6-0, 6-2).

At the Masters 1000 level, in 120 appearances, Richard Gasquet reached a final three times, without being able to win against Federer in Hamburg in 2005 and in Toronto in 2006, then against Novak Djokovic again in Canada in 2012.

On the circuit – 16 titles and a 7th place in the world

Former world number 1 among juniors and great hope of French tennis after his coronation at Petit As two years in advance, Richard Gasquet has enjoyed a career of exceptional longevity, and a well-stocked track record. With 16 titles on the ATP circuit, the last of which in Auckland in 2023 at over 36 years and 6 months, he is today the ninth active player with the most coronations behind Djokovic, Nadal, Murray, Zverev, Medvedev, Cilic , Thiem and Wawrinka.

Among the most successful French people in history, only Yannick Noah (23) and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (18) do better than him. A small downside to his record, “Richie” only won the ATP 250 and failed 17 times in the final.

Ranking-wise, these titles and these Grand Slam runs paved the way for him to reach 7th place in the world in July 2007. Gasquet finished the season in the Top 10 four times (2007, 2012, 2013, 2015) with two key participations in the end-of-year Masters (2007, 2013).

The Frenchman also held for a time the record for consecutive presence in the Top 100 with 6,845 days, or 18 years, 8 months and 26 days of continuous presence from April 2005 to January 2024. A mark surpassed by Novak Djokovic last month.

Favorite opponent, prize money, number of grips…

In these 1,000 matches on the clock, Richard Gasquet won 36 times against a member of the Top 10. His greatest victory, and the only one against a world number 1, will remain his success at the Masters 1000 in Monte-Carlo 2005 against Roger Federer in the quarter-finals after saving 3 match points.

The Swiss is still the player who has beaten the Frenchman the most on the circuit, 19 times in 21 matches. His ratio against Rafael Nadal of 0 wins for 18 losses will also have harmed him throughout his career, he who was expected at the same level as the Spaniard. On the other hand, among the big names of his generation, “Mozart”, as he was once nicknamed, surely preferred to face Tomas Berdych whom he dominated 8 times, one time less than Gilles Simon, his favorite opponent. (9 wins – 1 loss).

Among the defeats, Richard Gasquet has accumulated 28 abandonments or withdrawals during his career. Only Gaël Monfils does worse among active players. A statistic which does not prevent him from having accumulated more than 20 million euros in prize money since his arrival on the professional circuit in 2022.

A slightly crazier figure? Accustomed to changing his grip each time he changes sides, “Richie” would have done so, according to our calculations, more than 11,000 times in official matches during his career (he played more than 23,000 games, not counting the tie-breaks). The Frenchman is also capable of doing it in less than 8 seconds. It goes to show that its longevity is not its only quality!