Five-setters that Roger Federer has lost on the ATP tour outside the Slams

Finalists of the 2005 ATP Finals and the 2006 Rome Masters

Roger Federer turned professional in 1998, and 22 years later he is still active on tour. The 40-year-old has played for so long that he has seen multiple changes in the scoring format.

In Federer's younger days on tour, the final of every big tournament was played in the best-of-five set format. The Swiss also saw the advantage set format being prevalent in three of the four Slams, long before the fifth set tiebreak was uniformly implemented.

Federer has a 32-21 record in tour level matches that have gone to a fifth set. Moreover, the 103-time title champion has recovered from a 0-2 deficit in eight out of nine matches (which went to a fifth set) at the Slams.

Roger Federer has won 28 Masters titles in his career, and 10 of those titles were won when the Masters still employed a best-of-five set format in the final. In fact, even some of the ATP 250 and ATP 500 events back then had best-of-five set finals.

The year-ending championships followed the same format up until 2007; the ATP Finals switched to best-of-three set format in the final from 2008. Also, the 2007 Miami Open was the last Masters event to feature a best-of-five-sets final.

On that note, let's take a look at the four five-set matches that Roger Federer has lost outside the Slams.

1. 2000 Basel final vs Thomas Enqvist

1999 Australian Open runner-up Thomas Enqvist was the second seed at the 2000 Basel Open. A then 19-year-old Roger Federer, who had made his first tour level final earlier that year in Marseille and also the quarterfinals in Basel the previous season, went two steps forward in 2000.

Federer won a nail-biting semifinal against third seed Lleyton Hewitt 6-4 5-7 7-6(6) in front of his home crowd. Both Federer and Enqvist dropped one set en route to the final.

Enqvist took a 2-1 lead by winning the third set in a tiebreak, but Federer won the next set 6-1 to forced a decider. The Swede responded with equal vigour, clinching the match 6-2 4-6 7-6(4) 1-6 6-1 after 2 hours and 56 minutes.

Enqvist would win one more title, in 2002 at Marseille, before retiring from the sport in 2005. Federer, on the other hand, is currently the most successful player in Basel, having won 10 titles at the event. The Swiss has also reached the Basel final a record 15 times.

2. 2003 Gstaad final vs Jiri Novak

Having won his first Slam at Wimbledon 2003, Roger Federer received a hero's welcome at Gstaad, his next tournament. The Swiss was the top seed at the event and made it comfortably to the final, dropping only one set in the process.

Meanwhile third seed Jiri Novak, who was ranked No. 10 in the world back then, was in his ninth tour-level final. Novak, incidentally, was the first player Federer faced at Wimbledon back in 1999. The Swiss had won five of their next six meetings, two of which were in tournament finals - the 2002 Vienna Open and the 2003 Dubai Open.

11 titles on home soil for @rogerfederer 🇨🇭

But the strangest prize in Switzerland definitely came at Gstaad in 2003 🐮 https://t.co/CWZxLCiB7b

At Gstaad, Novak dropped the first set but still managed to win the match 5-7 6-3 6-3 1-6 6-3 in 2 hours and 49 minutes. That gave him his fifth tour-level singles title and second at Gstaad.

Novak finished with seven singles titles to his name and retired from tennis in 2007.

Roger Federer returned to Gstaad the following year and won the title after defeating Igor Andreev in four sets.

3. 2005 Masters Cup final vs David Nalbandian

By 2005, Roger Federer had established himself as the most dominant player on the tour. When he entered the 2005 ATP Masters Cup (now ATP Finals), he was a two-time defending champion who had lost only three matches in a nearly flawless season.

Federer had won six singles Slams up until then, and players were already thinking twice before going to his famed forehand wing.

David Nalbandian, the 2002 Wimbledon runner-up who also made the semis at each of the three other Slams, was the eighth seed at the 2005 Masters Cup. Nalbandian was drawn in the same group as Federer for the round-robin matches, and in the league match he lost to the Swiss 6-2, 2-6, 6-4.

However, Nalbandian won his remaining round-robin matches and made the semis at a canter.

@norinchi_df @rogerfederer 📸 17-year-old / 1998 US Open, In Roger's last junior Grand Slam tournament, he lost to 🇦🇷 David Nalbandian in straight sets in the final. That marked the only occasion Roger Federer lost a final on the junior circuit. 😌 https://t.co/nFKA2balFo

In the semis Federer won a double bagel match for the first time in his career, thrashing seventh seed Gaston Gaudio mercilessly. Nalbandian too put up a strong performance in his semifinal match, beating Nikolay Davydenko 6-0, 7-5.

Three weeks before entering the 2005 Masters Cup, Federer had injured his ankle, because of which he was forced to walk on crutches for a while. Now in the final, he managed to eke out the first two tiebreak sets 7-6(4) 7-6(11).

However, the ankle began causing trouble again as Federer lost the next two sets 2-6 and 1-6. And after 4 hours and 33 minutes, the Argentine clinched the final set tiebreak 7-3 to win the fourth title of his career. That also made Nalbandian the first man to win the year-ending championship without winning a Slam or a Masters title.

Before this match, Roger Federer had only once squandered a 2-0 lead in a five-set match - against Lleyton Hewitt in the 2003 Davis Cup semifinal.

"Roger, don't worry, it's not your last final. You're going to win a lot of tournaments, so let me keep this one," Nalbandian joked in the presentation ceremony.

4. 2006 Rome Masters final vs Rafael Nadal

The 2006 season was statistically the best of Roger Federer's career. The Swiss Maestro won three of the four Slams (finishing as a runner-up at the French Open) and won 12 titles that season, including the year-ending championships.

Winning 92 of the 97 matches he played, Federer finished the year comfortably as the top-ranked player in the world.

Notably, however, four of the Swiss' five losses that season came against Rafael Nadal. The Spaniard defeated Federer in the finals of Dubai, Monte Carlo, Rome and Roland Garros.

Prior to 2006, Roger Federer's best showing in Rome had come in 2003, where he had lost to Felix Mantilla in the final. Federer made the summit clash again in 2006, going up against a player who was on a 52-match claycourt win-streak.

The match went to a fifth set, where Federer found himself up 4-1 and later also holding two match points. However, Nadal forced a final set tiebreak and eventually won the match 6-7(0) 7-6(5) 6-4 2-6 7-6(5) after five hours and five minutes.

"I had a couple of match points, I pulled the trigger too early. I definitely played some of the best attacking tennis on clay that I could play. But he defends so well and makes you doubt," Federer said after the match.

Roger Federer made the final in Rome again in 2013 and 2015, losing to Nadal and Novak Djokovic respectively. Rome is one of the two Masters events that the Swiss hasn't won till date, the other being the Monte-Carlo Masters.

Following their 2006 Rome epic, both Federer and Nadal skipped the Hamburg Masters the following week. That was one of the many factors that contributed to the abolishment of five-set finals from every tier outside the Slams.