5 records that will likely elude Roger Federer forever

#5 Winning the Olympics singles gold

Federer's silver at the 2012 Olympics singles is his best return in Olympics singles

Federer first contested in the Olympics in Sydney as a precocious 19-year-old. The then 36th-ranked Swiss teenager beat David Prinosil, Karol Kucera, Mikael Tillstrom and Karim Alami to reach the semifinals, where he fell to Tommy Haas in straight sets. He subsequently lost to Frenchman Arnaud De Pasquale in the bronze-medal match.

At the next Olympics in Athens, Federer arrived as the No. 1 ranked player in the world. The Swiss maestro beat Nikolay Davydenko in the first round before being stunned 5-7 in the third set by Czech teenager Tomas Berdych.

Four years later, at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Federer had his revenge over Berdych, ousting the Czech player in the pre-quarterfinals. But he then lost to American James Blake in straight sets in the quarterfinals.

2012 turned out to Federer's fourth and till date, latest appearance at the Olympics. Fresh off winning his 17th Grand Slam title at Wimbledon, Federer conquered five players, including Juan Martin del Potro in a 19-17 third-set, to reach his first Olympic final.

However, the Swiss ran out of gas in the title match. In a rematch of that year's Wimbledon final, Murray exacted revenge on the same court by handing Federer a rare straight-set defeat on grass.

Federer did not compete at the 2016 Olympics as he ended his season prematurely, owing to an injury.

With the Swiss legend having announced his plans to compete at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, in what is likely to be his final appearance at an Olympics, there are a few expectations that Federer would join Nadal and Andre Agassi as the only male singles players to win the Career Golden Slam (all four Grand Slams and the Olympics singles gold).

However, any such expectations must be tempered with the fact that owing to advancing age and slowing reflexes, Federer has displayed a worrying propensity of losing against many lower-ranked players. With the Olympics singles being a best-of-three set event, Federer is also likely to run into his Big 3 rivals - Djokovic and/or Nadal, both of whom have a winning head-to-head record against the Swiss maestro.

In retrospect, Athens 2004 was perhaps Federer's best bet to win the Olympics singles gold. The chances of him winning the elusive gold in the Japanese capital next year are slim at best.