Roger Federer

Roger Federer was born on August 8, 1981 in Basel, Switzerland to a Swiss father and and South African mother. The number one ranked player in the world first started playing tennis when he was 8 years old, in addition to soccer until the age of 12, when he started to concentrate on his tennis game. By the time he was 14, Federer was the junior Swiss champion for all age groups.

By 1998,Federer's last year in the junior's circuit, he was ranked number one in the world and won the junior boy's singles and doubles titles at Wimbledon, and was runner up at the U.S. Open. In 1999, Roger started to play for the Swiss Davis cup team and by the end of the tennis season, he was the youngest player to finish inside the ATP's top 100 rankings.

Roger Federer then played in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where he lost the bronze metal match to Arnaud di Pasquale, a french player. Also at the 2000 Olymipics, Roger met his girlfriend, fellow tennis player Miroslava (Mirka) Vavrinec. In 2001, Roger became Switzerland's first number one ranked player.

However, most impressively, Roger has won the Championships at Wimbledon 5 consecutive years (2003-2007), 3 consecutive U.S. Open singles titles (2004-2006), and 3 Australian Open (2004 & 2006-2007). He has also been been ranked as the world number one in singles play for 187 consecutive weeks. At the 2006 Australian Open, Roger won his 400th career match in the fourth round.

With all of his talent, Roger is well on his way to become one of the best tennis players of all time. This could be why his fellow players have nicknamed him "The Natural".

Federer's Stats