On His Way Back to the Top!
Growing up with idols like Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker and Pete Sampras, Roger Federer began playing tennis at age 8 before serving as ball boy at a hometown tournament in Basel (1993-94), where he has gone back to win a record 8 titles. After becoming professional in 1998, he was continuously ranked in the top ten from October 2002 to November 2016. In 2003, he formed The Roger Federer Foundation, which focuses on supporting community driven initiatives to increase the quality of education in Southern Africa (Zambia, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Bostwana, and South Africa) and Switzerland. “For me, it is important to give back some of the luck that I am able to experience in life,” he explains. The foundation has invested over 50 million dollars since its inception and is aiming to reach one million children by 2018.
“When you do something best in life, you don’t really want to give that up and for me, it’s tennis.”
Federer has won a total of 20 Grand Slam singles titles, the most in history for a male player, and has held the world No. 1 spot in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) rankings for 302 weeks, including 237 consecutive weeks. He re-entered the top ten following his victory at the 2017 Australian Open and successfully defended his title this past January at the 2018 Australian Open. Today, the ATP ranks the 36-year-old Swiss professional tennis player world No. 2 in men’s singles tennis. Next, he will be coming to South Florida for the 2018 Miami Open presented by Itaú at Crandon Park, Key Biscayne from March 19th to April 1st. Federer is anticipated to defend his 2017 championship title, as he won last year’s final match against Rafael Nadal—his competitor is currently ranked No.1 by the ATP, so hold on to your seats!
BORN: AUGUST 8, 1981 BASEL, SWITZERLAND
HEIGHT: 6’ 1”
CAREER TITLES: 96 SINGLES; 8 DOUBLES
CURRENT RANKING: NO. 2
MIAMIOPEN.COM