31 Motivating Facts About Roger Federer You Probably Didn’t Know Before

Considered to be the greatest tennis player of all time to go down in the history of Tennis, Roger Federer always inspires his fans with his extraordinary ability and techniques, especially the composed temperament. He is more like a perfect combinations of the legends of tennis like John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg, but in a way which is much better. Here are some incredible facts about Roger Federer, the Switzerland tennis player:

1. Nicknamed the G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time), the Federer Express, the Swiss Maestro and the King Roger, Federer was Bornon August 8, 1981, in Switzerland. He dominated the sport of tennis in the early 21st century and has to his name 20 career men’s singles Grand Slam championships, the most in tennis history.
2. He is the younger of two children to Afrikaner, Lynette Federer and Swiss-German, Robert Federer, both of whom were employed in a pharmaceutical industry. He grew up in Birsfelden, Riehen and Munchenstein, along with his older sister, Diana and is fluent in his native Swiss German, German, English, French apart from bit of Italian and Swedish.
3. Federer is married to a fellow tennis player, Miroslava Vavrinec, since April 11, 2009 and they are blessed with two pair of twins. In July 2009, Mirka gave birth to Myla Rose and Charlene Riva. Then in May 2014, she gave birth to second pair of twins, Leo and Lenny.
4. He was exempted from compulsory military service after he was ruled unsuitable, due to unspecified injury. He served in Swiss civil force, which provides backup for the emergency service and paid 3% of his taxable income.
5. He took to tennis at the age of eight and trained under Peter Carter from Australia, who worked on his ground strokes and serve. He briefly trained in the Switzerland’s national training center in Ecublens, before rejoining with Carter and Peter Lundgren in Biel. He became Switzerland’s junior champion by the age of 14 years.
6. In 1998, he captured the Wimbledon junior singles and doubles championship, aged 17 years and went on to reach the final of the U.S Junior Open before losing to David Nalbandian.
7. He ended the year 1998, as World No.1 ranked junior player and was awarded the ‘ITF Junior World Champion.’ He had won four ITF junior singles tournaments that year.
8. A year later in 1999, he made his Davis Cup debut for Swiss on a winning note defeating Davide Sanguinetti of Italy and ended the year among the world’s top 100, finishing the season at # 64, the youngest tennis player at 18 years 4 months.
9. Federer was once accused of fixing a Wimbledon final against Nadal, which he lost. He justified this by saying that he had only advised his businessman friend to put money on him and since he lost, there was no point of fixing.
10. Roger turned professional in 1998 at the ‘ATP Gstaad also known as Swiss Open, where he reached round of 32, before losing to Lucas Arnold Ker of Argentina. His first career final was at the ‘Marseille Open,’ in 2000 where he lost to fellow Swiss Marc Rosset, in two sets to one.
11. His Grand Slam debut was a disaster when as a wildcard entrant he crashed out in the first round of 1999 ‘French Open,’ and’ Wimbledon Championship.’ However, he partnered Lleyton Hewitt in doubles to reach the round of 16 at the Wimbledon.
12. At the 2001 Milan Indoor, Roger earned his first career singles title, defeating Julien Boutter of France, 6-4, 6-7 and 6-4. In the same year he achieved his international breakthrough when he defeated all-time Grand Slam leader and the # 1 seed Pete Sampras at Wimbledon Championship, to reach the quarterfinals.
13. Growing up he was temperamental on court and by his own admission bit of a ‘hothead.’ Even after turning professional he was vulnerable in long matches and would weep out of frustration in the locker room, after losing four-five sets.
14. Federer won his first Master level at the 2002 Hamburg Masters and a year later in 2003, he won his first Grand Slam singles title as fourth seed at Wimbledon Championship, to end the year as World #2.
15. After he heard the news of his long-time coach, Peter Carter’s death he bolted into the street and when he couldn’t find a cab, he panicked and started running more than a mile until he gained his bearing. On Roger’s urging, Carter was on a safari trip in South Africa, when his vehicle veered off the road and fell into a ravine.
16. In the year 2004, Federer won three of the four Grand Slam singles titles, apart from three ATP Masters Series titles. His win-loss record for the year was 74-6, with 11 titles of the possible 16 titles including the Australian Open, the Wimbledon and the US Open. He ended the year ranked World # 1. For the first time.
17. Federer’s 2006 season was the second best in the men’s Open era behind Rod Laver’s 1969 season. He won three of the four Grand Slams finals and reached six ATP Masters Series 1000 finals with year-end record of 92-5.
18. He finished fourth year in a row as World # 1, when he ended the season 2007, as year-end number 1. He set a unique record of being # 1 for all 52 weeks of the year for third consecutive season.
19. Federer had the honor of being the flag bearer for his country in both the 2004 and 2008 Olympics. He won a gold medal in the doubles partnering Stan Wawrinkaat Beijing and a silver medal in singles at 2012 London Olympics.
20. He was part of Europe which won three consecutive Laver Cup in 2017, 2018 and 2019. He is the most successful individual in Hopman Cup history with three titles winning it in 2001, 2018, and 2019.
21. Switzerland won their first Davis Cup title in 2014, with Federer clinching all important first reverse singles rubber. He has a record of most total wins for Switzerland, most singles win and most years played.
22. He has reached a record 31 Grand Slam singles finals winning an all-time record 20 of those. He has also appeared in 23 consecutive semifinals and 36 consecutive quarterfinal appearances.
23. Federer has spent 310 weeks as the # 1 ranked player in the world out of which a record 237 weeks were for a consecutive period. He has won 103 ATP titles, second only to Jimmy Connors’ 109, with 11,000 career aces.
24. In February 2018, Federer became the oldest # 1 player at 36, on the ATP ranking list. He is the only player to register at least ten titles on different surfaces with 11 clay court titles, 19 grass court titles, and 71 hard courts titles.
25. He has won the Stefan Edberg Sportsman award, a record thirteen times and was voted by fans in 2018 to receive the ‘ATPWorldTour.com Fans’ Favorite Award for a 16th straight year since 2003. He has also won ATP Player of the Year and the ITF World Champion five times each.
26. Federer holds the world’s third highest number of performance based Guinness World Records within one discipline-18 of 30 total records.
27. He is hugely popular in the world of sports and has been called a living legend in his own time. He has won the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year five times and the Laureus World Comeback of the Year once.
28. In 2003, he established the Roger Federer Foundation to help disadvantaged children and has been supporting the South Africa-Swiss charity IMBEWU, which helps children better connect to sports as well as social and health awareness.
29. Federer has to his name a special edition stamp in Swiss Post and in 2012, the city of Halle, in Germany, unveiled ‘Roger-Federer-Allee. In 2016, the city of Biel, Switzerland, named a street in his honor as ‘1 Allee Roger Federer.’
30. He plays with his signature Wilson Pro Staff RF97 Autograph racquet and wears Nike footwear with Uniqlo apparel. As of June 2019, he is listed at # 5, on the Forbes ‘World’s Highest Paid Athletes’ list with some earnings of $129,231,891.
31. Roger Federer Net Worth: $450 Million