Roger Federer

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 15th of September 2022, Roger Federer announced that the Laver Cup would be his final event on the ATP Tour. His farewell was a three-set doubles loss, played beside his old rival Rafael Nadal against Jack Sock and Frances Tiafoe. It was the 1750th match of his tour career. Federer, a Swiss player born in Basel, left the tour with 103 singles titles and 310 weeks as world No. 1, the second-most ever.

  Those numbers hide a stranger story. How did a boy who played at weekends on a pharmaceutical company's private courts become a player fans adored? Why did many analysts decide in 2016 that his career was over? And how did a junior who lacked self-control turn into one of the best-liked players on tour?

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• 2. A Boy From Basel

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  Federer was born on the 8th of August 1981 in Basel to a Swiss father, Robert, and a South African mother, Lynette. Both parents worked for Ciba-Geigy Pharmaceuticals. At weekends the family went to the company's private tennis courts, where Federer first played at the age of three. His older sister, Diana, came along too. Because his mother is South African, he holds both Swiss and South African citizenship.

  At eight, Federer was moved by his mother into the elite junior programme at the Old Boys Tennis Club in Basel. She felt he had outgrown the company club. His first coach there was a veteran Czech, Adolf Kacovsky. At ten he began working with the Australian former player Peter Carter, whom Federer later credited for his "entire technique and coolness".

  His one-handed backhand had a simple explanation. Kacovsky liked the stroke, and so did Federer's childhood idols Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker and later Pete Sampras.

  Tennis was never his only game. Badminton, basketball, football, skiing and swimming all filled his childhood, and he spent hours on the street playing soft tennis. He credits this variety for his hand-eye coordination. In 1992 and 1993 he worked as a ball boy at the Swiss Indoors in his hometown. After the 1993 final, tournament champion Michael Stich handed him a medal alongside the other ball boys.

  In 1993 Federer also won the under-12 Swiss national junior championships in Lucerne. At twelve he gave up football, because in tennis he felt his own play decided whether he won or lost. Two years later came the hardest stretch of his boyhood. He won the under-14 Swiss national title at 13. Then he was invited to the National Tennis Centre in Écublens, in the French-speaking part of the country, and enrolled shortly after turning 14.

  The days there combined three hours of tennis with schoolwork, and Federer had little interest in studying. He spoke little French and missed home. He was the youngest in his group. Many students and staff labelled him the "Swiss German", he met mild bullying, and he often nearly packed his bags to go home. He credits the experience for his independent spirit. He did learn French. In July 1997 he left La Planta secondary school in Chavannes-près-Renens with a certificate in the commercial studies section, his tennis career already waiting.

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• 3. Junior Champion to Professional

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  Federer played his first ITF junior match in July 1996, aged 14, at a grade-2 tournament in Switzerland. In January 1997 he won both the indoor and outdoor under-18 Swiss national titles, beating Yves Allegro, three years older, in each final. In May he won his first ITF junior title on the clay of Prato without losing a set. A four-week satellite event in Bossonnens in September 1997 earned him his first 12 ATP points. That placed him No. 803 in the rankings, five spots ahead of a future rival named Lleyton Hewitt.

  Wimbledon in 1998 was the peak of his junior years. Federer won the boys' singles final over Irakli Labadze, then took the boys' doubles with Olivier Rochus against Michaël Llodra and Andy Ram. At the junior US Open he reached the final and lost to David Nalbandian, the only junior final he ever lost. He closed his junior career at the Junior Orange Bowl in Miami, beating Nalbandian in the semifinals and Guillermo Coria in the final. He finished 1998 as ITF Junior World Champion, with a singles record of 78-20.

  The professional game was far colder. In July 1998, almost 17, Federer made his ATP debut at the Swiss Open in Gstaad. He lost to No. 88 Lucas Arnold Ker. Later that year he won his first tour match, against Guillaume Raoux in Toulouse. A wildcard into his hometown Swiss Indoors then pitted him against former world No. 1 Andre Agassi, who beat him in the first round. He finished 1998 ranked 301st.

  April 1999 brought his Davis Cup debut against Italy, where he beat Davide Sanguinetti. In August he won his first professional title, a Challenger doubles event in Segovia with Sander Groen. The final was played on his 18th birthday. He entered the top 100 on the 20th of September 1999. Later that month he won the Challenger singles title in Brest over Max Mirnyi. He ended the year ranked No. 64, the youngest player in the year-end top 100.

  Marseille in February 2000 gave him his first singles final on tour, which he lost to fellow Swiss Marc Rosset. At the Sydney Olympics he reached the semifinals, lost to Tommy Haas, then lost the bronze medal match to Arnaud Di Pasquale. He ended 2000 ranked 29th.

  In January 2001 Federer won the Hopman Cup for Switzerland with world No. 1 Martina Hingis, defeating Monica Seles and Jan-Michael Gambill in the final. He later said the experience "definitely helped me to become the player I am today." His first singles title came in Milan that year, over Julien Boutter.

  In 2002 Federer reached his first Masters final in Miami and lost to Agassi. He then won his first Masters title in Hamburg over Marat Safin, which put him in the top ten for the first time. On the 1st of August 2002 his long-time Australian coach and mentor Peter Carter died in a car crash in South Africa. Federer lost in the first round of the next three tournaments he played. Then he won the Vienna Open and qualified for the year-end Masters Cup for the first time, where Hewitt beat him in the semifinals. He finished the season as world No. 6 at the age of 21, with the grass of Wimbledon waiting the following summer.

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• 4. Years of Dominance

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  Wimbledon in 2003 gave Federer his first major title. He beat Andy Roddick in the semifinals and Mark Philippoussis in the final. That made him one of a small group with Björn Borg, Pat Cash and Stefan Edberg who won both the junior and senior Wimbledon titles.

  The No. 1 ranking slipped away that August. A semifinal loss to Roddick in Montreal, settled by a final-set tiebreaker, left him 120 points behind Agassi. Early defeats against Nalbandian in Cincinnati and at the US Open closed the door on the top spot. Federer still won seven of his nine finals that year and beat Agassi at the year-end championships. He finished No. 2, just 160 points behind Roddick.

  The 2004 season was on another scale. Federer won three majors in one year, the first man to do so since Mats Wilander in 1988. His Australian Open final win over Safin made him No. 1 for the first time. In Hamburg he beat Coria, ending Coria's 31-match winning streak on clay. He added Wimbledon over Roddick and the US Open over Hewitt. The Athens Olympics were a stumble, a second-round loss to 18-year-old Tomáš Berdych. His 11 titles were the most by any player in two decades, and his 74-6 record was the best since Ivan Lendl in 1986.

  In 2005 two semifinal losses broke the run. Safin beat him at the Australian Open after Federer held match points, and Nadal beat him at the French Open. Miami then staged the first final between Federer and Nadal, and Federer won it in five sets after trailing by two. At the US Open he beat Agassi in Agassi's last major final. Federer won Wimbledon for a third time and stayed No. 1 all season, despite a foot injury that sidelined him from September. His record of 81-4 remains the third-best winning percentage of the Open Era.

  The year 2006 was the best of his career by the numbers. Federer won 12 singles titles and reached the final in 16 of the 17 tournaments he entered, with a record of 92-5. Stephen Tignor, chief editorial writer for Tennis.com, ranked it the second-best season of the Open Era, behind Rod Laver's Grand Slam year of 1969. Federer reached all four major finals, the first man to do so since Laver, and won three. The only defeat came against Nadal in the French Open final. He finished on a 29-match winning streak.

  Australia opened 2007 with a masterpiece. Federer won the Australian Open without dropping a set, the first man to manage that since Borg in 1980. His winning streak reached 41 matches, the longest of his career and five short of the all-time record. It ended at Indian Wells against Guillermo Cañas, a player who had failed a doping test. In Hamburg he ended Nadal's Open Era record run of 81 clay-court wins. At Wimbledon he beat Nadal again in a five-set final that analysts hailed as the best there since 1980, matching Borg's five straight titles. A US Open final win over Novak Djokovic completed the year. Federer became the only player to win three majors in a year on three occasions, in 2004-2006 and 2007. He held No. 1 for all 52 weeks of the third year running. Analysts would soon rank an even greater Wimbledon final above that one.

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• 5. The Rivals

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  Forty times, Federer and Rafael Nadal walked out to face each other, between 2004 and 2019. Nadal won 24 of those matches. The surface decided most of it. Nadal took 14 matches on clay to Federer's two, while Federer led three to one on grass and 11 to nine on hard courts. Twenty-four meetings were finals, including a record nine at the majors, a mark shared with Djokovic and Nadal.

  From July 2005 until the 17th of August 2009, the two held the top two places in the rankings. They did so again from the 11th of September 2017 until the 15th of October 2018. No other pair of men has finished six consecutive calendar years in those two spots. Nadal, five years younger, held No. 2 for 160 consecutive weeks before passing Federer in August 2008.

  Between 2006 and 2008 they met in every French Open final and every Wimbledon final. Their other major finals came at the 2009 Australian Open, the 2011 French Open and the 2017 Australian Open. Nadal won six of the nine, and four went to five sets. Many long-time analysts call the 2008 Wimbledon final the greatest match ever. Federer came back from two sets down and fell two points short of the title.

  Novak Djokovic met Federer 50 times and won 27. They were level at 4-4 on clay, Djokovic led 20-18 on hard courts, and Federer trailed 1-3 on grass. They played 17 times at the majors, one fewer than Djokovic and Nadal. Their first major final was the 2007 US Open, a straight-set win for Federer. In 2011 Federer ended Djokovic's perfect 41-0 start to the year in the French Open semifinals. Djokovic answered at the US Open, winning in five sets after saving two match points for the second straight year. In 2014 Federer also ended Djokovic's 28-match run in China at the Shanghai Masters.

  Djokovic won all three of their Wimbledon finals, in 2014-2015 and 2019. He also beat Federer in four sets in the 2015 US Open final. Some experts call the pairing one of the best rivalries of the Open Era.

  Andy Murray won 11 of their 25 meetings. Federer won the first, Murray led 8-5 by 2010, and Federer took nine of the last twelve. They met six times at the majors and Federer won five. Their first three major meetings were finals, at the 2008 US Open, the 2010 Australian Open and the 2012 Wimbledon, and Federer won them all. At the 2012 Olympic final, Murray won in straight sets and denied Federer a career Golden Slam.

  Andy Roddick was a far lighter test. Federer won 21 of their 24 matches, including all four of their Grand Slam finals, three at Wimbledon and one at the US Open. Roddick himself said it was hardly a rivalry because it was so one-sided.

  Federer beat Hewitt 18 times in 27 meetings. Against Nalbandian he led 11-8, against Safin 10-2, against del Potro 18-7, against Berdych 20-6 and against Tsonga 12-6. Stan Wawrinka lost 23 of 26 matches to him, yet he would become Federer's partner in an Olympic doubles gold and a Davis Cup title.

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• 6. Records and Setbacks

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  Mononucleosis dragged down the first half of Federer's 2008. In Australia, a semifinal loss to Djokovic ended his record run of 10 consecutive major finals. At the Beijing Olympics he and Stan Wawrinka won the doubles gold medal. They beat the Bryan brothers in the semifinals and Sweden's Simon Aspelin and Thomas Johansson in the final. In singles, James Blake, then No. 8, beat him in the quarterfinals. That cost Federer the No. 1 ranking after a record 237 consecutive weeks. He did win the US Open, his fifth title there, but a back injury ended the season badly.

  In 2009 the clay season began without a title for him. Madrid changed that, when he beat Nadal on clay for only the second time. Then Robin Söderling stunned Nadal at the French Open, and Federer became the favorite. He came back from two sets down against Tommy Haas, then from 2-1 down against Juan Martín del Potro in the semifinals. He beat Söderling in straight sets to complete the career Grand Slam after three runner-up finishes to Nadal. That tied Pete Sampras on 14 majors.

  Wimbledon followed. Facing Roddick in the final, Federer won the fifth set 16-14, in what became the longest Grand Slam final by games played. It was his 15th major, and at age 27 he passed Sampras's record. At the US Open that year he played Djokovic in the semifinals. On the penultimate point he hit a tweener winner that many consider the best shot of his career. Del Potro then beat him in the final, even though Federer was two points from the title in the fourth set. He ended 2009 as year-end No. 1 for the fifth time.

  An Australian Open title over Murray in January 2010 gave him a 16th major and matched Andre Agassi's four titles in Melbourne. Since Wimbledon 2005 he had reached 18 of 19 major finals, a stretch unmatched in the Open Era. After that came a change. A French Open quarterfinal loss to Söderling cost him the No. 1 ranking, a week short of Sampras's record of 286 weeks. In July he hired Sampras's old coach, Paul Annacone, on a trial basis. He ended the year with indoor titles in Stockholm, Basel and London, beating Djokovic and Nadal in the last two finals. In 2011 he won no major for the first time since 2002.

  Wimbledon in 2012 turned the tide. Federer beat Djokovic in the semifinals and Murray in four sets in the final for a seventh title, tying Sampras. The win returned him to No. 1 and let him pass Sampras's 286 weeks. At the London Olympics he played a 4-hour 26-minute semifinal against del Potro, winning the third set 19-17, and took a silver medal for Switzerland. In Shanghai he confirmed his 300th week at No. 1, the first player to reach that mark.

  Back injuries hit in March and July 2013, and his ranking fell from No. 2 to No. 6. A second-round loss to Sergiy Stakhovsky at Wimbledon ended his record run of 36 consecutive major quarterfinals. In October he split with Annacone. On the 27th of December 2013 he announced that Stefan Edberg, the idol of his boyhood, would join Severin Lüthi as co-coach.

  In 2014 Wawrinka became a major champion, and he and Federer committed to every Davis Cup tie. Victories over Serbia, Kazakhstan and Italy sent Switzerland to its first final since 1992. Against Kazakhstan Federer won the first deciding rubber of his Davis Cup career. The final was in Lille, at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy. Federer had pulled out of the ATP Finals final with another back injury, yet he beat Richard Gasquet to clinch Switzerland's first Davis Cup. More than 27,000 people attended each match, an attendance record for an officially sanctioned tennis match.

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• 7. Fall and Return

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  Brisbane at the start of 2015 handed Federer a milestone. A final win over Milos Raonic gave him his 1,000th career victory. Only Jimmy Connors and Ivan Lendl had reached that mark before him. He was also the first man in the Open Era to win at least one title in each of 15 consecutive years. In Cincinnati that year he beat Murray and Djokovic in the same event. It was the first time he had beaten the top two players in the world at one tournament. In December Edberg, who had signed on for one season in 2014, was replaced by Croatian Ivan Ljubičić.

  The day after losing the 2016 Australian Open semifinal to Djokovic, Federer injured his knee. In early February he had arthroscopic surgery for a torn meniscus. His absence from the French Open ended a record run of 65 consecutive major main draws that began at the 2000 Australian Open. At Wimbledon he beat Marin Čilić from two sets down, then lost the semifinal to Raonic in five sets and re-injured the knee. On the 26th of July 2016 he announced he would miss the Olympics and the rest of the season. It was his first title-less season since 2000, and he fell out of the top ten for the first time in 14 years. Many analysts decided he would never win a major again.

  His ranking was No. 17 at the start of 2017, the lowest in over fifteen years. In Melbourne he became the oldest man in a major semifinal since Connors in 1991. He beat Wawrinka in five sets, making him the oldest major finalist since Ken Rosewall in 1974. Down a break in the fifth set against Nadal, he came back to win his first major since 2012. Indian Wells brought his 90th career title and Miami another win over Nadal. Worried about his longevity, he skipped the entire clay season. At Wimbledon he beat Čilić in the final without dropping a set, claiming a record eighth title and his 19th major. He was the oldest male Wimbledon champion of the Open Era.

  In September 2017 he played in the inaugural Laver Cup, an event he had founded. He beat Sam Querrey and Nick Kyrgios, saving a match point against Kyrgios in the champion's tiebreak to seal the cup for Team Europe. He also played doubles with Nadal for the first time. In Shanghai he beat Nadal for a fifth straight time, and his Swiss Indoors win over del Potro moved him past Lendl in career titles.

  Australia in 2018 brought a sixth Australian Open title, over Čilić in five sets. It made him the first man to win 20 major singles titles. In Rotterdam that February he beat Grigor Dimitrov to return to No. 1. At 36 years and 195 days, he was the oldest ATP world No. 1 by more than three years, a record that stood until Djokovic broke it in 2024. The gap between his two reigns was five years and 106 days, the longest on record. He lost the top ranking for the last time after Borna Ćorić beat him in the Halle final. At the US Open, John Millman upset him, with Federer citing the heat and humidity.

  Dubai in 2019 brought his 100th singles title, a straight-set final win over Stefanos Tsitsipas. Only Connors had reached that number before him in the Open Era. In Madrid he won his 1200th career match, against Gaël Monfils. The Wimbledon final that July with Djokovic lasted 4 hours and 57 minutes, the longest in the tournament's history. It was also the first final to use a tiebreaker at 12 games all in the fifth set. Federer lost it despite holding two championship points on his own serve. In Basel he played the 1500th match of his career and won his tenth Swiss Indoors title over Alex de Minaur. At the ATP Finals in London he beat Djokovic for the first time since 2015, but Tsitsipas stopped him in the semifinals.

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• 8. Final Seasons and Legacy

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  Tennys Sandgren pushed Federer to the edge at the 2020 Australian Open, where Federer saved seven match points in a five-set quarterfinal. A groin injury then slowed him in the semifinal loss to Djokovic. In February came arthroscopic surgery on his right knee, and he pulled out of Dubai, Indian Wells, Miami and the French Open. On the 10th of June 2020 a setback in rehabilitation led to a second procedure, and he promised to return in 2021. It was only his second year since his first title without a trophy.

  The comeback was slow. In January 2021 he skipped the Australian Open, still recovering and facing strict quarantine rules. On the 8th of March Djokovic passed him for the most career weeks at No. 1. Two days later Federer won his first ATP match in 14 months, beating Dan Evans at the Qatar Open. Nikoloz Basilashvili beat him in the quarterfinals. At the French Open he withdrew before the fourth round and gave Matteo Berrettini a walkover. In Halle, Félix Auger-Aliassime beat him in the second round. Their 19-year age difference was the biggest of Federer's 1,521 career matches.

  Wimbledon in 2021 was his last singles tournament. At nearly 40 he became the oldest Wimbledon quarterfinalist of the Open Era, passing Rosewall, then lost in straight sets to Hubert Hurkacz. It was his first straight-set loss there in 19 years, and only the second time in the 21st century he had lost a set 6-0. On the 15th of August another knee surgery followed. He dropped out of the top 50 on the 13th of June 2022. On the 11th of July 2022 he became unranked for the first time since his professional debut.

  Looking ahead, he said he "will play more tennis in the future, of course, but just not in Grand Slams or on the tour."

  The player who left was far from the junior who had lacked self-control. Peers voted him the tour Sportsmanship Award a record 13 times, in 2004-09 and 2011-17. Fans chose him as ATP Fans' Favorite 19 consecutive years, from 2003 to 2021. He won the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year award five times, in 2005-08 and 2018. He also won the BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year a record four times. He took the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian of the Year Award in 2006 and 2013, and the Laureus Comeback of the Year award for 2017.

  His results stand beside his rivals'. Federer reached 31 major finals, second only to Djokovic, including a record ten in a row. His 20 majors are the third-most, behind Nadal's 22 and Djokovic's 24. From the 14th of October 2002 until the 31st of October 2016, he stayed in the world's top eight for 14 years and two weeks.

  Beyond the court, he helped create the Laver Cup. He also founded the Roger Federer Foundation, which supports impoverished children in southern Africa, partly funded by the Match for Africa exhibition series. The money came too. He was routinely among the ten highest-paid athletes in any sport, and in 2020 he led all athletes with $100 million in endorsement income. In August 2025, Forbes estimated his net worth at $1.1 billion. A minority stake in the Swiss shoe and apparel brand On boosted it, making him the seventh billionaire athlete in history.

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