Roger Federer

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Roger Federer : biography

8 August 1981 –

In 2005, Federer failed to reach the finals of the first two Grand Slam tournaments, losing the Australian Open semifinal to eventual champion Safin and the French Open semifinal to eventual champion Rafael Nadal. However, Federer quickly reestablished his dominance on grass, winning the Wimbledon Championships over Andy Roddick. At the US Open, Federer defeated Andre Agassi in the latter’s last Grand Slam final. Federer also took four ATP Masters Series 1000 wins: Indian Wells, Miami, and Cincinnati on hard court, and Hamburg on clay. Furthermore, Federer won two ATP 500 series events at Rotterdam and Dubai. Federer lost the year-end championships to David Nalbandian in the final but maintained his position as world number 1.

In 2006, Federer won three Grand Slam singles titles and reached the final of the other, with the only loss coming against Nadal in the French Open. He was the first man to reach all four finals in a calender year since Rod Laver in 1969. This was Federer and Nadal’s first meeting in a Grand Slam final. Federer defeated Nadal in the Wimbledon Championships final. In the Australian Open, Federer defeated Marcos Baghdatis, and at the US Open, Federer defeated Roddick (2003 champion). In addition, Federer made it to six ATP Masters Series 1000 finals, winning four on hard surfaces and losing two on clay to Nadal. Federer won one ATP 500 series event in Tokyo and captured the year-end championships for the third time in his career, again finishing the year as world number 1.

In 2007, Federer reached all four Grand Slam singles finals, winning three of them again. He won the Australian Open over Fernando González and did so without dropping a set, Wimbledon over Rafael Nadal for the second time, and the US Open over Novak Djokovic. Federer lost the French Open to Nadal. Federer made five ATP Masters Series 1000 finals in 2007, winning the Hamburg and Cincinnati titles. Federer won one 500 series event in Dubai and won the year-end championships. He finished as the year-end world number 1 for the fourth year in a row, demonstrating his dominance, and in these four years he won 11 grand slams.

2008 to present: Dominance of the Big Four

In 2008, Federer won one Grand Slam singles title at the US Open over Briton Andy Murray. Federer was defeated by Nadal in two Grand Slam finals, at the French Open, and at Wimbledon, when he was going for six straight wins to break Björn Borg’s record. At the Australian Open, Federer lost in the semifinals to eventual winner Djokovic, which ended his record of 10 consecutive finals. Later in the year it was found Federer had been suffering from mononucleosis at the start of the year, including during the Australian Open. He lost twice in Master Series 1000 finals on clay to Nadal, at Monte Carlo and Hamburg. However, Federer captured two titles in 250-level events at Estoril and Halle and one title in a 500 level event in Basel. At the Olympic Games, Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka won the gold medal in doubles, but Federer could only reach the quarter finals in the singles draw, knocked out by then world number 8 James Blake. He ended the year as world number 2.

In 2009, Federer won two Grand Slam singles titles, the French Open over Robin Söderling, and Wimbledon over Andy Roddick. Federer reached two other Grand Slam finals, losing to Nadal at the Australian Open, and to Juan Martín del Potro at the US Open, both in tight 5-set matches. Federer won two more events, the first at the Madrid Masters over Nadal in the final on clay. The second was in Cincinnati over Djokovic, although Federer lost to Djokovic in Basel, later in the year. Federer completed a career Grand Slam by winning his first French Open title and won a men’s record fifteenth Grand Slam singles title by defeating Andy Roddick at Wimbledon in five sets, surpassing Pete Sampras’s mark of fourteen.

In 2010, Federer slowed down in his milestones and achievements. The year started with a win at the Australian Open, where he defeated Andy Murray in the final and extended his Grand Slam singles record to sixteen titles, matching Andre Agassi’s record of four Australian Open titles. At the French Open, Federer won his 700th tour match and 150th tour match on clay. However, he failed to reach a Grand Slam semifinal for the first time since the 2004 French Open, losing to Söderling in the quarterfinals and relinquishing his no. 1 ranking, having been just one week away from equaling Pete Sampras’s record of 286 weeks as World No. 1. In a huge upset at Wimbledon, Federer lost in the quarterfinal to Tomáš Berdych and fell to No. 3 in the rankings for the first time in 6 years and 8 months. At the 2010 US Open, Federer reached the semifinals, avenging his French Open loss to Söderling in the quarterfinals, but proceeded to lose a five-set match to third seed Novak Djokovic. Federer made it to four Masters 1000 finals, losing three of them (the Madrid Open, the Canadian Masters, and the Shanghai Masters), while winning the Cincinnati Masters against Mardy Fish. In 2010 Federer equaled Agassi for the number of Masters wins at 17 and tied Bjorn Borg’s mark for number of total titles won, moving to just one behind Sampras. Towards the middle of July, Federer hired Pete Sampras’ old coach Paul Annacone to put his tennis game and career on the right path on a trial basis. Federer won two lesser titles at the Stockholm Open and the Davidoff Swiss Indoors, which brought his tally to 65 career titles. Lastly, Federer won the year-end championships by beating rival Rafael Nadal, for his fifth title at the event. He showed much of his old form, beating all contenders except Nadal in straight sets. Since Wimbledon 2010, Federer had a win-loss record of 34–4 and had multiple match points in two of his losses: to Novak Djokovic in the semifinal of the US Open, and to Gaël Monfils in the semifinal of the Paris Masters. Federer did not play in the 2010 Davis Cup and finished the year as World No. 2.