Roger Federer Biography

Roger was born on August 8, 1981 in Basel, Switzerland to a Swiss father 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, Roger was the junior Swiss champion for all age groups.By 1998, Roger'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 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.