Remembering beginning of Roger Federer’s illustrious career – Tennis Special (Part One)
Roger Federer is one of the best players the sport of tennis has ever seen. Many of the tennis followers even rate him above the two time calendar Grand Slam winner, Rod Laver.
The Swiss Maestro is the most dominant player of the 21st century so far. Stretch of Federer’s rule on the tennis world is one of the longest in tennis history. First Federer fought off the stars of his previous generation.
Then he contested with a force of players of his own age and now he is locking horns with the next generation with great success.
The 31-year-old has been a professional tennis player for almost 13 years now. When he captured Wimbledon title earlier in this year, the Swiss star became the oldest player to claim number one ranking since Andre Agassi.
Federer’s statistics speak for his class, having a number of all time and open era records under his belt. The Swiss legend has won 17 Grand slam titles, spent 302 weeks as the top ranked player, captured the ATP World Tour finals
six times, grabbed 21 ATP Masters 1000 titles and many more achievements.
All this time has passed but Federer is still hungry for success. He is extremely happy with the achievements throughout his career but the Swiss star is still striving for more.
Federer also shared few months back that he does not just play tennis for a living and fame but he loves the sport. The Swiss hero stated that tennis was his best hobby and he was lucky that it became his profession too.
The Basel, Switzerland resident said, "Sometimes you're just happy playing. Some people, some media unfortunately don't understand that it's okay just to play tennis and enjoy it. They always think you have to win everything, it
always needs to be a success story, and if it's not obviously what is the point. Maybe you have to go back and think,
Why have I started playing tennis? Because I just like it. It's actually sort of a dream hobby that became somewhat of a job. Some people just don't get that ever.”
However, we know that every story has to come to an end one day. All those former greats had to retire and same would happen with Federer soon. As the Swiss legend is nearing his retirement time, let us remember the starting days
of our favourite player’s career.
Federer turned professional in the summers of 2008. The Swiss Maestro did not have any fancy records in his junior career unlike many of his age mates, who later got the beating from him in the professional career.
Ranked 702nd in the world, Federer entered his first ATP event through a wild card. The event was Crédit Agricole Suisse Open Gstaad
in his home country and was being held on the clay courts, which is not Federer’s favourite surface. The Swiss star, who was just 17-year-old at that time, lost to the then world number 88, Argentina’s Lucas Arnold Ker, in the first round.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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