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Roger Federer: Career through 2005  Roger Federer biography - back to index
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 Federer at the age of 7
Federer started playing tennis at the age of six. He also practiced football alongside tennis until he was twelve, when he chose tennis as the sport to focus on. He started having tennis group practice at the age of nine and weekly private coaching when he was ten. At fourteen, he became the national champion for all age groups in Switzerland and was chosen to train at the Swiss National Tennis Center at Ecublens. He joined the ITF junior tennis circuit in July 1996.
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In 1998 - his last year as a junior - Federer won the Wimbledon juniors title and the year-ending Orange Bowl. He was recognized as the ITF World Junior Tennis champion for the year. In July 1998, he joined the ATP tour.
Federer debuted for the Swiss Davis Cup team in 1999 and finished the year as the youngest player inside the ATP's top 100 ranked players.
In 2000, Federer reached the semifinals at the Sydney Olympics and lost the bronze medal match to Arnaud Di Pasquale of France. Federer was also the losing finalist in Basel and Marseille.
Federer's first ATP tournament victory came in Milan in February 2001. During the same month, he won three matches for his country in 3-2 Davis Cup victory over the United States. He later reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, defeating four-time defending champion Pete Sampras along the way (a victory that many consider to be a turning point of his career), and finished the year ranked 13th.
In 2002, Federer reached his first ATP Masters Series (AMS) final at the Miami Masters, where he lost to Andre Agassi. He won his next AMS final in Hamburg. He also won both his Davis Cup singles matches against former world number ones (Russians Marat Safin and Yevgeny Kafelnikov). Despite early-round exits at the French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open, and the untimely loss of his long-time Australian coach and mentor Peter Carter in a car crash in August, Federer reached No. 6 in the ATP Champions Race by the end of 2002 and qualified for the first time in the year-ending Tennis Masters Cup. Federer lost in the semifinals of that tournament to Lleyton Hewitt.
 Marc Rosset
Federer started 2003 by winning consecutive tournaments in Dubai and Marseille. He won in Munich without losing a set, but suffered a first-round loss at the French Open. On July 6, 2003, he defeated Mark Philippoussis and won his first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon as the first Swiss male player to do so. He dropped only one set during the entire tournament. He also won four Davis Cup matches during the year to lead Switzerland to the semifinals of the World Group. He finished 2003 by winning the Tennis Masters Cup at Houston and ranking second in the ATP tour race. In December, he parted ways with Peter Lundgren, his coach for four years.
In 2004, Federer had one of the most dominating and successful years in the open era of modern men's tennis. He won three of the four Grand Slam singles tournaments, lost to no one ranked in the top ten, and won every final he reached. He won his first Australian Open title by defeating Marat Safin in straight sets, successfully defended his Wimbledon title by defeating Andy Roddick, and won his first U.S. Open title by defeating Hewitt. He finished the year by taking the Tennis Masters Cup at Houston for the second consecutive year. His win-loss record for the year was 74-6 with 11 titles. Federer was named the ITF Tennis World Champion and Laureus World Sportsman of the Year in early 2005, edging out the likes of Michael Schumacher, Valentino Rossi, Lance Armstrong, and Michael Phelps.
Throughout 2004, Federer did not have a coach, relying instead on his fitness trainer Pierre Paganini, physiotherapist Pavel Kovac, and a management team composed of his parents, his girlfriend Mirka Vavrinec (also his manager), and a few friends. For 2005 and onwards, Federer arranged for former Australian tennis player Tony Roche to coach him on a limited basis.
Federer reached the 2005 Australian Open semifinals before falling to eventual winner Safin in a five-set night match that lasted more than four hours. He rebounded to win the year's first two AMS titles: Indian Wells (by defeating Hewitt) and Miami (by defeating Rafael Nadal of Spain). He won his third Hamburg clay court title in May by defeating Richard Gasquet, to whom he had earlier lost in Monte Carlo. He then entered the French Open as one of the favorites, losing in the semifinals in four sets to eventual winner Nadal. Federer successfully defended his Wimbledon title for the third consecutive year by defeating Roddick in a rematch of the previous year's final. Federer also defeated Roddick in Cincinnati to take his fourth AMS title of the year (and sweep all the American AMS events) and become the first player in AMS history to win four titles in one season. He then dropped only two sets en route to his second consecutive U.S. Open title, defeating Andre Agassi in four sets in the final. He became the first man in the open era to win Wimbledon and the U.S. Open back-to-back in consecutive years (2004 and 2005). He failed to defend his Tennis Masters Cup title, however, losing to David Nalbandian of Argentina in a four-and-a-half hour, five-set match. Had he won the match, he would have finished the year 82-3, tying John McEnroe's 1984 record for the highest yearly winning percentage in the open era.
Note:
This article is based on the article Roger Federer from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia und is under the GNU-Licence for free documentation. In the Wikipedia, there is a List of authors available.
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