If there’s one tennis player today who exhibits the stuff that legends are made of, it has to be the current men’s world number one player, Roger Federer of Switzerland. Since gaining the top spot in the men’s tennis rankings in February 2004, Federer has been an immovable force and now holds the distinction of staying at number one for the third-longest time behind only Ivan Lendl and Jimmy Connors.
And Federer has done it in style. In 2004, for instance, he became the first man since 1988 to win three out of four Grand Slam events in the same year, capturing the championships at the US Open, French Open and Wimbledon. From 2003 to 2006, Federer won an astounding seven Grand Slam singles titles and was already being mentioned in the same breadth with some of the greatest tennis players of all time.
Like many of the other tennis greats, Federer took up the game early, at age eight. He dominated the junior’s circuit for several years before joining the ATP tour in 1998, but not before an impressive reign as the ITF World Junior Tennis champion. By 1999, he was good enough to be named to the Swiss Davis Cup team. He finished the year as the...