Roger Federer

📍Münchenstein, Basel-Landschaft, Switzerland

“Roger Federer was born in Basel, Switzerland, in August 1981, and grew up in Münchenstein and neighbouring Riehen, near Basel, close to the borders with France and Germany. His father, Robert, is Swiss, and his mother, Lynette, is South African; they met when both worked for a pharmaceutical company. Roger grew up speaking Swiss German and English and played many sports, including football and badminton, before focusing on tennis, which he began at about eight at the Old Boys Tennis Club in Basel. He worked as a ball boy at the Swiss Indoors tournament in Basel, and at fourteen he moved to the Swiss national tennis centre in Ecublens, near Lausanne, where he struggled with homesickness. In 1998 he won the junior Wimbledon title, and he went on to win twenty Grand Slam singles titles, including eight at Wimbledon, as well as winning his hometown Swiss Indoors ten times.”

Sources: Clarey, C. The Master: The Long Run and Beautiful Game of Roger Federer (2021), Twelve; Bowers, C. Roger Federer: Spirit of a Champion (2006), John Blake Publishing