Trivia

Roger's father, Robert Federer, is Swiss-German and his mother, Lynette Federer, is South African.

Roger pronounces his name the English way because his mother comes from South Africa.

As a child, Roger was very emotional on court. Although he wasn't rude to umpires or other players, he often berrated himself on court. After one such event, his parents were so horrified with his behaviour that they refused to talk to him, only making the emotional child more frustrated. It took many years and the influence of many integral people in his life, before Roger learned that in order to play his best tennis, he would need to learn to stay calm and in control on court.

He used to be a very talented soccer player while growing up and considered becoming a professional soccer player for a time. He supports his hometown club of FC Basel and is also a fan of AC Roma.

Roger is a devout Catholic and has had the honour of meeting the Pope. He said of the meeting, "It was special of course, I am Catholic. This was just the perfect day."

His favourite vacation spots are the Maldives, Dubai, and the Swiss mountains.

His favourite movies are Good Will Hunting and American Beauty while his favourite musicians are Lenny Kravitz and AC/DC.

He used to be a vegetarian but about ten years ago, he decided to go back to eating meat and fish.

Roger has won singles tournaments in 16 different countries including Australia, Austria, Canada, People's Republic of China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Qatar, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States.

He has recently (since 2005) become involved with the design of his own custom tennis racquet, the Wilson K-Factor. Unlike other players who prefer to leave the design of their racquets to the manufacturer, Federer wanted to get involved at every level, testing 87 prototypes along the way. Antoine Ballon from Wilson said, "Roger paid attention to every single detail, and wanted to be involved with everything. It was that attention to detail, and him wanting to feel totally comfortable with the racket, which showed me why he is world No 1. It was incredible really. [...] Roger is probably the only tennis player who would be prepared to work closely with us like this."