The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Home, sweet home for Federer

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Home, sweet home for Federer

MELBOURNE: Roger Federer is always a crowd favourite in Melbourne, where he’s won three of his record 15 Grand Slam singles titles and reached the semifinals or better for six straight years.

If only he’d been an Aussie, the fans at Rod Laver Arena were lamenting on Saturday, they wouldn’t be in the midst of a drought.

Federer has revealed that his parents considered emigrating from Switzerland to Australia when he was a teenager and his father did a three-month work stint Down Under.

“I remember my parents having a debate, ‘are we moving away from Switzerland to come live over here?”’ Federer said. “And even though it’s lucrative and nice to go to Australia, they love the country ... at the end they decided to stay in Switzerland.”

Federer remembers a long Australian vacation when he was 14 to scope out the country.

“We went on a big vacation here through Melbourne and Brisbane and Cairns and maybe get a better idea of the country,” he recalled. But it didn’t do the trick. Federer returned to Europe and attended a tennis academy, and said he doesn’t regret not becoming an Australian. “I stayed Swiss and will remain Swiss and I’m happy I chose that way,” he said. “Sorry guys.” Federer also has South African citizenship, from his mother, Lynette.

Australia hasn’t produced a men’s champion in the National championship since Mark Edmondson beat fellow Australian John Newcombe, a seven-time Grand Slam singles winner.

Lleyton Hewitt has been ranked No. 1, and won the U.S. Open and Wimbledon titles, but lost to Russian Marat Safin in 2005, his only trip to the Australian Open final.

Other contenders since Edmondson have fallen short, too. Pat Cash won Wimbledon in 1987 but lost back-to-back Australian finals in 1987, and ’88. Pat Rafter, who won back-to-back U.S. Open titles in 1997 and ’98 and was runner-up at Wimbledon in 2000 and ’01, never made it past the semifinals of his home Grand Slam. — AP

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