-Roger Federer carries a “Tweety” dressed as a ladybird for good luck.
-Roger’s favorite vacation spots are Maldives, Dubai and the Swiss mountains.
-Swiss Post is honoring ATP World No. 1 Roger Federer with a special stamp, worth one franc, which will be available from April 10.
-Roger plays the piano.
-Rafael Nadal spends as much as 38 seconds, 18 over the limit, between points on his service game. Maximum allowed are 20 seconds.
-The asteroid128036 Rafaelnadal is named in Nadal’s honor.
-James Blake was born to African American father and White British mother.
-At 13, James was diagnosed with severe scoliosis and for five years he had to wear a full length back brace for 18 hours a day.
-Sampras has thalassemia, an inherited disease that causes anemia. Thalassemia minor limits physical and athletic endurance and causes those who have it to feel fatigued when forced to perform athletic feats.
-Sampras vomited on the court during his epic 7-6, 5-7, 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 win in the 1996 US Open quarterfinals against Alex Corretja- a match that lasted 4 hours and 9 minutes.
-Forbes magazine, in 2005, listed Maria Sharapova as the highest-paid female athlete in the world.
-Maria earns over $20 million a year, 90 percent of which comes from endorsements.
-Rod Laver was honoured with his portrait on a postage stamp by the “Australia Post Australian Legends Award”.
-Rod Laver was so successful a tennis star that in 1970 Adidas made a signature shoe called the “Rod Laver”. This shoe has become very popular among freestyle footbag players.
-Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert had planned to marry in October 1974, but it was called off.
-In January 2006, Hewitt was voted in a survey conducted by GQ magazine as the 10th most-hated athlete in the United States. He was the only non-U.S. athlete to make the list.
-In late 2005, Hewitt was voted No. 5 on a La Nacion newspaper poll from Argentina listing the most hated sporting figures in that country. The poll results were published in the months after an explosive Davis Cup quarterfinal between Australia and Argentina with insults traded by both sides.
-According to the match scores listed on the ATP website, Borg bageled his opponents (sets won 6-0) 116 times from 1973 through 1981, compared to Roger Federer’s 52 bagels from 1999 through the 2007 Australian Open.
-Borg compiled a 576-124 win-loss singles record, winning more than 82 percent of the matches he played. By comparison, Pete Sampras won 77 percent during his career.
-Borg won 14 consecutive five-set singles matches before losing to John McEnroe at the 1980 U.S. Open, a record for the open era.
-Borg won his 11th Grand Slam singles title in 1981 at age 25, the youngest male to reach that number of titles. By comparison, Pete Sampras won his 11th at almost age 27, Roy Emerson at age 30, and Rod Laver at age 31.
-McEnroe currently owns an art gallery in Manhattan.
-Agassi dated famed American singer Barbra Streisand in the early 1990s before marrying actress Brooke Shields on April 19, 1997. That February, they had filed suit against The National Enquirer claiming it printed “false and fabricated” statements about the couple. The case was dismissed. He later filed for divorce from Shields, which was granted on April 9, 1999.
-Andre Agassi, at 5 years of age, was already practicing with pros such as Jimmy Connors and Roscoe Tanner.
-Boris Becker is the youngest-ever winner of men’s singles title at Wimbledon at the age of 17.
-Boris Becker and his would-be wife and actress Barbara Feltus, shocked the Germans by posing nude for the cover of Stern magazine. The picture was taken by her father.
-Becker speaks with a distinctive lisp and the Heidelberg region intonation. He is notorious for saying regularly ääh, ääh. He has been constantly mocked by comedians for this.
-Becker was convicted of tax evasion on October 24, 2002, when he admitted that he lived in Germany from 1991–93 while claiming to reside in Monte Carlo. He was given two years probation, fined $500,000, and ordered to pay all court costs.
