Federer returns to defend Doha title

Swiss maestro and defending champion of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open, Roger Federer, has begun his ATP World Tour season in Doha six times and has won the title on three occasions – 2005, 2006 and 2011. This year is no different as he embarks on the desert to start his 2012 campaign as strongly as he finished 2011. He returns to Doha having won the last three titles of 2011 – the Basel indoor event, the ATP World Tour Masters in Paris and the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London. As he himself said following his record sixth ATP World Tour Finals title in November, “Usually when I do finish strong, I also start strong the following season.”Federer began playing tennis at age eight and grew up idolising German star, Boris Becker, and his favorite player was American Pete Sampras. He had an excellent junior career, finishing as No. 1 junior in the world in 1998. He won the junior Wimbledon singles and doubles (with Belgium’s Olivier Rochus) that year. He is one of only four players to have won both the junior and men’s singles titles at Wimbledon – Stefan Edberg, Pat Cash and Bjorn Borg being the other three.He has won a men’s record 16 Grand Slam singles titles (four Australian Open titles, one French Open title, six Wimbledon titles, five US Open titles) and one of seven male players to capture a career Grand Slam and one of three (along with Andre Agassi and Rafael Nadal) to do so on three different surfaces (clay, grass, and hard courts). He is the only male player in tennis history to have reached the title match of each Grand Slam tournament at least five times and also reach the final at each of the nine ATP Masters 1000 Tournaments.Qatar ExxonMobil Open 2012 Tournament Director, KarimAlami, says of Federer’s return to Doha, “We are exceptionally honoured and happy to have Roger return to our event. He has proven to be a worthy champion time and time again and a player of his legendary calibre shows how important Doha is on the ATP World Tour.”As important as tennis is to Federer, giving back to the community is just as important. For the past half decade he has working with children in Africa and Switzerland through the Roger Federer Foundation, which partners with local charity organisations to provide children with access to education, sport and play, and improves the quality where there are no or only insufficient funds available. To date, nearly 43,000 children are benefiting from the work his Foundation is doing.In April 2006, he was named UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and also received the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian of the Year Award. In 2011 he received the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award for the seventh time and was selected as the ATPWorldTour.com Fans’ Favorite for a record ninth consecutive year.Federer’s family is a constant fixture on the Tour. He travels with his parents, Lynette and Robert, and his wife, Mirka (a former WTA tennis player whom he met at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games) and their twin daughters Charlene Riva and Myla Rose. He has been coached by American Paul Annacone, former ATP pro and Sampras mentor, since September 2010.