Just when I thought that Switzerland was THE yachting nation, some other Swiss champions come out of a different corner. Tennis.
I’m going to have to out myself as a tennis fan. Actually this isn’t new, my tennis ‘roots’ go back to high school when I played on the tennis team. I was nothing fantastic, just your average, run of the mill player. Win a few, lose a few but I always beat my sister.To be honest, I really shouldn’t have been able to, she was the better player. Still, I always did. But that wasn’t a physical skill thing it was a psyche thing. Of course you need good psyche skills in tennis but that alone doesn’t do it. Unfortunately she was the only person I could beat consistently.
Still, I really enjoyed the game, I even played a little in college. After I moved to Switzerland I only played once. The person I was playing against was 10 years older than me. She hit the ball so hard I couldn’t return anything. I had no chance and knew I was out of my league. So that was the end of my active tennis ‘career’. Since then I occasionally watch tennis on TV.
Okay, I’m Swiss now, too, and no, I didn’t make my top 5 list.
5. Heinz Günthardt
Heinz Günthardt turned pro in 1976 and retired in 1990. His highest ATP ranking was 22. He won 5 singles titles and 30 career doubles titles.
I have never seen him play tennis but heard of him because he won his first title in 1978 as a Lucky Loser in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA. A Lucky Loser is someone who lost their qualification match and technically are not allowed to play in the tournament. Due to someone backing out because of injury or something like that, the best ‘loser’ can take their place. This is what happened to Heinz Günthard but the neat thing was he won the tournament. He was the first Lucky Loser to win an ATP tournament. I think that’s cool.
4. Marc Rosset
Marc Rosset was a good, solid Swiss tennis player with 16 career titles in singles and 8 in doubles. He turned professional in 1988 and retired in 2005. His highest ATP ranking was 9.
What I remember most about Marc Rosset has very little to do with how he played tennis. It was how much luck he had in 1998. After his early out in the US Open he booked a seat on Swissair to fly back home. The day before his flight, he changed his reservation to another flight to fly back with his new trainer. The original flight he booked, Swissair 111, crashed in Halifax. All 229 passengers and crew members were killed.
3. Stan Wawrinka
Stan Wawrinka turned pro in 2002. His highest ATP ranking is 3. He has won 16 career titles in singles and 2 doubles career titles to date.
He is a very good player and doesn’t get the big applause he deserves. A possible reason is that he happens to be professional the same time as Roger Federer.
2. Martina Hingis
Martina Hingis turned pro in 1994 and retired in 2017. She won 43 WTA and 2 ITF (International Tennis Federation) single career titles. She also has 64 WTA and 1 ITF double career titles under her belt. Her best WTA ranking is 1 which she held for a total of 209 weeks.
She dominated women’s tennis for a good, long time. She had a whole row of ‘youngest-ever’ records: grand slam winner, world number 1 among others. I remember her winning a car before she was able to drive, now that’s young.
1. Roger Federer
You guessed, right? How can you have a post about Swiss tennis players without including Roger Federer? You can’t. He turned pro in 1998 and his highest ATP ranking is 1, which he has held for whopping 305 weeks. He has 98 career titles in singles and 8 in doubles. Impressive.
You trip over superlatives when talking about him. The thing is, he seems like a totally nice guy who happens to be very good at what he does. He holds record after record and he appears to break one every time he’s in a tournament. He has fans all over the world, two of which are my aunts in Georgia. One of them asked me to get her some special Swiss stamps with Roger depicted on them. Which I did. The next time we visited, they were framed and hung.
I remember, early on in his career every time I watched a game he would lose. Often when I turned on the TV he was winning. Unfortunately, as soon as I sat down to watch, bam, he lost. I was his personal jinx. It was hard, but for his sake I stopped watching and he started winning big time. You’re welcome.
It is fun watching Roger Federer play. He has some amazing shots. His interviews after the game always involve praise for his opponent and the crowd. He’s candid when it comes to ‘lucky shots’ or luck in general. Just a down-to-earth, good guy with a talent to entertain.
I saw this interview and thought ‘So typical’. By the way, in case you don’t know, GOAT is an acronym and stands for ‘Greatest of All Time’.
Oh, one more thing. At some point my jinx wore off. Now I can watch a match and more often than not, he wins.
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