September 30th, 1998 will be a date that Roger Federer and his fans will never forget for as long as they live.
It was on that day when the 20-time grand slam champion won his first ever main draw match on the ATP World Tour. It occurred at the Grand Prix de Tennis de Toulouse. A tournament that ended just two years later. Federer came through three rounds of qualifying to set himself up with a meeting against France’s Guillaume Raoux. Raoux was ranked 45th in the world at the time, but crashed out 6-2, 6-2, to Federer. Handing him his first main draw win on the professional tour.
“It’s nothing but a newspaper story. It’s just a first-round defeat in Toulouse. I lost to Federer. Two days later I had forgotten I had lost to Federer.” Raoux reflected about the match during an interview with 20 Minutes in 2012.
At the time Federer wasn’t a household name, but many players were becoming aware of his talent. Earlier that year he won the Wimbledon boys’ title without dropping a set. He also won the boys doubles trophy alongside Olivier Rochus and later reached the final of the US Open juniors. Although at the time of the Toulouse tournament, he had a professional ranking of only 878th in the world.
“I knew who he was, I knew he had won the Wimbledon juniors a few weeks earlier.” Said Raoux.
“Losing to him was first of all a below-average performance on my side. I was extremely tired coming back from a Davis Cup tie in Israel. He didn’t leave me any chance (6-2 6-2)”
“Talent was the last of his problems. You could already see it and was already giving this impression of great ease in his shot-making. But back then it was a daily occurrence to come across young guys hitting the ball well.”
Federer’s breakthrough at the tournament didn’t end there. In the second round he knocked out seventh seed Richard Fromberg 6-1, 7-6. Fromberg was then ranked 43rd in the world. He was eventually stopped in the quarter-finals by Dutch player Jan Siemerink, who went on to win the title. Defeating Greg Rusedski in the final.
“He was hitting the ball not as hard [as he does today] and he was less resistant. He used to make a lot of mistakes. The talent was there, but in order to make it big you need elements that are much more difficult to detect, such as mental strength and physical fitness. I didn’t see those in him at that stage.” Roux concluded about Federer’s performance at the tournament.
20 years on from that breakout win, the former world No.1 has now won 1168 matches on the tour. The second highest of all-time for an ATP player after Jimmy Connors (1256 matches). He has won 98 ATP titles, including a record 20 at grand slam level. On the ATP rankings, he has spent 310 weeks at world number one.
Federer will be returning to action at the start of October when he plays at the Shanghai Rolex Masters.
WATCH: French TV report on the 1998 Toulouse qualifying tournament featuring Federer
