{"id":94361,"date":"2025-12-12T12:03:03","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T17:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=94361"},"modified":"2025-12-12T12:03:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T17:03:03","slug":"roger-federer-historic-return-australian-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/12\/12\/roger-federer-historic-return-australian-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Roger Federer Set for Historic Return at the Australian Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

20-time major champion Roger Federer will, for the first time since his tournament appearance in 2020, travel to Australia<\/a> for a unique, first-ever Opening Ceremony held at the Rod Laver Arena next year.<\/p>\n

Federer will be accompanied by fellow former world #1s Andre Agassi, Patrick Rafter, and Lleyton Hewitt in a special \u201cBattle of World #1s<\/a>\u201d taking place on 17 January, the eve of the main draw.<\/p>\n

Federer\u2019s Legacy in Melbourne<\/h4>\n

While most of his success came on grass and he is more synonymous with Wimbledon, Federer is a six-time champion at the Australian Open, with fourteen years separating his first and sixth titles at Rod Laver Arena\u2014the last of which was the twentieth and final major title of his career<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In addition to the six championships Down Under, Federer reached the final in Melbourne one other time, in 2009, where he and Rafael Nadal played one of the greatest matches in the tournament\u2019s history, with the Spaniard winning in five sets. Remarkably, the duo would contest another Australian Open final eight years later in 2017, where Federer emerged victorious in yet another five-set classic.<\/p>\n

In total, Federer won a men\u2019s record 102 of his 117 matches at Melbourne Park, the last of which was a semifinal defeat to his other great rival, Novak Djokovic\u2014a match in which Federer was reportedly hampered by a knee injury that not only ended his 2020 season prematurely but played a key role in bringing his professional singles career to a close at Wimbledon the following year.<\/p>\n

A Long-Awaited Return to Melbourne<\/h4>\n

In a statement to the tournament, the Swiss expressed his delight at returning to a tournament where he has enjoyed so much success, saying<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve experienced so many emotions on Rod Laver Arena \u2026 the joy of lifting \u2018Norman\u2019 six times, the honour of playing in front of Rod Laver himself, the challenge of competing against my biggest rivals, and always the overwhelming love and support of the Australian fans. Coming back to win the AO in 2017 is one of my most treasured Grand Slam memories, and backing it up to win in 2018 was another dream come true in Melbourne. I can\u2019t wait to come down under again to the AO and create more fantastic moments with all the Aussie fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

And now, more than half a decade removed from his last outing in Australia, the soon-to-be Hall of Famer<\/a> is set not only to return to the Australian Open but to headline an entire event at Rod Laver Arena, in true Federer fashion.<\/p>\n

Main photo credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

20-time major champion Roger Federer will, for the first time since his tournament appearance in 2020, travel to Australia for a unique, first-ever Opening Ceremony held at the Rod Laver Arena next year. Federer will be accompanied by fellow former world #1s Andre Agassi, Patrick Rafter, and Lleyton Hewitt in a special \u201cBattle of World […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5608,"featured_media":94366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[43454,935,43453,114],"class_list":["post-94361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-australian-open","tag-2026-australian-open","tag-andre-agassi","tag-lleyon-hewitt","tag-roger-federer"],"modified_by":"Jim Smith","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5608"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94361"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94367,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94361\/revisions\/94367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}