Roger Federer was not always the calm player that won 20 Grand Slam titles in his career.
Federer has been vocal about his bad temper as a junior player, something he had to learn from to become one of the greatest players of all time.
This was known amongst fellow players on the ATP Tour, with one player actually refusing to practice with Federer.
However, Daniil Medvedev’s current coach did play with a much younger Federer, but this resulted in an outburst from the Swiss.
Photo by Mark Dadswell/Getty ImagesWhat ‘furious’ Roger Federer said after practicing with Thomas Johansson
Former world number six and 2002 Australian Open champion Thomas Johansson became Medvedev’s coach last month.
When speaking on the Tennis Insider podcast, Johansson recalled a time he trained with a teenage Federer, who ended up being furious after losing a practice set.
“I practiced with Roger when he was 16 or 17 in Marseille one year,” said Johansson. “He was coached by Peter Lundgren and he called me and said ‘The guy I am coaching is quite good, would you mind practicing with him?’
“I said of course. We played a set and I was 15 or 20 in the world and Roger was 800 and maybe it was 6-3 or 6-4 to me and he was furious. He was like ‘How can I lose to this guy?’
“You saw his progress and development both as a player but also on the court because Roger was lively when he was younger. And since he spent a lot of time with us we started to get to know him from when he was 16 or 17 all the way, so that changed.”
What happened when Roger Federer played a match against Thomas Johansson?
Ironically just a few years later, Federer and Johansson would go head-to-head in the same place that they had that practice in Marseille.
A 19-year-old Federer would beat Johansson in straight sets, setting a tone for their head-to-head in years to come.
This would include matches at some of the biggest tournaments including Wimbledon and the year-end ATP Finals.
YearTournamentResult2000Marseille OpenFederer beat Johansson, 6-3 6-22001Miami OpenFederer beat Johansson, 7-6(3) 5-7 7-6(7)2001Italian OpenFederer beat Johansson, 7-6(3) 4-6 7-6(5)2002ATP FinalsFederer beat Johansson, 6-3 7-52004Halle OpenFederer beat Johansson, 6-3 6-22004WimbledonFederer beat Johansson, 6-3 6-4 6-32004Canadian OpenFederer beat Johansson, 4-6 6-3 6-2
Despite some really close-fought battles over the years, Johansson would never actually win one match against Federer in their seven meetings overall.
Johansson would win his one major title in 2002, while Federer would go on to lead the ATP record books on 20, before he was overtaken by Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.