{"id":341256,"date":"2025-12-12T21:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T21:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/341256\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T21:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T21:42:09","slug":"federer-to-return-to-aussie-open-in-january-tennis-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/341256\/","title":{"rendered":"Federer to Return to Aussie Open in January \u2013 Tennis Now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Six-time Australian Open champion Roger Federer will return to the land down under in January, taking part in a new exhibition in Melbourne.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tennisexpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-lazyloaded=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"610\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Pro-Player-Gear-610X150-03.jpg\" alt=\"tennis express pro player gear\" class=\"wp-image-54451\"  data-\/><\/a>tennis express pro player gear<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cBattle of the World No.1s\u201d will be a part of the tournament\u2019s inaugural opening ceremony, the day before main draw play kicks off. Former top-ranked icons Andre Agassi, Patrick Rafter and Lleyton Hewitt are pencilled in to join the 2026 International Tennis Hall of Fame inductee inside Rod Laver Arena for a highly anticipated night of tennis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been thinking it\u2019s really cold here in Switzerland. I need to make a trip again and head back,\u201c Federer revealed on Instagram before rotating his video to complete the sentence with, \u201cDown Under.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt feels like a lifetime ago that I coined the phrase the \u2018Happy Slam\u2019 for the Australian Open, and it still makes me smile when I think about all the moments I\u2019ve had here\u201d Federer said in a statement posted on the Australian Open\u2019s website.<\/p>\n<p>\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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Federer, now 44, famously captured his 19th and 20th major titles at the tournament in 2017 and 2018, at 35 and 36 years of age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six-time Australian Open champion Roger Federer will return to the land down under in January, taking part in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-341256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}