Let’s go back 24 years to the Sydney Olympic games…
Before Federer won his doubles gold medal in Beijing 2008 and a singles silver medal in London 2012, Federer played for a bronze medal in Sydney 2000 against Frenchman Arnaud Di Pasquale. Eurosport uploaded the full match a couple of days ago, which you can watch above.
It’s not a match you hear much about in Federer’s career and despite the result, you can catch glimpses of his genius before he really burst onto the scene a year later at Wimbledon. Federer met Di Pasquale twice more (also in 2001) with the Swiss maestro winning both encounters.