The three players who Roger Federer named as his tennis idols when he was growing up including one champion he went on to beat at Wimbledon

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Roger Federer is – in the eyes of many – the greatest player to ever swing a tennis racket.

The Swiss performer might not have as many Grand Slam titles to his name as Novak Djokovic or Rafael Nadal, but then neither of those two players had the elegance and effortless nature to the game of tennis as Federer.

Federer might have only won 20 Grand Slam titles during his career. Nadal managed 23 and Djokovic currently sits top of the pile with 24 but the greatest ever shouldn’t be solely defined on that factor.

Federer was a student of the game growing up. Some years ago he conducted an interview and it was perhaps very interesting who he picked as the three players he idolised when he growing up as a lover of tennis.

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Federer famously beat one of the players he idolised at Wimbledon

It perhaps didn’t come as too much of a surprise that Federer loved to watch Pete Sampras as a kid. Federer proved the heir to the throne vacated by Sampras when the time came for him to call it quits and both had similar playing styles.

In 2001, Federer left Centre Court stunned when he beat his idol to mark a changing of the guard when it came to Wimbledon, with the American winning seven times at the All England Club.

Sampras praised Federer after that match which proved to be a Wimbledon classic for the ages and even then it was blatantly obvious that Federer was going to have the ability to dominate the sport for years to come.

It was during an interview on YouTube that Federer named Sampras as one of his idols growing up. The other two were Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker with those players extremely instrumental to Federer picking up a tennis racket in the first place.

Furthermore, in the same interview, Federer pinpointed that win over Sampras as the moment that one big realisation set in that he knew in his own mind he was genuinely a world-class tennis player.

Roger Federer vs Pete Sampras head-to-head

Remarkably, the five-set win secured by Federer over Sampras at Wimbledon in 2001 was the only time that the two players met during their professional careers and that is a real shame.

As one of his idols, Federer would have surely relished the chance to play more times against his hero and given he won the only meeting he maintains the 100 per cent record against Sampras.

Federer upstaged Sampras during his career. That doesn’t take anything away from the brilliance of the American player, however, but instead highlights just how phenomenal the tennis era that featured the big three proved to be.