The 21st century
Colombia · born Montreal, 1987 · Wimbledon doubles champion 2019 with Juan Sebastián Cabal, the first Colombians to win a Wimbledon title
All playersBack to the rankings
297
Minutes of the 2019 Wimbledon doubles final, the first four sets tiebreaks
1st
Colombian Wimbledon champions, with Juan Sebastián Cabal in 2019
31st
Major played as a team with Cabal when they won Wimbledon
19
ATP titles, every one with Cabal
2016
Wimbledon mixed doubles final with Anna-Lena Grönefeld
Robert Charbel Farah Maksoud was born in Montreal on 20 January 1987, after his parents, Patrick and Eva, left Lebanon during its civil war. The family settled in Cali, Colombia, where his father worked as a tennis coach and started him at three. He played for the University of Southern California from 2007 to 2010, where he majored in economics and was an All-American in singles and doubles, and in 2011 won the Pan American Games singles and doubles.
He formed his partnership with Juan Sebastián Cabal, whom he had known since they were small boys in Cali, and won all 19 of his ATP titles with him, including the Italian Open in 2018 and 2019. In 2019 they won Eastbourne, Wimbledon and the US Open, and after Wimbledon became joint world No. 1. Farah also reached two major mixed finals with Anna-Lena Grönefeld, at Wimbledon in 2016 and Roland Garros in 2017, and played the 2016 and 2020 Olympics, reaching the quarter-finals in Tokyo.
In January 2020 he was provisionally suspended after a test in October 2019 found the steroid boldenone, and missed the Australian Open. In February 2020 the International Tennis Federation accepted that it came from contaminated meat eaten in Colombia, found he bore no fault or negligence and lifted the suspension. He and Cabal retired after the 2023 US Open.
| Wimbledon 2016 mixed final | Seeded 15th with Anna-Lena Grönefeld, lost to Henri Kontinen and Heather Watson 7-6 (7-5), 6-4 |
|---|---|
| Eastbourne 2019 | With Cabal, beat Máximo González and Horacio Zeballos 3-6, 7-6 (7-4), 10-6 in the final at Devonshire Park |
| Wimbledon 2019 final | Second seeds with Cabal, beat Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin 6-7 (5-7), 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (8-6), 6-7 (5-7), 6-3 in 4 hours 57 minutes |
| Wimbledon 2023 | Lost in the first round to Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos 6-7 (6-8), 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (11-9), with a tiebreak in every set |
| Wimbledon | ||
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Men's doubles | with Juan Sebastián Cabal |
| Eastbourne | ||
| 2019 | Men's doubles | with Juan Sebastián Cabal |
Leading grass titles only: the grass majors, tour-level grass events since 1968 and the leading grass championships before 1968. † single source; ‡ sources disagree. Roll of champions
"Sebas is a brother to me. His children call me Uncle Rob."
The person behind the player.
Montreal to Cali
His parents had settled in Montreal after fleeing the Lebanese civil war, and he was born there. A holiday in Cali in the late 1980s led the family to settle in Colombia, where his father coached tennis and his mother taught.
Source: ATP Tour, 2023Cali
"The first time I met Sebas, we were five years old," Farah said. "We started playing in the same city." He said the only others with a similar backstory were the Bryan brothers.
Source: ATP Tour, 2023USC
At USC he met his wife, the Spanish golfer Belén Mozo, a four-time All-American there. He has said that if he had not been a tennis player he would have been a golfer.
Source: ATP Tour player biographyBogotá, July 2019
Two days after the Wimbledon final Colombia's president, Iván Duque, awarded him the Great Cross of the Order of Merit. The title came in the pair's 31st major together.
Source: ATP Tour player biography2023
Looking back on how long it took them to win a major, he said: "Alcaraz did it at 18 years of age, but we're more mortal and it took us over 30."
Source: ATP Tour, 2023Free membership: player news, the grass court Atlas, the rankings and the grass season calendar.
Join freePage updated 4 November 2026. Spotted an error? Send a correction.
_(52883600103).jpg){kind=link}