Roger Federer: Effortless tennis a myth says Swiss great in graduation speech – BBC Sport
Federer rejects ‘effortless’ theory in graduation speech
Roger Federer in a dark robe at Dartmouth College
Image caption, Federer won Wimbledon eight times
Federer, one of sport’s highest achievers, looked to set the record straight as he delivered a graduation speech at Dartmouth College in the United States.
The Swiss swapped the shorts he had worn “almost every day for the last 35 years” for a robe that was “hard to move in” as he spoke when receiving a Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the New Hampshire institution.
The 20-time Grand Slam winner, who hung up his professional racquet in 2022, talked about how “awful” he finds the word ‘retired’.
He said he had instead “graduated tennis” and, like those he was speaking to, had “finished one big thing” and was “moving on to the next”.
“People would say my play was effortless. Most of the time, they meant it as a compliment,” he said in Sunday’s ceremony. “But it used to frustrate me when they would say, ‘He barely broke a sweat’, or, ‘Is he even trying?’.
“The truth is, I had to work very hard to make it look easy.
“I didn’t get where I got on pure talent alone. I got there by trying to outwork my opponents.
“Most of the time, it’s not about having a gift. It’s about having grit.”
‘You want to become a master at overcoming hard moments’
On his second lesson about it being “only a point”, Federer explained it was possible to “work harder than you thought possible and still lose”, like he had, as “tennis is brutal”.
He referenced his famous five-set defeat by Rafael Nadal in the 2008 Wimbledon final and commented that “in tennis, perfection is impossible”, with him having won 80% of 1,526 singles matches.
“When you lose every second point, on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot,” said Federer.
“When you’re playing a point, it is the most important thing in the world.
“But when it’s behind you, it’s behind you. This mindset is really crucial, because it frees you to fully commit to the next point and the next one after that wit
h intensity, clarity and focus.
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