![Roger Federer]()
Roger Federer's commencement speech at Dartmouth will go down as one of the better ones in recent memory — and will certainly be less polarizing than the one Harrison Butker gave at Benedictine College.
No need to dwell on the blowback Butker received amid perhaps the most lightning-rod publicity ever generated by an NFL kicker. The
Chiefs have his back, he helped
save his teammate's life, and we're moving onward and upward.
In a powerful but succinct 25-minute address to Dartmouth's class of 2024, Federer spoke about all sorts of topics, but the meat of it that graduates could pull life lessons from was boiled down nicely in the following reel that runs less than four minutes:
https://twitter.com/TennisChannel/status/1800227585273778447
It's almost disarming how humble somebody as accomplished as Federer is. He actually relates to what the graduates are going through in real time, since he's now retired from professional tennis and is facing the great unknown of what he's going to do in the next phase of his life. But beyond that humorous, unexpected comparison of similar circumstances, the way Federer spoke about his tennis legacy and how it could be applied to anyone's life made him even more accessible than you'd ever expect a mega-famous, legendary athlete to be.
To kick things off on that front — er, to begin serve? Straining for a tennis analogy — Federer expressed a little saltiness about how his playing style was often referred to as "effortless."
"'Effortless' is a myth. I mean it. I say that as someone who has heard that word a lot, effortless. People would say my play was effortless. Most of the time they meant it as a compliment, but it used to frustrate me when they would say, ‘He barely broke a sweat!’ I didn't get where I got them pure talent alone.
"[…] Yes, talent matters. I'm not going to stand here and tell you it doesn't. But talent has a broad definition. Most of the time, it's not about having a gift it's about having grit. In tennis, a great forehand with sick racket head speed can be called a talent, but in tennis, like in life, discipline is also a talent. And so is patience. Trusting yourself is a talent. Embracing the process; loving the process is a talent. Managing your life. Managing yourself. These can be talents, too. Some people are born with them. Everybody has to work at them."
Continuing on that train of thought, Federer spoke about the heartbreaking losses that still haunt him to this day, all the ups and downs within matches that he'd nevertheless dominate according to the box score, and how extremely hard work doesn't guarantee success.
"You can work harder than you thought possible and still lose. I have many times. Tennis is brutal. [...] In tennis, perfection is impossible. In the 1,526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80% of those matches. Now, I have a question for you: What percentage of points do you think I won in those matches?
Only 54%. The truth is, whatever game you play in life, sometimes you're going to lose. A point, a match, a season, a job. It's a roller coaster with many ups and downs. The best in the world are not the best because they win every point. It's because they know they'll lose again and again, and have learned how to deal with it."
Federer cleverly divided the main takeaways he wanted the outgoing students to have into three "tennis" lessons. In addition to effortlessness being a myth, and "it's only a point", his last was, "life is bigger than the court." There was a nugget of wisdom in there that I won't soon forget as Federer reflected on his perspective starting out, when becoming a pro was starting to feel within reach.
"I knew that tennis could show me the world, but tennis could never
be the world," Federer said.
To have that mature of a perspective prior to turning pro — he made his ATP debut just before turning 17 — goes to show how "built different" Federer was from an athletic
and mental standpoint. Especially in an individual sport like tennis, with the understanding you have a whole team around you, once you're in the heat of battle, it's just you and your opponent. Mano a mano. May the best man win. Granted, Federer won way more often than not and could keep his confidence relatively high, yet to fall short in pivotal matches versus Nadal, Djokovic and others would be enough to rattle anyone.
Still, Federer persisted for much longer than anyone could've expected, successfully defended his Australian Open title in 2018 and became the oldest No. 1 ranked player ever at age 36. To that point, well in advance of his retirement in September 2022, he was a tennis pro for more than half his life. For how easy it is in human nature to dwell on the negative, the way Federer frames tennis against that paradigms is nothing short of brilliant.
https://twitter.com/TheLadyGatsby/status/1799859068343062734
It's incredible how Federer pulled this commencement speech off with the grace — hope that's better than saying "effortlessness", Rog! — that he often showed on the court en route to 310 weeks as world No. 1 and 20 Grand Slam singles titles among many other accolades.
Had it not been for
Rafael Nadal's other worldly prowess on clay courts as a 14-time French Open champ, or the emergence of the arguable GOAT in Novak Djokovic during his heyday, Federer could've achieved even more. What a great case study in terms of how much longer Federer was able to compete at the most elite of levels even as younger all-time greats like Nadal, Djokovic and the next wave of prodigies emerged.
Check out King Roger's full commencement speech below. It really is worth the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqWUuYTcG-o
Only six minutes longer is one of the soul-crushing defeats Federer referred to when talking about working super hard and still losing. His 2008 Wimbledon final duel against Rafael Nadal is believed to be the greatest match ever in many corners of the tennis world.
I remember watching this showdown live, and it was nothing short of extraordinary. Five sets. A two-set lead blown by Rafa thanks to two tiebreaker wins from Fed. Many extra games in the fifth set to decide it. Darkness closing in. Fans going nuts. Quality shotmaking the likes of which you've seldom seen before. It had everything. More than holds up about a decade and a half later. With Rafa right on the doorstep of retirement himself, it's a great one to revisit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8YEiCAPAbg
