‘Grit greater than gift’: How Federer made hard work look easy

Speeches by sportspeople at graduations, awards ceremonies and the like?

Historically, they can tend towards such saccharine soliloquies – Dare to dream, just like I did! – they would make a writer for Hallmark greeting cards blush. But there have been notable exceptions.

Nigh on five decades on, Muhammad Ali is still celebrated for, among everything else, his Commencement Address at Harvard in 1975.

“I’m very flattered in coming here ’cause you never could have made me believe years ago when I got out of high school with a D-minus average,” Ali said. “And they gave me the minus because I won the Olympics!”

The crowd loved him, and never more than when he did the “Ali shuffle . . . not the Uncle Tom shuffle.”

“Give us a poem, Muhammad!” one of the students cried after the speech was over.

Muhammad Ali delivers a speech at Harvard in 1975.

Off the cuff, the great man came up with the shortest poem in the history of the world: “Me? We.”

I have previously exulted about the speech given by the former world No.1, tennis player, Andy Roddick, when he was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 2017. In any other era Roddick might have been expected to win a bag of grand slam titles, not just the sole US Open he jagged in 2003. But it just so happened his was an era of all-time giants, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Instead of gnashing his teeth at what might have been, Roddick celebrated his good fortune.

“I can’t believe the level of tennis that I got to see in my career,” the American said with crackling emotion. “The shots hit, the records that were broken, and the records that continue to be broken. Thanks to Murray, Novak, Roger and ‘Rafa’ for playing the game at a higher level than it’s ever been played. It sucked being in your vacuum a lot of times.

“I still consider myself lucky. I got to guard [Michael] Jordan, I went the distance with Ali, I pitched to Babe Ruth. I feel like I know what it must have been like to watch Picasso [paint]. I saw it all.

Andy Roddick hits a forehand in 2002.Credit: AP

“I won a couple of times, not a lot. I am proud to say no other sport has been lifted from having such great people as its leaders. The ‘Big Four’ guys really pissed me off most of the time, but I’m absolutely proud to have my life and career associated with such quality individuals . . . ”

When he came off the stage, his phone pinged. It was Roger Federer, congratulating him on such a wonderfully crafted effort, with such gracious content.

“He’s such a quality individual,” Roddick told the press.

And how funny he should say that. Last Sunday, it was Federer himself who drew the headlines for his own Commencement Address for Dartmouth College’s Class of 2024, where he received an Honorary doctorate – a fair effort, he noted, for someone who had once before set foot on an American college campus.

In 20 minutes, as the class listened with rapt attention, Federer warmed to three themes.

1. Effortless is a myth.
2. It’s only a point.
3. Life is bigger than the court.

His first point was reminiscent of Dolly Parton’s celebrated remark:“It costs me a lot of money to look this cheap.” In Federer’s case, it takes extraordinary effort to make anything look effortless, so don’t be fooled.

Roger Federer at a junior tennis players’ event in Paris.Credit: Getty Images for Uniqlo

“The truth is I had to work very hard to make it look easy. I got that reputation because my warmups at the tournaments were so casual that people didn’t think I’d been training hard. But I had been training hard, before the tournament when no one was watching.”

He went on.

“Because they prove that you can win not just when you are at your best, but especially when you aren’t. Most of the time it’s not about having a gift. It’s about having grit.”

So far, so good. In Australian terms: to be in the pink, work like stink.

“From this day forward, some people are going to assume that because you graduated from Dartmouth, it all is going to come easy for you,” Federer said. “And you know what? Let them believe that – as long as you don’t.”

But his killer point, was on points themselves, revealing an extraordinary truth. In the course of his professional tennis career, he played 1526 singles matches and of those, he won just under 80 per cent of them. But here’s the thing: In all those matches, he only won 54 per cent of the points.

“In other words, even top-ranked tennis players win barely more than half of the points they play. When you lose every second point on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot. You teach yourself to think . . . ‘It’s only a point’.”

Broadly, whatever you do, you need to get your head around the fact that you won’t win everything and in any competitive environment it is inevitable both that you will make mistakes and your fellow competitors will display blinding flashes that will beat you. Onwards, anyway! Don’t fuss.

“You want to become a master at overcoming hard moments. That is, to me, the sign of a champion, the best in the world. And, 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. You move on, be relentless, adapt, and grow.”

And finally, Federer noted that the true key to success is having a well-rounded life beyond the one you make your mark in. When he was still very young our greatest distance swimmer Kieren Perkins said to me once that it was hard to know much about anything when you spend “six hours a day with your head in a bucket of water, looking at a black line”. It was because of that realisation that Perkins set out to do other things and turned into the accomplished, well-rounded figure he is today, as CEO of the Australian Sports Commission.

Ditto Federer.

Early on, he realised he needed a full life beyond the court, educating himself, building friendships, understanding this world he was all the time travelling through – and this eloquent, cultured, fantastic man the Dartmouth graduates were hanging on every word from, was the result.

I used to think that Federer, despite his brilliance on the court, was a little on the dull side of things. I was wrong. He is a fantastic man, filled with wisdom, humour and insight. And that speech demonstrated him to be one of sport’s greatest ambassadors, not just of tennis.

Me? We. Him. He’s the guy.

X/Twitter: @Peter_Fitz

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