Former tennis pro Roger Federer tells students that ‘effortless’ is a myth in Dartmouth commencement speech

Roger Federer acknowledged he was an unlikely choice to give a commencement speech at Dartmouth College. After all, he had left school at age 16 to pursue professional tennis. “This is literally the second time I have ever set foot on a college campus,” he admitted to graduates on Sunday. “I just came here to give a speech, but I get to go home as ‘Dr. Roger.’ That’s a pretty nice bonus.”

But in remarks that have been shared widely online, the 20-time Grand Slam champ suggested that he could offer the grads some hard-won lessons that he had picked up over the course of his career. “Let’s call them tennis lessons,” he quipped.

After spending a few days hanging out with students, he joked that he was mainly there because of their affection for beer pong. “Dartmouth is the Wimbledon of pong,” Federer said, to laughs. “I’m glad to work on my shots with some of you these past few days. I’m actually thinking of turning pro.”

Federer’s agent, Anthony Godsick, was a member of Dartmouth’s Class of 1993, and is the father of a member of the Class of 2024.

He began by suggesting that he was not all that different from the new grads. Like them, he was in the middle of a major transition, having retired – though, he explained with a grimace, “the word is awful” – from professional tennis in 2022. “I feel your pain,” he said. “I know what it’s like when people keep asking what your plan is for the rest of your life.” He said that he preferred to think of himself as a “tennis graduate.”

And he urged his audience to understand that nothing comes easily in life.

Lesson 1: Effortless is a myth

“People would say my play was effortless,” he said. “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!” Or “Is he even trying?” The truth is, I had to work very hard to make it look easy. I spent years whining, swearing, throwing my racket before I learned to keep my cool.”

“I got that reputation because my warm-ups at the tournaments were so casual that people didn’t think I had been training hard. But I had been working hard, before the tournament, when nobody was watching. Maybe you’ve seen a version of this at Dartmouth. How many times did you feel like your classmates were racking up “A” after “A” without even trying, while you were pulling all-nighters, loading up on caffeine, crying softly in a corner of Sanborn Library? Hopefully, like me, you learned that “effortless” is a myth. I didn’t get where I got on pure talent alone. I got there by trying to outwork my opponents.”

He recalled that he really began to believe in himself during the 2003 ATP Finals, when he chose to directly attack his opponents’ strengths.

“Before … if a guy had a strong forehand, I would try to hit to his backhand. But now, I would try to go after his forehand. I tried to beat the baseliners from the baseline. I tried to beat the attackers by attacking. I tried to beat the net rushers from the net. I took a chance by doing that. So why did I do it? To amplify my game and expand my options. You need a whole arsenal of strengths, so if one of them breaks down, you’ve got something left.”

He acknowledged that “talent matters. But talent has a broad definition. Most of the time, it’s not about having a gift. It’s about having grit.”

Lesson 2: It’s only a point.

“In the 1,526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80 per cent of those matches. Now, I have a question for all of you: What percentage of the points do you think I won in those matches? Only 54 per cent,” he said. “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: OK, I double-faulted. It’s only a point. ‘OK, I came to the net and I got passed again. It’s only a point.’ Even a great shot, an overhead backhand smash that ends up on ESPN’s Top Ten Plays: that, too, is just a point. Here’s why I am telling you this. 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, with intensity, clarity and focus.”

“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. And it’s natural, when you’re down, to doubt yourself. To feel sorry for yourself.

“And by the way, your opponents have self-doubt, too!” he reminded them. “You want to become a master at overcoming hard moments. That to me is the sign of a champion. 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.”

Lesson 3: Life is bigger than the tennis court.

“Even when I was just starting out, I knew that tennis could show me the world, but tennis could never be the world,” Federer said, explaining why, at age 22, he started a charitable foundation dedicated to improving education in southern Africa. At that age – more or less the same age as the young graduates he was addressing – he acknowledged, “I was not ready for anything other than tennis. But sometimes you’ve got to take a chance and then figure it out.”

He urged the grads to give generously of themselves. “Philanthropy can mean a lot of things. It can mean starting a non-profit, or donating money. But it can also mean contributing your ideas, your time, and your energy, to a mission that is larger than yourself. All of you have so much to give, and I hope you will find your own, unique ways to make a difference. Because life really is much bigger than the court.”

To date, he said, his foundation has “helped nearly three million children to get a quality education and helped to train more than 55,000 teachers. It’s been an honour, and it’s been humbling. An honour to help tackle this challenge, and humbling to see how complex it is. Humbling to try to read stories to children in one of the languages of Lesotho.”

“Humbling also to arrive in rural Zambia and have to explain what tennis actually is. I vividly remember drawing a tennis court on the chalkboard for the kids to see, because I asked them what tennis was, and one kid said, ‘It’s the one with the table, right? With the paddles?’”

“Pong again,” Federer said with a smile. “It’s everywhere.”