Take a breath of air, step back from the ledge, relax.
From Roger Federer's commencement speech at Dartmouth in 2024.
"One day last June, during a steady rain on a chilly morning in New Hampshire, Roger Federer told a story about failure.
Over the course of two decades, he emerged as one of the greatest tennis players who ever lived. He played 1,526 singles matches in his career and won almost 80 percent. He hoisted 20 Grand Slam trophies, including Wimbledon a record eight times.
“Now, I have a question for you,” Federer said, looking out across a sea of umbrellas at the commencement ceremony for Dartmouth College. “What percentage of points do you think I won in those matches?”
He paused.
“Only 54 percent,” he said.
It was one of those statistics that at first seemed incorrect. Federer was one of the most dominant athletic forces of this century. That guy lost nearly half of his points?
“When you lose every second point, on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot,” he told the crowd. “You teach yourself to think, ‘OK, I double-faulted.
It’s only a point.’
When you’re playing a point, it has to be the most important thing in the world, and it is. 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 point after that, with intensity, clarity and focus.”
Federer summed up his motivation for speaking at Dartmouth in two words: beer pong.
The actual reason was more personal; his agent Tony Godsick is a Dartmouth alum and Godsick’s daughter was a member of the 2024 class. But Federer understood that nearly every commencement speech features a few local shoutouts, in this case a mention of the EBA’s chicken sandwich from Lou’s and the local pastime, Pong, a drinking game said to have been invented by Dartmouth students.
Federer’s speech, which was 3,200 words and lasted 25 minutes, was structured to share three lessons — “tennis lessons,” as Federer explained — all of which emanated from his long career and his own recent
“graduation” from tennis.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/3621407/2022/09/23/roger-federer-retirement/
The first lesson: Effortless is a myth.
For as long as Federer dominated on court, commentators had remarked upon how easy he made it look. He glided around in balletic fashion, ripping one-handed backhands. He never seemed to sweat. But there was only one way, Federer explained, to make something look that easy.
“It’s not about having a gift,” he said. “It’s about having grit.”
Federer’s second lesson: It’s only a point.
It was here that he shared the story of his five-set loss to Rafael Nadal
in the 2008 Wimbledon final, a match widely considered by many as one of the greatest of all time. Seeking his sixth consecutive Wimbledon title, Federer had lost the first two sets, clawed back into the match by winning tie-breaks in the third and fourth sets, only to lose 9-7 in an epic fifth, the match ending in the evening dusk.
“You can work harder than you thought possible and still lose,” Federer said, before adding: “Perfection is impossible.”
It was at this moment that Federer referenced his career record and his percentage of points won: 54 percent.
“Negative energy is wasted energy,” Federer said. “You want to become a master at overcoming hard moments.”
If you lose one point, there’s no use in wallowing, because there might be another point — a break point, a set point — that means more. The match is long. There’s always time to come back. In classical rhetoric terms, the anecdote was an example of logos, or using a compelling statistic to appeal to logic.
In tennis, a small, consistent edge over your opponent can translate into big margins in the long run. Nadal, for instance, also won exactly 54 percent of his points. And when Carlos Alcaraz defeated Jannik Sinner on Sunday in the French Open final — in
one of the greatest matches since the 2008 Wimbledon final — Alcaraz, the champion, actually won one fewer point than Sinner.
It’s an easy concept to apply to almost any field. In 2022, Ronald van Loon, a portfolio manager at BlackRock, authored a paper on the percentage of investment decisions that need to be correct to beat market benchmarks for returns. He researched markets, crunched the numbers and came up with a number: As low as 53 percent.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6392045/2025/05/30/michael-kosta-comedian-tennis-losing-stand-up/
Michael Kosta, a rotating host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central and a
former professional tennis player, viewed the clip through the lens of a standup comedian. Federer may have only won 54 percent of his points, Kosta said, but he always seemed to win the points that mattered most.
“He always brought his best at the right time,” Kosta said. “And that’s an important part of comedy, too. You can have a rough five minutes in your set. You can lose the audience. But as long as you get them back by the end, I think that’s kind of most important.”
Which set up Federer’s final lesson: Life is bigger than the court.
The graduates before him would be record-breakers and world travelers, leaders and philanthropists. In other words, they were going places, and if they ever saw him in the future, he said, they should say hi.
As Federer concluded his speech in the rain, he finished up his “tennis lessons” and pivoted to something fun — a real tennis lesson. He stood on stage and clutched a racket in his hand, suggested an Eastern grip and showcased the proper placement for your knuckles, which, he said, should allow for easy switching from forehand to backhand.
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