The interviews with top tennis players can teach you so much about the mental game and the how champion minds work.

Roger Federer is one of the most intelligent tennis players on the tour and taking the time to think about his answers in interviews can be extremely rewarding.

Roger recently won the Cincinnati Masters tournament where he beat Andy Murray in the semifinals and Novak Djokovic in the final.

Here’s are some of the more interesting parts of Roger’s interview Roger after his semifinal win against Murray…

Q: Yesterday you were mentioning your series with Andy was just a couple points here and there. The question is: What did you do differently today, if you can think of anything?

Federer: … You know, I stayed aggressive. I was always looking to make the plays, and I think in the end I deserved to win just because I wasn’t scared to go after my shots, you know.

Roger is saying that he wasn’t scared to go after his shots. You might think that he is NEVER scared to go for his shots but that’s obviously not true.

If Roger is aware of his fear and being able to overcome it at crucial moments, then he must have experienced it before. And even in this match I’d say that his answer is not actually correct: he probably meant that he was scared to go for his shots and had the COURAGE to still go for them.

If you feel scared to go for your shots that doesn’t mean that you’re mentally weak or something like that. Even Federer may feel fear sometimes and even he sometimes cannot overcome it.

That’s why he stressed that in this particular match, he was able to overcome it – which suggests that he cannot do it every time.

The lesson for all of us is that we accept that sometimes the fear will get the better of us and we just won’t win against it. Other times, we’ll find the courage and play the right shots despite the fear.

One more thing: the reason why we feel fear is because we are too focused on the outcome – and we fear the negative consequences of it. The key is to focus on the process – the tactics – and becoming totally absorbed in it.

If you’re totally focused on what you need to do right NOW, you won’t be aware of the outcome and therefore you won’t feel any fear.

Q: You’re playing very well today, but do you think that the timing of the win is as important as the win itself obviously going into New York?

Federer: Um, I mean, to me, not really. I told the guys yesterday that winning or losing for me against Murray is not the key here. For me, it’s about playing well and trying to win the tournament. I’m playing the tournament, not the player, you know.

So I’m not gonna change my tune saying, Now this is gonna put me as a massive favorite for the US Open and now Andy is not gonna beat me next time. That’s not true. He’s a wonderful player, and he’s had an incredible streak on hardcourts. He’s just been very consistent, and it takes a great performance to beat him these days.

Two key points here: Roger says the he is playing the tournament and NOT the player.

Why is this important?

If you focus on the player, then you open tons of possibilities for your mind to start digging into like; how good is that player, how many tournaments he has won, what’s your head to head score, how big is his serve and on and on.

Going this way you’ll probably lose the match before even stepping on the court.

Playing the tournament is still an outcome based thinking but it’s much more neutral and you focus on yourself. “I play on hard courts, I need to stay aggressive, attack with my forehand, defend with deep slice shots” and so on.

You see the tournament as the final outcome of your journey through the rounds and each point in these rounds needs to be played separately with a certain strategy in mind.

Second, Roger doesn’t make erroneous conclusions that once you beat someone, you’ll always beat him.

I often see players fall into this mental trap; they lose to an opponent, then work on their game, practice hard and eventually beat that same opponent. But once they do, they think that this is it and that they’ve done the hard work and that from now on they “shouldn’t lose” again because now they are “better”.

That’s not how it is in tennis. It’s a game of probabilities and the only thing you can do by working hard and constantly improving your game is to INCREASE the probability of winning – but you cannot guarantee it.

Roger also talks about “wonderful performance” needed to beat Murray. It’s not about some super smart tactics that he needs to employ to outsmart Murray. No, it’s about playing normal tactical game but performing extremely well.

Sometimes players get lost and keep wondering what kind of tactics they need to use or change in order to beat their opponent. But often the key is not to change tactic but to play it better – hit deeper and closer to the lines.

Q: Even though recent matches with Andy have been close ones, psychology starts to enter into it if it gets too lopsided. How important was it to win today rather than going into New York perhaps with an 0-5 streak if you meet again?

Federer: Doesn’t matter to me. I’m past that point, you know. People and media like it hype it up that you get a — you know, you don’t have the mental edge and stuff. I don’t read into that stuff.

For me it’s important that my game is on. I know when it’s on, I can beat any player in the world on any given day.

See how Roger doesn’t fall into the typical mental traps. The reporter states that “psychology start to enter it if it gets too lopsided.”

That’s not a universal law or truth. The psychology – how you lost a few times to a certain player and you’ll probably lose again (is what the reporter had in mind) – can happen ONLY if you think in this way.

YOU are the one feeding these thoughts into your mind and then they can affect you later.

But as you can see, Roger doesn’t think that way. His focus is on his game and how to “turn it on”. He is focused on the process of improving his game and not on the outcome; like whether he’ll win his next match with the opponent with whom he lost before.

You should do the same in a similar situation; focus on your game and what you need to work on to play your best and the positive result will be the consequence of that.

Also, when someone states something about the game of tennis, don’t just believe everything and accept it as a universal truth. Do some logical digging into that statement to see whether it really is true.

I found out that 99% of ideas like that are not true and that almost every statement can be proven wrong in a certain situation in the match.

Once you realize that, you can see that KNOWING is not the answer – because every knowing can be proven wrong. Therefore the answer is NOT KNOWING and just being in the moment and solving the current situation without too much analytical thought. Let the Self 2 play the game as it is much better than Self 1.

Q: Talk about the pressure in the tiebreaker that can lead to double faulting a match away? Have you ever done that? And how do you keep your cool in those points?

Federer: I did the same against Tsonga, and that was 7-6 in the third. Sure, that’s not something you really want to do, but sometimes that happens. Maybe you’re trying to spin the ball too much or, you know — I mean, it’s pressure.

Double faults just sometimes happen. You hope they don’t happen on match points, but they sometimes do happen. Very rarely actually, and especially between two top guys they don’t because we’re too consistent. But I think it’s maybe also something to do that I was able to pressure him.

He was not sure if I was gonna maybe run around the backhand and thump a big forehand or maybe just chip it in. Maybe making him doubt a little bit brought a double fault out as well. I don’t know.

Remember the lesson from Montreal where Federer had 5:1 lead in the third and lost? I said that this just happens sometimes and there’s no need to create a big drama about it.

That’s exactly what Roger is saying here: that double faults sometimes just happen. A player has a certain probability that he’ll hit a second serve in and top players are able to hit over 90% of second serves in.

But NO ONE is capable of serving 100% of (quality) second serves in the long term. Top NBA players are able to hit 90% of shots from free throws but NO ONE is capable of scoring 100% of free throws in the long term.

That’s what Roger means that double faults sometime happen – it’s just statistics. Sure, it can be pressure sometimes but sometimes it’s just statistics that caught up with you at the moment you don’t like. That’s how it is in sports and it’s out of your control.

The more you accept that fact, the more relaxed you’ll be on big points and even less doubles will therefore happen at those times.

Roger also tries to explain what Andy might have felt when he missed the second serve. Roger is able to guess Andy’s thoughts because Roger has been trying to CREATE them throughout the match.

Roger sometimes attacked the second serve with his forehand and sometimes he chipped & charged. He did that to attack Andy’s second serve but Roger’s INTENTION was also to put DOUBT into Andy’s mind.

And it probably was the cause for the last double fault from Andy which won the match for Roger.

Are YOU intentionally putting doubt into your opponent’s mind?

Have you played a certain shot where the outcome of that point was LESS important than the pressure you may create in your opponent’s mind in future points?

That’s how a high level tennis game is played.

It’s played on all four areas of tennis: physical (tire your opponent), technical (counter opponent’s high kicking top spin serve with a blocked slice), tactical (hit low short slice shots which your opponent doesn’t handle well) AND mental (create doubt in your opponent’s mind by occasionally attacking his second serves.

So here’s how much you can learn from one single interview of a champion. I learned a lot in my career as a player and as a coach by carefully listening / reading the interviews of top players and looking for that crucial part where they differ in their thinking from the average player.

Besides improving your technique past the average level, you also need to improve your thinking and philosophy past the average level to be able to play at above average level.

Related posts:


• Andy Roddick – Roger Federer US Open 2007 QF Match
• 5 Reasons Why Nadal Beat Federer in the Wimbledon 2008 Final
• Ever Lost To A Name?
• Roger Federer – Andy Murray Australian Open 2010 Final Analysis
• When Roger Federer Enters The Zone

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Interview Insights, Roger Federer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.