The Federer Effect X – “The Art of Zen”

Written by: Jason Whittington on 17th January 2012

The Federer Effect X - “The Art of Zen”

Roger Federer of Switzerland in action during his men's round one match against Alexander Kudryavtsev of Russia during the first day of the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament in Melbourne, Australia, 16 January 2012. EPA/BARBARA WALTON |

It’s 11:00 am and I’m right on time, racket bag, water, red Masters Victory RF 2010 polo and my limited edition white RF All Court Victory jacket. Keep in mind this is just a practice match, I know the code… NO RF GEAR FOR ANY SANCTIONED MATCHES unless you’re Roger Federer.

We do a quick warm up, groundies, volleys, overheads, six serves on the deuce and six on the ad court. My opponent elects to receive; I check to see where the sun is and start serving with the sun on my back. To my surprise – and some loosely played points – I’m immediately broken, as we change sides after the first game my opponent complements me on my play in general. This is more of a sign of his uncontrollable confidence rather than an observation of how I’ve played so far. After a little bit of controversy, my opponent intentionally fires a ball off in frustration, which took about five minutes to find, and then he smacked another ball in between first and second serve. After an hour of battling and grinding it out my opponent takes the first set 7-5.

Second set, my opponent is serving and is experiencing a bit of a let down after winning the first set. I break him and hold. 30 minutes later I’m up 5-0, he holds and I hold… I take the second set 6-1.

As we break and prepare for the third set my opponent’s father asks if he can film from the corner to isolate his son’s movement for his coach (he has private lessons 3 times a week). Did I forget to mention that my opponent is TWELVE? That’s right twelve and he plays in the juniors 16’s division due to the fact the there aren’t any twelve year olds that can compete with him. If you’ve never seen the boys 16 division you’d be quite blown away at how these kids can rip the ball from either side of the court. It’s usually an aggressive baseline game that always utilizes a two handed backhand. This kid is only twelve and posses a SERVE N VOLLEY game and he has phenomenal touch for any age… Did I mention he’s twelve? 45 minutes into the third set I’m serving for match point, I place a serve out wide on the deuce court, he returns it long and wide and the match is over. Now the fireworks begin, my opponent immediately bursts into tears, he’s wailing! He marches to the fence behind him and starts whacking his Prince racket against the fence, whack, whack, whack, 4,5,6,7,8. As he’s going at it, I realize his dad is still filming so I jump into action and step out of view of the camera so I don’t block the shot, this could be a YouTube sensation. After no less than 15 swats the dad finally puts the camera down and demands that he stop whacking the fence and come over to shake my hand… he wants nothing to do with that, he immediately takes off and can’t be seen. I figure my job is done here, match well played on my part, so I pack my bag in preparation to take off. As I’m leaving the dad wants to know when I can hit with his son again as if nothing happened and it’s all good… in fact he tells me his son’s demeanor has really improved! 10 minutes later and some heavy coaxing from his dad the kid reappears and shakes my hand, I let him know he played well and I told him “as you get better, I get older so I’ll be doing everything in my power to beat you every time while I still can”… he seemed disinterested in what I had to say.

So the question is at what point can these coaches start to teach the mental part of the game? The physical muscle memory is innately built in and will only improve, particularly when left to the subconscious mind to perform. I can’t help but think if this kid was being taught the beginnings of how to play in the moment and not involve his emotions in the immediate result, he would have easily have taken me out… we’ll maybe not easily.

Topics: Australian Open, Juniors, Roger Federer