There’s a moment I remember vividly—not from a graduation ceremony or a grand celebration, but from a tennis match in London, England. It wasn’t Wimbledon, but the next best thing – the ATP World Tour Finals, held indoors with only eight players competing.
Tennis, when you think about it, is fairly simple to watch. Back and forth, back and forth, the players grunting and sweating through every rally. I’ll admit, I wasn’t particularly moved at first. It all felt a bit repetitive as time wore on, and you start to feel it in your backside because the seats are really not that comfortable.
And then Roger Federer walked onto the court.
What I witnessed next was unlike anything I’d seen before. Graceful, fluid, almost effortless. It was as if the game had changed shape around him—tennis as ballet, as poetry, as music. Federer didn’t just play tennis; he became the rhythm of the game. It was mesmerizing, and truly something I had ever experienced.
That memory came rushing back to me recently when I watched Federer’s 2024 commencement address at Dartmouth University in New Hampshire.
In it, he shares a few hard-earned lessons—not just about tennis, but about life. He spoke of the importance of effort, of staying in the game, of knowing that even the best in the world only win about 54 percent of their points. In other words, even Roger Federer lost nearly half the time.
“Having recently graduated from tennis,” he said, “I’m now moving on to a new phase of my life. Like you, I’m excited and a little terrified.”
“Effortless is a myth,” he continued. “Talent matters, but not as much as grit. You have to work harder, work smarter than your opponents. It might look easy, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t hundreds of hours of practice that went into it.”
To the Class of 2025: You’re stepping out onto your own court now. Maybe it’s college, maybe it’s travel or work or the unknown. And you might be tempted to think that success means never failing, never falling short. But the truth is, much like in tennis, you only need to win a little more than you lose to move forward. You don’t have to be perfect—you just have to keep showing up, keep on swinging.
Federer ends his speech with a mini tennis lesson. “It’s only effort if you’re not enjoying it,” he says. “If you are, it’s just tennis.” That’s the sweet spot—when hard work turns into something you love.
So go find your rhythm. Embrace the back-and-forth. And when your Federer moment arrives—whatever it may look like—don’t forget to enjoy the beauty of the game. Congratulations, grads.
