Hi and welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast, your place for free, expert, tennis instruction that can truly help you improve your game. Welcome to episode number 384 of the Essential Tennis Podcast. Today we're going to be talking about Roger Federer’s Demons. We're going to expose them. Or rather, he exposed them himself voluntarily and we're going to talk about how he did that, what exactly he said, and then talk about what the application is for
us, regular, everyday tennis players. So this story comes from the 2020 Australian Open. In the third round of the 2020 Australian Open, Federer played John Milliman, who is, if I remember correctly, an Australian player and it ended up being just an incredible battle. Milliman won the first set. I believe 6-4. Roger won the second set and the third set. And at that point, I'm pretty sure Milliman wasn't seated. And so, I mean, at that point,
I pretty much anybody in the crowd are watching. I would have guessed that Roger would have taken it the second, third, and the fourth to get his three sets out of five. But Milliman comes back and wins the fourth, so they go to the fifth set and they go to a tiebreaker. If I remember correctly, 2020 was the first year that the Australian Open switched to a
10 point tiebreaker at 6-6 in the fifth. So they tie it up at 6-6 in the fifth. They start the 10 point tiebreaker for the match, third round, Australian Open, and Roger Federer goes down 4-8. So Milliman has two points left to win what, obviously, would be, as far as I'm aware, my apologies if this is not a true statement. But I don't know much about John Milliman's career. But I would assume this would be the best win of his career.
He's two points away from it after however many hours they've been playing at the Australian Open, his home Grand Swam. And Federer is looking pretty, I mean, at that point, I don't know what the odds would be in general if Roger to come back and win. But it's got to be below 10%. I mean, for Milliman to not just hit a big serve and then for Roger to make one mistake and get those two points, it's not looking very likely for Federer. So my
question for you, and we actually know the answer to this. So I'm going to tell you the answer in a moment. But I just want you to consider this and think about it. What do you think is in Roger's head at that moment? So playing a tiebreaker in the fifth set, Australian Open, he's playing against an unseated player and he's down four to eight and a ten point tiebreaker. So just consider that. Maybe just briefly answering your head. What do you
think is going on in Roger's head? What is he thinking? And again, in the post match interview, he actually says what he was thinking. So I'm going to tell you the quote in a second. But I think most of us would assume that while Roger Federer, incredible, you know, all-time champion of tennis, one, tons and tons of grand slam. What does he have? 20 right now, I think. Yeah, I think 20. Maybe I'm wrong. He's one over a dozen grand slams, one of the best
players of all time in the history of tennis. So you would think that it would be pretty safe to assume that at this point, even though things look really bleak to the rest of us, that he has some kind of internal dialogue that's got to be positive, right? Maybe he's going and repeating some kind of mantra or phrase to himself to kind of focus himself
and or zone himself in. Maybe he's giving himself some kind of positive affirmation. Maybe he's visualizing, you know, still winning and lifting the trophy up, you know, at the end of the tournament, even though this is just the third round. I think I think that's the type of thing that most of us would be it'd be easy for us to assume that's what's going on in his head, even though things look very bleak to the rest of us because we're not
a champion like he is, right? Or maybe his head is totally empty and he's like totally in the zone and he's not he doesn't have any thoughts going on at all. And he's just totally like in a flow states. And so that's how he's going to come back and win the match. Well, he did come back and win the match. He won the next six points in a row, which is extremely difficult in a tiebreaker to win six points in a row against anybody. Millman
was playing incredible that day. But none of those things are what happened. And yet Roger still won six points in a row. So I'm going to tell you now what actually was in his head. Roger was interviewed by Jim Currier and Jim actually asked him like what was going on at 4 or 8, what were you thinking? And so here's a this is a direct quote from Roger. It came down to the wire at the end. A bit of luck maybe, you know, go one way
or the other. I had to stay focused. I'm sorry. I had to stay so focused, make the right decisions. And he was doing all that stuff at the beginning of the breaker. So just kind of saying, you know, Millman was playing so well to go up 8 to 4. All right, back to Roger's quote, he kept on coming up with the goods. And I thought, OK, I guess I tried. I didn't play too bad after all. And I was getting ready to explain myself in the press
conference. The demons are always there. They're lurking. Anyway, what a match. And John deserves more than half of this one. I was going to let me read that last part again really quickly. He kept on coming up with the goods. And I thought, OK, I guess I tried. I didn't play too bad after all. And I was getting ready to explain myself in the press conference. The demons are always there. They're lurking. So Roger is literally, literally assuming
at that point that well, the match is about to be over. And I'm going to lose it. And I need to figure out like, what am I going to tell the press? What am I, how am I going to explain that I lost to an unseated player in the third round of a grand slam? So in short, his head was filled with doubt, not only doubt, but he basically assumed that,
I guess, well, I guess that's it. Like, I guess I'm going to lose after hours and hours of battling and all his past success, you would think, maybe he's got something really positive, some kind of secret, like word or phrase he's focusing on. But and big like, thank you to Roger for being transparent and being honest here. He's actually thinking basically worst case scenario. So what does that mean for the rest of us? Well, I have
four kind of big takeaways here for me and for you. Hopefully you can learn from number one. And this is really important to take to heart. It's important for me. And hopefully it's going to be helpful for you as well to hear this. You can be certain that you'll win and still lose. And you can also be certain that you'll lose and still win. Now, if
that sounds kind of crazy, I mean, just think back over your tennis career. And I'm sure you can think of examples in both directions where either before the match or in the middle of the match or towards the end of the match like Roger, you're like, man, this is, this is not a good day. Things are going terrible or man, that other player is so strong. There's so high quality. This is impossible. There's no way this could work out well.
And somehow you end up winning. That's probably happened to you at least a couple of times. It's also probably happened to you that you showed up for your match feeling really good knowing who you're going to play and feel like, man, this is in the bag. I know this player, my game matches up so well. I'm playing so good right now like my rhythm and time is fantastic. And then you lose the match. Maybe after the warm up, right? You're like,
oh, man, this is total. You're already thinking about what you're going to do after the match because it just feels like there's no way this could possibly go any way other than you win in the match. It can go both ways. The reality is there's no way for us to guarantee any particular outcome in tennis. There's too many variables. There's too many things outside of our control no matter how much we want it, no matter how much we want to win or how
much we want to make a particular outcome happen. There's no guarantee that it will. In fact, oftentimes, and you'll probably chuckle when I say this, oftentimes the more we try to control the outcome, the more likely it's not going to go the way we want. I'm sure you've experienced that a couple of times. So that's big takeaway number one for me is
like, I can't control the outcome at the end of the day. Even when things look most dark and most pessimistic, you just never know when things might turn in your direction. So it's number one. You can't be certain that you're going to win or lose at any given point in time. And if you can just kind of accept that, then it can kind of free you up, mentally, to not have to try to control everything. So number two, take away. Having negative
thoughts during competition is normal. Even for an elite competitor like like Federer, that's an awkward phrase. Elite competitor like Federer, even he has negative thoughts during competition. We're human. There's going to be negative thoughts when things are going badly. Of course, there's going to be negative thoughts. Even when things are going really, really well, negative thoughts are going to pop in there. You just you just never know. Like we, one of the things
we can't control is what pops in our head at what time. The question is not whether or not it's going to happen, but whether or not you take them seriously and or fixate or dwell on those negative thoughts. Poor competitors get freaked out when they have that quick thought of like, oh man, maybe I'm going to lose a lot of every day, kind of weekend warrior type adult tennis players. They take that thought popping in their head is some kind of sign of like,
oh, either I'm mentally, oh man, I'm so weak. I mean, of course I'm playing poorly. Like, I've got all this negativity. And so they try to like push it away or focus on rainbows or puppies
or something, something positive. You know, they try to like force the negativity away. Or they, they kind of take the bait and keep fixating on the negativity and they double down on it and they go down a negative downward spiral of emotionally and psychologically both make it really tough to compete whether you're forcibly trying to force away the negativity or you're, you're like buying into it and saying, yep, this is terrible. Like this is the worst day ever and you
just kind of keep sulking and you keep going down that negative spiral. Either way, chances of you winning are extremely, extremely low. Poor competitors get freaked out by those negative thoughts. Great competitors. Refocus. Like they, they, it's not that they don't have negative thoughts. They do. And they even notice them. But what they do next is key. They refocus their mind and their energy and their intention on what needs to be done next. And then they just move on. They don't take
it super seriously. They don't freak out about it. They also don't fixate on the negativity. They just notice and say, ah, wow, yeah, negative thought. Okay. Now, what do I need to do on this next point? And they refocus on the task at hand. And when you train and practice doing that over and over and over again, then even in an impossible situation, you give yourself the best chance of a positive outcome. Doesn't mean it's always going to happen, but you at least give
yourself a chance instead of going down with the ship. So that's number two. Number three, having doubts creep into my head. Doesn't mean I can't play well, overcome challenges or win matches. There's a little bit of a continuation of that. That first, it kind of combines number one and number two. Number one, you can't be certain, I'm sorry. Number one is you can be certain that you'll win, but still lose. And number the second part
of that was you can be certain that you'll lose and still win. And the second part, having negative thoughts is normal, even for an elite competitor. And so now, number three, having doubts, creeping in my head doesn't mean I can't play well. I can still play great in the face of negative thoughts coming and going in my head. In fact, I would take that one step further and say, I have to learn how to do that because I can't, I can't like turn on some kind of negativity force field
for two hours during my match. And guarantee that there's not going to be any, any negative thoughts or feelings that come that pop up, you know, during the match more than likely there is going to be. I get some point I'm going to miss a shot. I'm going to get frustrated. My opponent's going to get pumped up after I'm making error. There's going to be a bad call, whatever. There's a million different things that could happen that might result with a little bit of negativity popping up.
But that doesn't mean I can't still play well and overcome those challenges or still win matches, even when negativity is there. It's not mutually inclusive. Just because there's negativity, I'm going to play poorly or I'm always going to lose. And that for me is a really freeing truth to be able to accept. So that's number three. And the fourth takeaway, world class performers are not successful because they don't have fear, doubt or anxiety. They're world class performers
because of how they perform while experiencing those things. It's not that they don't have doubts. It's not that they don't have negativity come and go. It's not that they aren't fearful and anxious and and get nervous. They they have all of those things. They experience all of those things. And they're world class performers because of how they perform in the face of those challenges. Facing big obstacles like those things, but just choosing to focus on positives and do your best
anyway is the hallmark of a champion. And champion it to five or three point oh or a champion at the Australian Open, you know, world class level of competition. And the good news is you can learn to develop these things. You can develop your resiliency. You can develop your ability to refocus from a negative to a positive. You can develop your ability to not take that thought that pops up in your head too seriously. And instead, reshift, you know, your focus back to something
productive and something intentional. That's a positive that will move you in a positive direction during a match. So again, the four big takeaways here. Number one, you can be certain that you'll win and lose. You can also be equally certain that you'll lose and sometimes win. Number two, having negative thoughts during competition is normal even for an elite competitor. Number three, having doubts creep into my head doesn't mean I can't play well or overcome challenges or win
matches. And number four, world class performers aren't successful because they don't have fear doubt or anxiety. They're world class performers because of how they perform while experiencing those things. And so I just want to again, kind of thanks Federer for being transparent and open and honest in a situation like this where it'd be really easy for a lot of people to say, oh, man, yeah, there was never a doubt in my mind. I knew I had it in the bag. Like I had like everything
was was dialed in. I knew I knew everything was going to be totally fine. I knew I was going to win for him to say, man, I thought the match was over and I was going to lose and the phrase in particular, the demons are always there. They're lurking. Like sounds kind of ominous. But I think also really telling like even for somebody who historically over, you know, the bulk of his career, has been really solid like emotionally, mentally, not always of course. Again, he's human.
And I know he started off his career being really volatile when he was young. But the bulk of his success, he's been really dialed in mentally and emotionally. And yet he's saying the demons are always there. Like that it's always a possibility. So a big thank you to Roger for being transparent, for being open and honest with us. A lot of elite competitors don't talk about those things. And for me to hear somebody like him describe that helps me let go of my kind of natural desire
to control everything and want to make things perfect. So thank you to Roger for that. I appreciate it. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like more coaching, more guidance on how to play your best tennis, then I just released a new program called Timeless Tennis. You want to check out. If you want to play your best tennis and feel great, no matter what your age is, go to TimelessTennisTraining.com. That's TimelessTennisTraining.com and check it out. I just released it yesterday and really
happy with how the the training program came together. So go check it out. Thanks for listening today. Hopefully this was a helpful episode for you. Keep up the good work on your game and I'll talk to you in the next episode. For more free game improving instruction, be sure to check out EssentialTennis.com where you'll find hundreds of video, audio and written lessons. Also be sure to subscribe to Essential Tennis on iTunes and YouTube where we are the number one resource in the
world providing passionate instruction for passionate tennis players. Thank you so much for listening today. Take care and good luck with your tennis.