"I took my racket and just smashed it, I was crying about playing so bad" - When Roger Federer opened up about how he overcame his 'bad attitude'
Roger Federer once opened up about smashing his rackets often. He explained how he left that "bad attitude" behind to transition into a calmer and more concentrated personality.
In his early days, Federer was known for his aggressive behavior, including an incident where he had to clean toilets for a week after smashing his racquet and tearing a courtside curtain at Biel, Switzerland's national tennis center. His coaches had a tough time managing his temperament.
During a match against Franco Squillari in the first round of the 2001 Hamburg Masters, which he lost 3-6, 4-6, Federer had a major breakdown and smashed his racquet after the match point. It was at that moment he realized he could no longer continue with that attitude, as he mentioned in a 2017 interview with Inside Tennis.
"In 2001, I lost to Franco Squillari on Court One in Hamburg. On match point, he passed me from way back. I volleyed and couldn’t see where the ball went. I looked down and I’d clogged the ball between the racket and the court. It was game, set and match, Squillari. So I took my racquet and just smashed it. It was like bang, bang, bang," Federer said.
"I had a bad attitude. I was crying about playing so bad and how things were not great.That’s when I told myself, 'I can’t take this attitude. If I keep playing like this for the next 10 years I’m going to go absolutely mental – I won’t be able to cope,'" he added.
The 20-time Grand Slam champion continued:
"That’s when I decided I was going to be quiet and calm and concentrated. Then I made the quarters at the [2001] French [Open]– lost to [Alex] Corretja – and then made the quarters at Wimbledon. Then things got easy."
Roger Federer: "I realized I was too calm, too quiet, I hated myself for that"
In the same interview with Inside Tennis, Roger Federer shared that while he was initially comfortable with his newfound personality, he soon realized he had become too "calm and quiet." He noted that it reached a point where he wouldn't even celebrate a challenging tweener winner or a perfectly executed point.
"I realized I was too calm, too quiet," he said. "I hated myself for that. I would hit a tweener winner and be like, 'Yeah, that’s normal.' Then I would play the perfect point, the smash would come like one meter behind the net and I would miss it one meter into the fence and I’d be like, 'That’s ok, normal.'
The Swiss added that he concentrated on cultivating an aura that perfectly balanced fire and ice, a process that took him a year and a half to master:
"I realized what I needed to create was fire and ice. Excitement for matches, for points – ice and calm in the right moments. That took me – I’m not kidding – a year and a half [to figure out]."