Roger Federer didn't fall in love with tennis initially, but he eventually started playing tennis, and the rest was history.
Federer was a very athletic kid playing multiple different sports including football and tennis. He was always very competitive and when he realized that he was quite good at tennis he opted to continue playing that sport.
The rest is history as we know what happened and what an amazing player and ambassador for the sport he became. In a recent interview with GQ, Federer opened up about the first days in tennis and how one of the greatest careers to ever happen began.
At the beginning of my career, I received feedback pretty quickly that I was actually quite good at what I was doing. At the beginning, it is of course difficult to assess this and you hardly dare to really believe it. And as soon as you slowly become a little more self-confident and think, hmm, maybe I'm really good, you'll get punched in the nose, you can be sure of that.
Rather quickly, Federer understood that he wanted to do this all the time. However, it was a complicated matter. He was a teenager full of emotions and certainly faced quite a lot of skepticism from his parents, especially when he elected to opt out of school at age 16.
As a teenager, you already go through a rollercoaster of emotions and when you add a career in competitive sports to the mix, you really have to take care of yourself. When I was 14, I left home and attended a performance centre. Those were probably the two most important years of my life. I learned so much about life.
At the age of 16, I decided to stop school. I tried online classes for a few months but then realized pretty quickly that both weren't possible and that I had to put everything on one card. I had a deal with my parents to give tennis a realistic chance and if it didn't work out, to go back to school straight away and without complaining. What can I say, something has happened.
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