Roger's quest for perfection started as a child at the age of 4 when he was still very young and unexperienced, but had tremendous athletic ability and showed enormous talent, always being very active in sports. However, he did not take losses very lightly, he would cry almost undoubtedly and frequently threw his racquet, all just pretty much bad sportsmanship. The weird thing is, as he would get older and mastered several strokes, when he would win a point, he was not satisfied because he did not win the point "perfectly" and often cursed at himself. He played tennis at the Old Boys Tennis Club and would tell everybody he was going to be number one. Soon this passion for that number one spot became an obsession. He, 3 other boys, and 4 girls were chosen out of etire group be part of a training program at the National Tennis Center at Lake Geneva. This would be one of the biggest steps he made towards his goal. As a junior, he was a menace on the court with his tennis skill but also his rambunctious behavior which led him to cleaning bathrooms for a a week because he threw his racquet, slicing right through the brand new curtain.
"In his first tournament competition at the age of eight, he lost his first serious competition 6-0 6-0, although, according to his own estimation, he didn't play all that badly"(Stauffer 18)
I felt this quote brought Federer back down to earth. As someone who thought he followed Federer throughout his career, I can't even fathom The Greatest losing with such a score, it would usually be the other way around these days though, of course. In fact, he lost a whole lot more than this as a junior and it's just really ironic. I guess this proves he's still human, or rather was a human before he became an android without losing written in its memory drive.
(First blog post, be gentle) :)
