A tale of three tennis players

One sport, yet three totally different experiences.

Federer: loved the game

Roger Federer is one of the most successful tennis players of all time: a twenty-time Grand Slam champion, once holding the world number one position for 237 weeks in a row. He is the most successful grass-court male player of all time, and played with a style, grace and elegance which made him loved by many. Fellow champion Novak Djokovic even remarked, "You have to wonder if he's from the same planet."

Federer was not immune to disappointments, of course. He was plagued by injuries in his final years, and finally announced his retirement in September 2022.

In his farewell speech, he commented that “tennis has treated me more generously than I ever would have dreamt” and he concluded with, "Finally, to the game of tennis: I love you and will never leave you."

Roger Federer had it all. He was at the top of tennis. And he loved it.

Agassi: hated the game

Though not hitting the same heights as Federer (few ever will), Andre Agassi was also incredibly successful. He won eight Grand Slams, as well as the “career Grand Slam” for winning each of the four major tennis tournaments at least once. He had a number of spells as world number one, totalling 101 weeks.

However, his attitude to tennis stands in great contrast to that of Federer. In his autobiography, Open, Agassi speaks of his difficult upbringing with a strict and demanding father who pushed him into an intense training regimen, which he resented.

On clinching the world number one spot, Agassi wrote, "I spend many hours roaming the streets of Palermo, drinking strong black coffee, wondering what the hell is wrong with me. I did it — I'm the number one tennis player on earth, and yet I feel empty. If being number one feels empty, unsatisfying, what's the point?"^[1]

Even amid his successful career, Agassi wrote, “I hate tennis more than ever — but I hate myself more.”^[2] His book describes his journey to seek meaning in and beyond tennis.

Andre Agassi had it all. He was at the top of tennis. And he hated it.

Niland: hated by the game

In contrast to these well-known tennis superstars stands Conor Niland, whose book The Racket gives insight into the experience of a professional tennis player outside the top 100.

Niland spent most of his career competing in the second and third tiers of tennis - the Challengers and Futures tour. He said the Futures Tour “sometimes felt like a circle of hell, but in practical terms it’s better understood as purgatory: a liminal space that exists only to be got out of as quickly as possible.”^[3]

Life on these tours is insecure; players are constantly trying to win enough matches to earn enough money to pay their hotel bill and book a flight to their next tournament. Niland speaks of travelling from tournament to tournament, even when exhausted and on the verge of injury, because he had to keep his place in the rankings to keep on the tour and have any hope of progressing.

The Tour is a lonely experience, where players do not particularly know each other or socialise. Even finding a practice partner during an event was difficult; Niland would go to bed worrying whether he’d find someone to warm up with before the next day’s match.

Life outside the top 100 is far from the glamorous life of Federer and Agassi - both contemporaries of Niland.

Federer loved tennis.

Agassi hated tennis.

Niland wrote: “I felt like maybe tennis hated me.”^[4]

These three contrasting experiences give us a snapshot of professional sport. You can be at the top and love it. You can be at the top and hate it. You can be working unbelievably hard to reach dreams that are never quite fulfilled.

And of course, there’s a sense in which the rest of life is like this: we can achieve our dreams, and yet they come to an end one day. We can achieve our dreams, and yet they don’t satisfy us. We can give our lives over to achieving our dreams, but in the end we don’t. Whether in sport, at work, relationships, we are faced with instability, insecurity and dissatisfaction.

How do we cope?

There is a place where true security can be found. There is a constant in life.

Roger Federer closed his retirement announcement with, “to the game of tennis: I love you and will never leave you." And there is One who says those things to us. There is One who loves us. Who loved us even when we were sinners (Romans 5.8), before we had ever done anything worthy of merit. This Love loves us in spite of our successes or failures and satisfies more than any fulfilment of dreams ever could.

There is One who will never leave us. God promises, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31.6), and Jesus assures us “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28.20).

Life can throw anything at us. But we can be sure that God loves us, and He will never, ever leave us. We are so loved, we are so safe, we are so secure.

^{[1] Agassi, Open, 204.
[2] Agassi, Open, 252.
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jun/27/the-loneliness-of-the-low-ranking-tennis-player
[4] Niland, The Racket, 208.}