EPISODE 4
ALL SHOTS ARE HIS
Get deeper into Roger’s secret “having no weaknesses”
In this episode, we will ask for Rod Laver’s help. He is the only tennis player that ever did a full Grand Chelem. According to him, Rodger’s game lies in the fact that he didn’t want to be good at only one movement but instead he wanted to be able to always reinvent himself and carry a great palette of moves in his game.
At the beginning of his career, that philosophy actually caused him quite a few difficulties as he was learning with the « junior’s ».
We’ve asked great golf player Greg Norman assisted by Lleyton Hewitt, to conduct a unique golf experiment to demonstrate this philosophy of playing: a golf ball will be placed inside a bunker and Norman will have to make it cross a green that will be blocked by a huge tree. Applying Federer’s way of thinking, he will then demonstrate that there are many ways possible to escape a problematic situation: passing the ball on the left or right side of the tree, passing it above or underneath it, even passing it through the branches of the tree
LOCATION
Australia / Melbourne
CHIEF OF MISSION
Rod Laver
THEME
technique, mastering the strikes, training
GIVER
Greg Norman
TRIBUTE
a golf lesson given to Lleyton Hewitt to illustrate the amount of strikes that are possible to make
GUESTS
Rod Laver, Ashleigh Barty, Lleyton Hewitt, Greg Norman, Alex de Minaur and Stefan Edberg
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Rod Laver is a worldwide and Australian tennis legend. With his help, we will study Federer’s progression into mastering all the different tennis strikes and especially his backhand shots. It’s the variety of Roger’s game that makes his game so significant. Roger himself declared in an interview on June 9th 2002: « if I don’t have an important variety of actions in my game, I’m dead ».
With the help of Stefan Edberg, we will have an outlook on all the different coaches Roger’s had throughout the years, insisting on two of them. First Severin Lüthi, who follows Federer since 2007, then the Australian Peter Carter, Roger’s father figure in tennis and mentor. His death in 2002 was a terrible choc for Roger.
We will witness the amazing progression of Roger’s backhand throughout the years and see how he used a fight against Rafael Nadal as a goal to turn this strike he couldn’t master into a strength. As we analyze the videos of Roger’s evolution, we also realize that Roger’s backhand is the most spinal backhand in tennis nowadays.
Lleyton Hewitt is a great fighter. He and Roger actually played 27 times against each other in championships! Hewitt has seen Roger’s action palette. He will explain how Roger was able to perform three different types of backhand shots in a single match. To do that, Hewitt will take the example of a game opposing Federer to Sampras by studying the fifth set of the game.
However, being able to master a variety of tricks hasn’t always been a strength in Roger’s game. Actually, at the beginning of his career it would be considered more as a flaw in his game than a quality. He had to gain enough maturity to be able to use this ability the right way. This may even be the reason why Roger’s first Grand Chelem win was only when he was 21 and not earlier.
Woman australien player Coco Gauff will then explain how Roger invented new tennis movements such as the « sabr », the « behind the back forehand » or even the « front tweener » https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=25&v=IGOoXjDXSo0&feature=emb_logo .
Hewitt then joins « the white shark » golf legend Greg Norman in an experiment to pay an homage to Roger’s variety of tennis actions. Greg Norman then teaches a student – Australian number 1 tennis player and golf amateur, Alex de Minaur – a « Federer style » lesson. He will demonstrate six different ways to strike relying only on what he feels in the moment.
