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It\u2019s always a bummer when the last weekend of January rolls around and the Australian Open finishes for another year. When the tennis ends, the year\u2019s honeymoon is officially over. Real life is back in session. Suddenly, the idea of sitting on the couch watching eight straight hours of tennis, or anything else, seems laughably unrealistic, not to mention a little depraved.<\/p>\n
What I\u2019m mainly going to miss about the tennis isn\u2019t the actual tennis, which this year was patchy. What I\u2019m mainly going to miss is the commentary \u2013 the pearls of analysis from the ex-pros in the bunker. If you listened carefully to their words of wisdom, you could pick up a nightly serve of free life hacks that would, if you\u2019d heard them from a licensed motivational guru, have cost you thousands of bucks.<\/p>\n
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Roger Federer, former tennis player and philosopher. AP<\/p>\n
Jim Courier has been coming to Australia to call the tennis since 2005. Since 2019, he\u2019s been working for Channel Nine, owner of this masthead. As a player, Courier was always something of an enigma. As a commentator, he ranks with the best there have ever been. He isn\u2019t just a first-rate tennis mind. He\u2019s a first-rate mind full stop.<\/p>\n
Jim\u2019s chief gift is to translate the action into layperson\u2019s terms. Forget about torque and topspin. What the players are mainly doing out there is problem-solving. Each point, each ball, is a new problem. \u201cHe\u2019s solving problems out there,\u201d Jim will say. Or else he\u2019s not solving problems out there, which means he might be on the way to getting \u201cbagelled\u201d.<\/p>\n
When Jim talks like this, he\u2019s giving you stuff you can use on a day-to-day basis, on the hardcourts of real life. Don\u2019t let your problems bagel you. Solve them one by one. Play the ball; don\u2019t let the ball play you. You may get beaten out there, but don\u2019t let it be because you\u2019ve beaten yourself.<\/p>\n
Late in his tennis career, while playing a crunch match at the ATP finals, Courier did something famously strange at the changes of end. Instead of staring into space eating a banana, he sat there reading a novel: Armistead Maupin\u2019s Maybe the Moon. At the time, this was widely viewed as a sign that Jim was losing it. In retrospect, one sees that he was prepping for his second career as the world\u2019s leading tennis intellectual.<\/p>\n
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Jannik Sinner is interviewed on court by Jim Courier at last year\u2019s Australian Open.AP<\/p>\n
Clive James, a great collector of aphorisms, was fond of quoting a maxim coined by Martina Navratilova. \u201cWhat matters isn\u2019t how well you play when you\u2019re playing well. What matters is how well you play when you\u2019re playing badly.\u201d<\/p>\n
What is it about tennis that generates these jewels of insight? It must have something to do with the sport\u2019s solitary nature, and all those periods of enforced meditation: the 25 seconds between points, the 90-second sit-downs at the change of ends. That\u2019s what the players are doing while their heads are under those towels. They\u2019re honing the epigrams that they\u2019ll one day be whipping out in their commentary.<\/p>\n
Or, if we\u2019re lucky, in their books. Besides being an outstanding sports memoir, Andre Agassi\u2019s Open is one of the most useful self-help books ever written. It\u2019s also, I would submit, a distinguished work of philosophy. Agassi\u2019s on-court mantra, \u201ccontrol what you can control\u201d, is an applied version of Roman stoicism. He\u2019s a modern Marcus Aurelius. He\u2019s Seneca with a Slazenger.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s a modern Marcus Aurelius. He\u2019s Seneca with a Slazenger.<\/p>\n
Editor’s pick Roger Federer is another ex-champ as at home in the field of philosophy as he was on the court. In 2024, Federer delivered a commencement speech at Dartmouth College.<\/p>\n \u201cEffortless is a myth,\u201d he told the graduates. Nothing that looks effortless is achieved without enormous effort behind the scenes. Talent matters, but it comes in many forms. \u201cDiscipline is a talent,\u201d Federer said, \u201cand so is patience.\u201d<\/p>\n At the climax of his speech, Federer untethered a truly scorching piece of life advice. First, he went through some numbers. In his pro career, he\u2019d played more than 1500 singles matches. He\u2019d won almost 80 per cent of these. When you put all his matches together, Federer had played, over the course of his career, several hundred thousand points of tennis.<\/p>\n But now he had a challenge for the Dartmouth graduates. Guess what percentage of those points he\u2019d won.<\/p>\n Editor’s pick The answer? 54 per cent. The most sublime tennis player of all time lost almost as many points in his career as he won. \u201cWhen you lose every second point, on average,\u201d Federer expatiated, \u201cyou learn not to dwell on every shot.\u201d<\/p>\n That sounds like the cue for a New Year\u2019s resolution. I know it\u2019s February. But January\u2019s gone now, like a lost first set. So let\u2019s look ahead, control what we can control, and spend the rest of 2026 heeding the hard-won wisdom of the tennis stars. \u201cWhen you\u2019re playing a point, it\u2019s the most important thing in the world,\u201d Federer tells us. \u201cBut when it\u2019s behind you, it\u2019s behind you.\u201d<\/p>\n The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n![\"Erin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/92a430357dd11afd0ddf5c9f7254b196c72d7a15.jpeg\")
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