Kimi Antonelli has opened up about the wisdom Roger Federer bestowed upon him during a visit to Wimbledon’s Royal Box.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old shared that the 20-time Grand Slam champion encouraged him to keep his emotions in check as he bids to win his maiden F1 drivers’ championship this season.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The Mercedes driver, who leads the standings by 25 points over team-mate George Russell after nine rounds, was a guest on Centre Court during the second week of the Championships, where he found himself seated alongside one of the greatest tennis players of all time.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“It was great. It was my first time at Wimbledon,” Antonelli told media, including RacingNews365, when asked about the experience ahead of this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“In the past couple of years, I’ve got more and more into tennis. Obviously, also knowing Jannik [Sinner], then you start watching, so it was a really cool experience.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“And also, to be able to talk with Roger, it was great. He told me a lot about the grass court, and also from his previous experiences.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“It was just great to chat with him about anything, to be fair; we chatted about my races, about when he used to play, or also about his life in general. So it was great, because I think other than an incredible athlete, he’s an incredible person as well; very humble and very open as well, so it was great.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Antonelli’s relationship with Jannik Sinner, the current Men’s World Number 1 and a fellow Italian, has helped the teenager develop an interest in tennis, but it was Federer’s counsel on handling pressure that resonated most deeply as Antonelli navigates the demands of a title fight in only his second season in F1.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“About pressure, he just told me to really focus on one race at a time, just focus on what you can control, and also to control your emotions, especially the ones that can make you make mistakes, so those were the main [pieces of] advice,” Antonelli added.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“But yeah, other than that, it was an incredible experience to witness.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli has opened up about the wisdom Roger Federer bestowed upon him during a visit to Wimbledon’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[3007,3010,3008,3011,3009,831,372,832,3006,3005,3004,101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-696435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motorsport","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}