'Here’s the surprising part about Roger Federer’s greatness', says magnate

Swiss star Roger Federer will return to play in March 2021 in the men's ATP 250 tennis tournament in Doha in Qatar. After him he will play the ATP 500 tournament in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and the Rotterdam tournament in the Netherlands. Roger Federer, who was 39 before returning to these three tournaments, is training intensely after his injury and knee operations. He hasn't played since January 2020 when he was eliminated in the semifinals 7-6 6-4 6-3 by Serbian Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open. The Swiss has won three times in his career in Doha in 2005 2006 and 2011. He will not play the Australian Open from 8 to 21 February 2021. He is number 5 in the ATP world rankings and it is not excluded that he may participate in the Tokyo Olympics. between July and the first week of August 2021. American business magnate and philanthropist Bill Gates believes the world needs more people like Swiss tennis champion Roger Federer. 

Bill Gates pays tribute to Roger Federer

"Here’s the surprising part about Roger Federer’s greatness: As a young kid, he didn’t focus on tennis and didn’t get fancy coaching or strength training," Bill Gates wrote. "He played a wide range of different sports, including skateboarding, swimming, ping pong, soccer and badminton. He didn’t start playing competitive tennis until he was a teenager. Even then, his parents discouraged him from taking it too seriously, delaying specialization and accumulating a breadth of different experiences. I learned this from reading a good, myth-debunking book called Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World," Gates added. "The sports journalist David Epstein uses Roger’s experience as his opening example of the underappreciated benefits of delaying specialization and accumulating a breadth of different experiences. 'In a world that increasingly incentivizes, even demands, hyperspecialization,' he writes, 'we … need more Rogers: people who start broad and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives while they progress'." Gates talked about that event in his blog, before adding that Federer's tennis gives the impression of being touched by the supernatural. "Just before COVID-19 hit, I was paired with Roger Federer in a tournament to benefit children’s education in Africa," Bill Gates wrote. "When I watch Roger Federer play, I’m in awe. As the late novelist David Foster Wallace wrote, he is 'one of those rare, preternatural athletes who appear to be exempt, at least in part, from certain physical laws'."

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/3qQo2yl