"On court if it didn’t go well, then of course he would lose his temper and occasionally throw his racquet, or even cry," Federer's mother, Lynette Federer, says in the clip. "...We were never angry at Roger if he lost a match, but we were always angry at him because of his behavior."
Federer learned with time, becoming the world No. 1 junior as a teenager and and taking his still-not-so-secure temperament to the pro tour. The Swiss matured slowly, but steadily.
“I also didn’t understand that early on, because I just felt that I needed to let it go,” Federer said. “I do believe [that], keeping it in to some extent, you can be frustrated in a different way. Maybe you can yell or breath, or whatever you do to get better.”
His hard work to improve his mental resolve was rewarded when he won his first Grand Slam title at age 22, at Wimbledon in 2003. It’s common these days to see the poker-faced Federer let out a yell now and again, as he did during his five-set classic against Marin Cilic on Wednesday. But he needed his calm to fight off three match points.
"What I like about being in a fifth set is you actually get really tested to see where [your] fitness is, where is your mind at," he said after the 6-7 (4), 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (9), 6-3 win.
Still, Federer sees a point to the racquet throw, though certainly not to the extent of Grigor Dimitrov’s catastrophic performance in Istanbul earlier this summer.
"When a guy has a big temper, I think it’s actually a good thing, because with age he’s going to mellow out—he will have to," the 17-time Grand Slam champion said. "To behave that way in front of 50,000 people is not so easy anymore."
Raonic, Federer's opponent in the Wimbledon semifinals, is no stranger to flipping out as a youth, but learning to stay calm has boosted his game.
"It has taken time," the Canadian told Baseline earlier this year. "I think the way I sort of learned the lesson is there was a lot of times it cost me."
