Roger Federer declared the main reasons for his success were "grit" and hard graft as he rejected the theory his tennis game was "effortless".
Federer, one of sport's highest achievers, looked to set the record straight as he delivered a graduation speech, external at Dartmouth College in the United States.
The Swiss swapped the shorts he had worn "almost every day for the last 35 years" for a robe that was "hard to move in" as he spoke when receiving a Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the New Hampshire institution.
The 20-time Grand Slam winner, who hung up his professional racquet in 2022, talked about how "awful" he finds the word 'retired'.