The world’s top athletes can seem a confused bunch. Scottie Scheffler described in a press conference before the Open how he keeps asking himself why he wants to win golf tournaments and can’t find any answers. The world’s No 3 male tennis player Alexander Zverev confessed to feelings of emptiness and a lack of joy in his tennis regardless of whether he wins or loses matches. Wimbledon runner-up Amanda Anisimova took a long break from tennis to save her mental health, was written off by many and unsure what to expect on return, yet ended up in the Wimbledon final.
What’s going on? As the world’s top athletes naturally push the boundaries of what’s possible physically, so they also have to push the limits mentally, and these questions and experiences are a vital part of that process. We’re seeing more and more athletes explore the space beyond winning and losing, a concept many in sport have yet to understand actually exists. But as most athletes find out, some sooner than others, to get caught up with winning and losing is to lose the point, both on the court and in life.
Finding a purpose behind the pursuit of trophies now forms a crucial part of an athlete’s mental journey to reach and sustain their highest levels of performance. And as is typical of elite performance, it’s not an easy path.
Scheffler explained before and after triumphing at Royal Portrush that winning tournaments brought a positive sense of achievement but that shouldn’t be mistaken for deep, lasting fulfilment. In many ways, it’s a healthy questioning attitude. Scheffler is largely in a good place: he still enjoys playing, while keenly aware that winning a golf game can never be the be all and end all. But he’s aware he doesn’t yet have a good enough answer to: “Why do I want to win this championship so badly?”
Anisimova found herself facing burnout two years ago and knew she had to step away. This time off allowed her to reconnect with herself and then redefine why she wanted to play tennis again. She said many people had told her she’d never make it back if she took time out – one wonders whose interests they were looking after or whether they understood the need to nurture an athlete’s mental and emotional health as much as the physical and physiological side. Zverev seems to sense he must find a different route and knows that the answer isn’t about winning or losing.
Alexander Zverev has voiced similar feelings to those expressed by Scottie Scheffler. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
Scheffler, Anisimova and Zverev each prove age-old findings of biology, psychology and philosophy that humans need meaning in our lives beyond immediate, material gains. Whether you look at the top level of psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, return to the Greek Stoic philosophers, or open up psychiatrist and Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl’s classic work Man’s Search for Meaning, the prime motivating force in humans is to find meaning and purpose in life. Trophies are fun, and we all enjoy them. But as Scheffler reminds us, those celebrations only last a few minutes and won’t ever “fill the deepest wants and desires of my heart”.
It’s important to note these athletes are not saying winning doesn’t matter. It’s just not the only thing, and as winning is by its nature temporary and shallow, it’s insufficient to sustain the highest levels of performance. Asking “what’s the point of sport?” can feel dangerous, almost heretical, but it’s clearly a powerful thought process to sustain any athlete wanting to explore their full potential.
Amanda Anisimova, on her way to defeat in the Wimbledon final, previously took time out from the game to look after her mental health. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
Finding reasons why sport matters can look different for different athletes but typically involves the awareness of the person that you are becoming through the pursuit of sporting excellence, the depth of connection that you have with friends, family and wider communities that you belong to, and, over time, the lasting positive impact or legacy you might leave.
Giving athletes space and support to explore how they find meaning from their sporting journey is becoming a critical quality for coaches to support and facilitate. But it’s a world away from many coaching development routes which have for decades emphasised technical and tactical excellence. Even in the world of sports psychology where there is greatest skill in this area, it’s not what is often requested from coaches or performance directors.
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Organisations including Switch the Play, the True Athlete Project, ACT and the Jacobs Futura Foundation have woken up to the need to help athletes transition out of sport at the end of their careers, alongside various companies that offer athlete transition programmes. However, what’s becoming clear is that those conversations about purpose, identity and social impact need to come much earlier in an athlete’s career, long before they retire.
An interesting consequence that follows when athletes do have a strong sense of meaning, purpose and connection is less difference between the emotional states of winners and losers. Both winning and losing prove useful in the pursuit of connection with others and the process of self-discovery and character development, reinforcing values and virtues such as resilience, courage, gratitude, and humility.
We saw this demonstrated by the Wimbledon men’s singles finalists and top two players in the world, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, whose speeches were remarkably similar and largely based on themes of gratitude, humility and accepting loss. Alcaraz clarified that losses hurt but were “not failures” and Sinner emphasised how important it had been to “accept” the loss a few weeks earlier at the French Open. They had both given everything to win Wimbledon but were both immediately grounded that who they are isn’t changed by the result and that they are playing a bigger game than just who wins a tournament.
Performance sport shows us contenders at the very top of their game whose incredible feats of human possibility now go way beyond what happens on court. As Sinner summed up moments after holding the Wimbledon trophy for the first time “We just keep pushing and trying to become a better tennis player, but mostly a better person.” That’s the way to find the mental edge, whatever game you’re playing.