>>http://sports.yahoo.com/tennis/blog/busted_racquet/post/Video-Roger-Federer-plays-William-Tell-with-a-t?urn=ten-262691
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>I totally believe it. Federer is an incredible athlete, probably the best individual athlete of our time along with Tiger Woods. Even his peers stand in awe of him. When it was suggested to Rafael Nadal that he was as good as Federer, Nadal said anyone who thinks that doesn't know anything about tennis. Roger has won 16 majors and I have won 6.
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>There was a great profile of him in The New Yorker a few weeks ago. One thing I learned was he had an out of control temper as a late teen. He has always seemed cool, calm, and collected so that surprised me. His career took off when he learned how to calm down.

If anyone could do it, it would be him.

My main observation about that video is that what he does is not a natural tennis stroke. At high levels, most if not all racquet sports are about muscle memory. He has spent thousands of hours associating a serving motion - or any overhead stroke - with hitting a ball at a precise downward angle to just clear a tennis net.

In the video, he uses a serving motion, but he's hitting a target above head height, at speed, not a lob; in a tennis game that stroke would always be out. There's zero percentage in practising shots like that, it would actually be counterproductive to programming his muscle memory.

So, making an unnatural, unpractised stroke like that, overcoming muscle memory, is impressive. Maybe unbelievable - but again, if anyone could do it, it would be him.