In tennis, as in life, we often measure our worth by what we’ve already done: the tournaments won, the points gained, the training sessions completed, the techniques already learned. Yet there is a deeper and more powerful way to grow: accumulating what we don’t yet know, what we can still learn. In Japan, this concept is called tsundoku — the art of accumulating books that haven’t yet been read. And, surprisingly, it can become a true philosophy of growth for a tennis player.

Umberto Eco, the great Italian intellectual, owned a library of over 30,000 volumes. The incredible thing? He hadn’t read them all, and he was proud of it. He saw those books not as a list of unfinished tasks but as a constant reminder of how much he still had to learn. It was his antilibrary, a symbol not of the knowledge already acquired, but of what was still left to explore.

Let’s try applying this idea to tennis. How often, as players or coaches, do we feel frustrated by what we “still don’t know how to do”? How often do we feel behind others because we don’t yet have a solid serve, a consistent backhand, or a champion’s mindset? But maybe we should look at all these “gaps” differently.

📚 Our tennis antilibrary
Every shot you haven’t yet perfected. Every match you’ve lost. Every technical error you still struggle to fix. These aren’t limitations, but unexplored territories of your growth. Just like Eco’s unread books, they’re living reminders of what you can still become.

A good player isn’t someone who already knows everything, but someone who has a hunger to learn every day — who doesn’t fool themselves into thinking they’ve arrived just because they’ve won a few tournaments. Rafael Nadal put it clearly:

“When you feel you’ve arrived, that’s when you start to regress.”

🎾 The value of the incomplete
On court, just like in a library, the value doesn’t lie in what you possess, but in what you’re willing to explore. The humility to know there’s always something more to learn — a tactical variation, a mental approach, a more effective stance — is what separates someone who merely plays from someone who chooses to become a true tennis player.

Novak Djokovic, for example, is known for his constructive obsession with finding new ways to improve, even after reaching the top of the tennis world. He often says:

“I’m always looking for something that can make me just 1% better.”

This is tsundoku: not settling for what you already know, but living in the active anticipation of what you’re yet to discover.

🧠 A mindset for growth
Is your backhand still not where you want it to be? Is your return of serve inconsistent? Instead of getting discouraged, build your personal antilibrary. Write down what you want to learn, make a list of goals, collect videos to study, ask your coaches to point out what you’re missing. Not to obsess over it, but to remind yourself that real growth lies in the direction, not the destination.

As Roger Federer said:

“Victory is a moment. Improvement is a journey.”

🗺️ Conclusion: tennis as a journey, not a finish line
Tsundoku isn’t just a way of reading — it’s a way of living. And in tennis, it’s a way of training with fresh eyes every day, knowing that you’ll never be “complete,” but that each day you can add a new page, a new lesson, a new point.

Your game, your technique, your mind — everything is a growing antilibrary. And every practice session is a chance to read a new chapter.

Don’t be afraid of what you don’t yet know how to do. Take care of it. Accumulate it. Make it part of your journey.

by Federico Coppini
https://www.coppinifedericoacademy.com/