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by jshevek 1957 days ago
I sometimes find word choice to be a reliable heuristic for evaluating the probable worth of some prose, but I don't see why, in this case, you feel this way. Would you mind elaborating? (Assuming your conclusion is indeed based on the phrasing chosen...)
2 comments

I start from the assumption that Federer’s career (even in 2012) is enough to prove that he has the mental strength and can perform at the highest level in stressful championship decisions.

But the stronger reason to stop reading is that, in the most generous interpretation, the author started to argue the benefits of “not thinking too much” by using a unfalsifiable claim about a very subjective interpretation of a fact, attributing causality to an anedocte that is far too complex to be resumed into a simplistic reason based on the author’s assumption. This seemed ridiculous to me.

It was obvious to me that the author didn’t have much of a science-informed take (my impression form the title) and was just doing unsubstantiated storytelling

Perhaps OP meant that he had been dealing with a knee injury, and that doesn't have much to do with "mental frailty" at all: https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/30821027/roger-federe...

EDIT: Actually the article is from 2012, so I assume its because many of Federer's best years were still ahead of him.

The original article (from The Economist) is from 2012, so whatever the author was referring to was not the same as the injuries discussed in your 2021 article (from ESPN).
Hence the edit.
Which was made after my comment.
I think there was some page-refreshing asynchrony here, either on your end or mine. But I appreciate that you attempted to correct me, so thank you.