Share a part of the life of our consultants by discovering their hobbies! This month, let's talk about Nicolas ROYER (d²X Lyon) and his passion for tennis. 

What is your double life?

Tennis! I like sport in general, I practice several but tennis has a special place in my heart.

When and how did you start?

I started around 15/16 years old : after a failed soccer career, I turned to tennis. A small illness forced me to stopped playing sport in general for quite a long time and then I returned to other racket sports (badminton, squash).

When my son started playing tennis, I went back to the courts with him. At the start, it was just to spend time together but it quickly evolved into training, matches, championships, referees and now teaching…

What do you like about this sport?

• It’s a very complete sport, physically, technically, and mentally but where each of the 3 can be compensated by the 2 others: it can generate moments of intense frustrations as much as moments of mind-blowing joys. Each match is different, and it forces you to question yourself.
• I like the competition, whether in the form of tournaments or team championships (form of competitions that I like the most) which takes place like a Davis Cup !
• Finally, I also like teaching. It’s fairly recent for me since it's only been 1 year, which allows me to learn how to transmit my knowledge to different types of people.

And in your daily life, how does your passion fit in?

It is always difficult to find the time to play, especially since you know when a tennis match starts but it is difficult to predict when it will end! Regarding training, it’s at the beginning of the evening, so it helps me clear my mind for the day.

Have you acquired skills through the sport you use in your professional life?

Managing frustration and finding a solution… that we regularly meet in projects!!

In addition, we can easily draw a parallel between a team tennis championship and a project team:

• each match is played by one person, but the whole team has a common goal and each member can provide advice and guidance to the player,
• it is the same for a project team where everyone have their own specialty, can share their difficulties, which the others have managed to overcome, without doing the task for the person.

Thanks to Nicolas for his testimony!