If you don’t follow tennis, you’ve probably never heard of David Ferrer. He’s largely overshadowed by the greatest players of this generation, the likes of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. He’s never won a grand slam, and for all his prodigious talent he hasn’t even won that many tournaments overall. As a result, he rarely makes it to the headlines outside of the niche tennis press. If you define success in terms of publicity and prestige, this guy looks rather paltry. And yet, he’s arguably one of the most successful tennis players of his time, having amassed over $25,000,000 in prize money and maintained a top-10 ranking for the better part of a decade.

Ferrer is an example of the player who inconspicuously kills it, the tennis equivalent of the millionaire who through frugal living and sound investments enjoys a low-key life of success. The secret behind his success is his consistency. Nicknamed the “Spanish bulldog”, Ferrer is known for his relentless work ethic and exceptional competitive focus. When he shows up to a tournament, you know he’s well-prepared and playing at a decent level. He rarely loses to opponents ranked lower than him, usually advancing to the quarter- or semi-finals and occasionally winning a minor tournament. Since he does this week in and week out, over the course of season he wins a ton of matches and gains a ton of ranking points. The negative corollary of this is that he hardly ever makes a breakthrough. Despite his skill, you’d never bet on him to upset one of the top players; he just doesn’t seem to have those slack resources.

There are Ferrers on the recreational level as well, including on the team I co-captain. These are players that distinguish themselves through reliability and predictability. They bring a baseline level of performance from which they don’t deviate too much in either direction. Thanks to this solidity, they form the backbone of the team and are generally the guarantors of the team’s success. In contrast, there are others who once in a while put in a brilliant performance but are equally vulnerable to drastic let-ups. At their peak, they significantly outplay the reliables, and if you were to judge them by this potential they would appear unequivocally better. While they inevitably score some upset wins, however, in the aggregate their results are inferior.

In a way that is more peculiar to tennis, this phenomenon occurs on the micro-level of points as well. Like some other sports, such as basketball, tennis is made up of a large number of discrete, more or less independent, points. Any one point is relatively insignificant since the overall result of winning or losing a match depends on aggregate success over a large number of points. In all but the tightest of encounters, it’s not a few brilliant strokes or creative plays that will win a match but consistently winning run-of-the-mill points.

There is much to be said for the proposition that in life in general, as in tennis, the true worth of something should be judged from a broader perspective over the long term. What matters is not so much what level of performance can be achieved on a discrete occasion when a person or thing performs to its full potential; rather the better test is to ask what level of performance can be reliably achieved on a regular basis. Gradually, as the aberrations that skew any overly limited sample recede into the background, those who regularly achieve stellar results will overcome those who are sporadically outstanding but more often mediocre. They are the uncelebrated victors.