Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Tennis Game: Hard Work, Talent and Winning

John McEnroe said, in his book "You Cannot Be Serious" that his training mostly consisted of match practice.  He just felt his way through the matches and figured out how to play in real time.
However, once Ivan Lendl became popular so did the popularity of working very hard off the court and beating up your opponent.

Both of them were really great champoins so it is hard to say which training method is better.  As a matter of fact, many rivalries are built between the hard worker and the talent.  Agassi/Sampras, Federer/Nadal, Evert/Navratilova, Serena/Azarenka are a few.  The rivalries prove that there is no one way of being a champion.

One thing is for sure though.  Tennis is a sport where, once you get to a certain level, you need to at least work on the other style to compete.  All the talent in the world is not going to help if the opponent wears you out.  Conversely all the drilling in the world isn't going to help if you don't have a weapon or skill that you rely on.  I doubt McEnroe played all those matches and never got on the exercise bike once.

If tennis is a sport that you chose to be serious with, it is important that you use it to better yourself as a person.  Mind, Body, and Soul = Scrimmage (practice matches), Drills, and Matches.  Even if you only have a limited amount of time to play tennis, do this in equal parts.  If done correctly, win or lose, you will at least know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are improving as a complete player.  If not then the culmination of you as a player, the match (the soul) will falter.

Seriously, think about it yourself.  If someone is seriously trying to tell you how to be or what to do as a tennis player and they don't play well in matches, how much do you care about their advice?  Doesn't every excuse they come up with after that discount them twice as much?  Do you want to be that person?  ARE you that person?

Playing tennis isn't that hard.  Any idiot can cut highlights out of a practice session and call themselves a great player.  But playing tennis well in matches that you deserve to be in is another beast entirely.  They don't give out bag tags for the most hours on the practice court or the most unbelievable shots

Good luck on the journey :)

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