Don Budge, Jack Kramer, Gonzales, Sampras...

[hockeyscout]

Natural talent.

I don't believe to much in natural talent. And I don't think great coaching gets a player there either. If that was the case their would be a lot more champions in the USA (as the coaching is very good). I believe in an athlete consciously deciding to be # 1. Its that simple.

[hockeyscout]

Polgar sisters

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WREgHsTr5yE

[bottle]

Re Polgar Sisters

Thanks, hockeyscout, for your posts and this link (post # 20 in this thread).

This to my mind is one of the great stories in the world. I had only been exposed to the verbal form of it. But these are great films-- all five of them even though they are just small slivers in an overall epic that includes the weeks when the late and great Bobby Fischer on the lam came to live with the Polgars in Budapest and they all played chess.

I'm never going to apologize for my enthusiasm. Part of mine right now however is that I just came from an interview with a 17-year-old prodigy in tennis who started at 4 years old and also, like Susan Polgar, believes that she or anybody given certain circumstances and work can do anything (so refreshing!).

Last week I got to play against her (2-6), this week with her (6-0). Once per set, if there is a man on the other side of the net she will go straight at him.

When a good player male or female does that to me, here is what usually happens. The first time I jump out of the way. The second time I reflex a BHV winner.

When Carmella came at me for the first time, the speed was such that I couldn't jump away and had no chance to prepare a BHV so took the ball squarely on the wrong side of the throat of my racket. Lucky for me, the ball deflected away.

The guy in the mixed doubles team we were playing was less lucky. He didn't get his racket on the ball which hit him squarely in the chest as Carmella groaned. The guy was okay however since he is excessively well cushioned in the chest.

A corporation is not a person but a college may be. And, if my college doesn't give Carmella a great tennis scholarship, then my college is an idiot.

[tennis_chiro]

Awesome, but what does it mean for our tennis kids?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WREgHsTr5yE

Absolutely an awesome story. Fits right into the pattern of Coyle's The Talent Code, that there is actually something tangible and physical that changes in our nervous system with practice and skill development. Personally, I feel like I've been losing the "fusi-name" section of my brain. I will have a terrible time remembering the name of something or someone, and then as soon as I relax and move away from the pressure I will remember that person's name or perhaps something I was trying to describe, but I've already embarrassed myself! Often I will find that I can remember someone's stroke or recognize them from 4 courts away by their strokes, but I might have trouble remembering who they are when they are standing right in front of me.

Just as Susan may have hijacked and developed the "fusi-face" section of her brain to remember "chunks" of chess configurations, I would suggest that great serve-and-volley tennis players, develop "fusi-volley" type sections of their nervous system to enable them to execute and manage high level reflex moves that are necessary to play serve-and-volley tennis...oops, I forgot, ... no one learns that anymore. And, you can't develop those kind of skills or those kinds of neural synapses without repetition ad infinitum.

But there is a more important question that has to be asked: namely, to what end? Is it worth spending 6 hours a day for all those years to become a chess grand master? If you love it, and it doesn't keep you from developing in other areas of your life, great. But I'd rather come out as Rubenstein and be able to play piano concerts into my 90's, even if I did have to keep playing scales all those years, even into my 90's.

But think of all the kids that are started on the path to be tennis "wunderkinds". How many of them make it even just to where they can break into the top 100, much less actually make a living for 10 years. And except for the very, very few who make a fortune that sets them up for the rest of their life, those individuals will arrive at age 30 having invested twenty, thirty or even forty thousand hours in a highly specialized skill with very limited potential to support them for the rest of their lives without continued relatively hard labor. I love tennis and I think it is a great thing to put at the center of a family's life; but don't give up the potential for a full life in other areas.

Just think how much effort it takes to go beyond being a very good junior tennis player and perhaps being able to be eligible for a college scholarship to a top Div I tennis program (only partials for almost all boys) vs someone who puts in enough time to be able to wrangle admittance to a really good Div III school with assistance earned with an academic scholarship that was earned with the effort that wasn't put into going the extra mile on the tennis court. (Personally, I'd recommend saving a lot of money and getting the first two years done in a junior college and then transferring to a school that specializes in what you would then know you want to study.) Assume for the moment that effort was the only factor that determined success in achieving either of those outcomes. Now let's project forward about 15 years when these two people are in their early thirties and consider what their careers look like. What are they going to be doing from age 35 to 65? What are their prospects for financial security?

The world is a very big place. And with today's available sources of information anything is possible. I wish I had had me to teach me how to hit a forehand when I was younger and do many other things on the court. Gosh, it hurts when kids ignore my advice. I just hate to see missed opportunities. But would I rather have had me as a coach as a kid or have had the unlimited opportunities kids have today to explore anything they want to look into. I would have wanted to hit my forehand a lot better (that's not asking much), but I would much more have wanted to develop other skills and facets of my life rather than invest any more time into tennis than I did.

I see tennis not as a means to a life, but simply as a metaphor for it. Learn to fight for yourself in a tennis match and you will fight for yourself better in life. Does it really matter if our kids don't dominate the world rankings (or barely maintain a presence there) if we are producing kids who learn to play and fight properly on a tennis court and at the same time spend enough time to develop the other skills they need in life. Tennis is a really hard sport. To be elite takes tremendous dedication and there is no guarantee of any return on investment other than a skill and a love of the game. If there are dollar signs in the equation that creates that investment, it is a false equation. The odds are just that bad!

I've often thought about arguing that college tennis should not be connected in any way to the pro game. Perhaps they should play three 2-set doubles matches (with lots of serving and volleying!) and deemphasize singles and play just 3 single sets of singles (9 points -don't play the singles if not necessary). Hey, I said perhaps. But that is more in line with developing the values and experiences that will benefit our kids in real life. If you want to play pro tennis, you need to be devoting 30 to 40 hours a week of dedicated effort from the age of 17 to 22 to have a real chance to compete.

Take a look at our current group of hopefuls. I don't know the women very well, but I am somewhat aware of the men. Take our current crop of young men that bypassed college and went straight to the pros: Querry, Young, Harrison, Sock and Kudla. On the other hand, we have Isner, Klahn and Johnson who earned college degrees. Querry and Isner have both made enough money to set themselves up decently in life after tennis and if they can stay where they are for another 3 to 5 years, they should both be into 8 figures. At the same time, they are always just one bad knee away from enforced early retirement; and Isner seems to have more than his share of nagging injuries that threaten his career. But then, John does have a college degree to help soften his post-playing career landing. Then take a look at Young and Harrison and Sock. Young was a junior Grand Slam champion at 15. Sock won the US Open Juniors in 2010 just before his 18th birthday. Harrison also turned pro at 15, but they are all outside the top 45 who get straight into the most exclusive 64 draw Masters 1000's. Klahn and Johnson are struggling too, but I like their prospects in their 30's with their degrees a lot better.

Is it conceivable that Sock or Harrison will not make it to the "elite" level. For Young, it is almost already a given. In reality, it is also likely for Sock and Harrison. They are going to have to show something pretty special very soon or they are going to be falling even further behind what were the expectations for both of them. I've seen both of them do some great things, but there are so many great players out there, getting into the top 20 or 30 where they can make some serious money is so hard. It's much more likely that they hang on where they are (between 50 and 150) for a couple of more years and then fade away. Not what I would hope for or even predict, but just a lot more likely. And I would say the odds of them making it into the top 10 are really low. They've had a couple of years to show something special and it just hasn't happened. Unless they are really doing something different (I hope they are), there is no real reason to believe they will suddenly now solve the puzzle.

As for what it takes to succeed in this game, it is good fundamentals to create the opportunity to legitimately compete; and then there has to be a lot of competition. What I see is kids ducking competition all the time. What I see is good kids having to play kids who can barely get 2 games off them in early rounds of designated tournaments. Those better kids should be playing more matches against comparable opponents. And those weaker kids should be playing against someone against whom they can employ the skills of competition in a meaningful way. Here is SoCal, the USTA should be setting up practice challenge matches at least 2 days a week to supplement weekend tournaments. The reason all those players come out of Buenos Aires and Barcelona is they all go to one place to train against one another and they drive each other up. The USTA should stop wasting it's time trying to be in the developmental business and run competition. Then use its resources to support the players who excell.

Can you imagine what the situation would be like if the USTA really went after competition? Most of the USTA local sections each have the economic base of a Spain or Argentina or Belgium. Imagine if the ratio of the number of futures tournaments played in the US to the number of futures played in Spain mirrored the ratio of the sizes of our economies: US:$16.7Trillion, Spain: $1.4 Trillion, Argentina: $0.77Trillion. If the USTA ran those events (about 5 a week nation wide) and then turned around and tried to arrange good practice facilities for our players and also some housing in return for practicing with some of our local juniors. How would that look? Different I think.

Sorry, you got me started!

don

[bottle]

I will try to keep all of this in mind as I write my letter to my college on Carmella's behalf.

[hockeyscout]

Interesting read ...

Interesting read! I think if the passion is there, yes, go for it. And do it urgently. Their aren't many wonder-kids. The great ones make it in tennis. The ones who don't, who invested 10,000 hours will go into their next field (lawyer, doctor, businessman, wife, husband, whatever) and crush the competition.

[tennis_chiro]

.... I'd defy anyone to tell me the 22 year old Grigor Dimitrov isn't ahead of his college peer group in every facet of life at this stage of his emotional and psychological development. We also must keep in mind, getting a Harvard degree is not guarantee either. Spending 20,000 hours in a classroom certainly won't guarantee a great job either. ...

I'm not saying a college degree is a panacea for success in the world. Most of the players in the top 100 are exactly where they belong. But a college degree is only about 2000 hours of class time at most. Dimitrov is probably far more "worldly" than some 22-year old college graduate, but he's at least 20000 hours in on his investment in his tennis career. Hopefully, with the help of his new coach and a deeper commitment he will make it all worthwhile. You can not possibly succeed as a pro tennis player without that kind of full commitment. And I don't think he would be as well rounded in dealing with life as someone who has worked his way through college and maybe served a couple of summer internships getting a handle on possible careers. Tennis players live in a cocoon which enables them to make progress. It doesn't allow for much else in their lives.

It simply is a question of people realizing what the stakes are. The odds in Vegas are definitely set up to favor the house, but not so much to kill the gambler's hope. The odds against a kid making a living as a tennispro are so slim it is ridiculous. I knew that. I still went for it. I'd have kept trying until I was in my mid30's if it hadn't been for my arm giving out on me. But I wasn't doing it for the money. I just loved to play. I wanted to be the best I could be. Never quite satisfied that itch.

Also, it is not easy to go back to school in your 30's. I earned an MBA and then a chiropractic degree in my 30's. I wish I had just found my career a lot sooner and just enjoyed my competitive tennis outside of my professional career. Granted, I was just a wannabe. I have been so busy trying to survive the last 20 years that I ended up playing a lot less competitive tennis than I would have liked.

I get upset when I see parents who see their kids as a meal ticket to financial freedom. Even a college scholarship is not a given, much less a professional career. Play the game and learn it because you love it and the things it embodies. Jim Loehr's points in this months little piece are right on the money.

The 10000 hour rule is only the beginning. Any satellite/futures player who has played the pro tour into his mid-twenties has put in a tremendous investment. If he/she did it understanding what the potential rewards were, then great. But if they were conned, ...

One of the things that amazes me is how hard it is to get a full draw in a Southern Cal Open tournament. I teach at the park where I learned to play. When I was a kid, the tournaments played there always had literally hundreds of entries. The first good tournament I won as a 19 year old was the losers draw from the qualifying for the LA Metropolitan Chps. I think it was a 64 draw of losers from the qualifying. Despite the fact that we have nearly 1000 kids entered in most of the designated tournaments in SoCal, we are unable to generate a full draw of even 16 players in the LA Metro Men's Open division. They may have had 3 entries in the women's. What happened to all those kids playing those tournaments. They were pretty good players. But they didn't learn to love the competition. Or the game. That's really sad. Especially with our society heading to extinction by obesity!

don

[stotty]

Great post, don

What I see is good kids having to play kids who can barely get 2 games off them in early rounds of designated tournaments. Those better kids should be playing more matches against comparable opponents. And those weaker kids should be playing against someone against whom they can employ the skills of competition in a meaningful way.
don

WHAT! You mean to say your tournaments aren't graded over there! Our tournaments are graded. Depending how high your player rating is depends what grade of tournament you can enter. This reduces one-sided matches dramatically.

We have something called Matchplays, too. Players play two matches back to back on a Sunday or a Saturday. You play someone your own rating, never above, nor below, just someone around your standard. Good stuff. Most matches are competitive and tight and so offer excellent experience for budding players.

About he education thing...

I feel education is a wonderful thing. The best thing. It's shouldn't necessarily be about making money at the end of it...though a nice byproduct if it happens. It's just greatly beneficial to be educated, period.

I know many failed tennis players whose parents put tennis before education. Big mistake. Do both. McEnroe and others did.

[worldsbesttenniscoach]

Yes, I chuckle when the "experts" at the USTA & USPTA say, "The parents have done all they can for the child's tennis game, but now is time to put that child in the hands of professional coaches who can help the child more." Yet when the professional coaches have a player who has plateaued, they should probably be saying, "Let's allow some family coaches like Dr. Bartoli, Mike Agassi, Toni Nadal to observe our tennis student so that we can learn to teach better."

Unfortunately, American professional coaching often shows an arrogant side -- believing wrongly that it teaches players much better than laypersons can (when actually the level of professional coaching in the USA is not high....the level of coaching needs to improve).

If the USTA Player Development, USPTA, & academy pros would open their eyes, they'd notice that the reason so many Americans & other players blow their forehands is because the players' modern forehands have many flaws. Players today often blow their slice backhands today because their expert coaches don't know what a good slice is, & can't teach it. Federer blows backhand volleys against Nadal because he does not prepare the racket out front so that the strings are somewhat lined up with the path of the incoming ball. He often chops down at the ball.

In other words, players at the worldclass level & those aspiring to that level lose points because the coaching they receive is not adequate.

I feel sorry for players like Isner, McHale, & Harrison whose coaching has lacked important information that they should have been given.