Mildura Lawn Tennis Club coach Bill Madafferi is a former ATP player and he has joined the Sunraysia Daily sports team to discuss local tennis.
SOMEONE asked me the other day what makes a great tennis player.
I started rolling off all the cliches – good serve, big forehand, solid backhand – then I thought about it, these are the attributes every good player has.
The thing that really sets the good players apart from the elite, is mental toughness.
The ability to endure pressure and think your way through a match, that’s the thing every great player has.
Players talk about it all time, particularly the ones who have been able to take the next step.
Tennis is an incredibility hard game to make it in.
To carve out a half decent living you need to be in the top 100 in the world.
When you think about how many players are on the circuit and the number of people around the world who play the game, you start to get some perspective of how tough it is to make it as a professional.
It’s not someone who travels a few months of the year and then has to work three part-time jobs to fund their next trip. Someone who relies purely on the income they receive from tennis to survive.
The reality is you need to be in the top 100 in the world to be able to do this.
Sure, the very best players are earning a packet from prizemoney and endorsements, but they are the elite.
But these players are also the ones who are the toughest mentally on the circuit.
Making it into the top 10 in the world is not easy, staying there is even harder.
The grind of being on the circuit for months on end, the practice you need to do to maintain your edge, it’s incredibly tough.
When you start to look at it that way, you begin to understand when I say how tough it is to become a professional player.
You hear the former greats talking all the time about Nick Kyrgios and the reasons why he hasn’t been able to take the next step.
Kyrgios is a prodigious talent, everyone acknowledges that, but the mental side of his game lets him down. Until he gets that right, he’s never going to be able to take the next step.
I remember when I was coming through as a junior, I was good mates with Pat Rafter and he used to stay at my parents house in Melbourne a lot when he played tournaments in Victoria.
Pat was a good player as a junior, but he wasn’t someone you would have thought would go on to be world No.1 and a grand slam champion.
Even I was beating him in under-age tournaments, but fast forward a few years and all of a sudden his game had gone to another level.
The reason he took the next step was through a lot of hard work, but a lot had to do with his mental toughness.
He knew his game and what his strengths were and he played to them, but he was also a “smart” tennis player.
What I mean by that is he thought his way through games. If something wasn’t working for him, he didn’t panic and try to change his whole game to get back into the match.
Tennis is one of those games where it is almost impossible to play at your maximum for the whole match.
How many times do you see a player come out and win the first set easily only to lose?
It’s what I really try and drill into the young players I coach. Out-think your opponent. If your opponent keeps hitting winners on you, ask yourself why.
There is always a reason and it might only be a small thing you need to change to turn the match around.
I’m not saying over-think things, but being strong mentally and developing that side of your game as a young player will certainly help.
