Tennis: The Most Underestimated Sport at Choate
At Choate, tennis is one of most underrated sport. Most students think that sports like hockey, lacrosse, and soccer are the most physically demanding sports, but that is simply not the case. The perception that most people have on tennis is just people standing on a court and hitting balls. It is true that when tennis is played at a low level, it often doesn’t require any kind of physical ability, like playing catch. When tennis is played on the varsity level or even higher like the pros, tennis requires both tremendous mental and physical strength. Tennis certainly deserves some respect in the Choate community, as the word “tennis” often correlates with “easy”. For those non-tennis players, it is difficult to understand the actual physical toil tennis has the body.
Anyone can pick up a racket and hit a ball, but it takes countless hours of training and hard work to play at the highest level. Tennis is a sport that requires endurance, strength, speed, agility, and flexible of the physical body. To become better and hungrier for the win, one must have the determination to train at the minimum of 5 hours a day. As the players can play the ball with good pace and consistency, the game of tennis becomes more and more challenging. Tennis matches often last to 2 to 5 hours depending the level of play. In that time, the players are constantly putting stress on their body by running on court with explosive speeds, hitting the ball with spin and power, and enduring the physical fatigue each rally causes. Aside from the physical demands, tennis also requires the mind to be function at a vigorous intensity. During a match, a tennis player is in constant battle with the self. It is an individual sport and there is no one to blame but the self. A player needs to be able to adjust his or her focus and forget about the mistakes that have been made and relax throughout the match. There are no teammates to support a player and that player must take in all the pressure, stress, and pain by him or herself. A match could be suddenly lost because of shift in momentum, and anything could happen before one wins match point because there are no time limits.
Tennis is underrated simply because the lack of understanding of the sport. It is wrong to make assumption of a sport when you don’t even know what the sport is all about. It might take years of practice to develop a stroke, or even return a 120 mph serve. The sport of tennis deserves the recognition at Choate as a physically demanding sport, instead of “easy” sport. It is simply unfair for the lack of acknowledgement by the community of what tennis is. If people would give a chance for the sport by going to one of the matches, they will be surprised by the intensity and physical demands of tennis.
I found your discussion of a tennis player's mental strength to be the most interesting aspect of your blog post. When I was younger, I would always play tennis against my older brother. Once I started to lose game after game after game, and constantly break rackets out of frustration, I realized tennis was not my sport. As an athlete, I rely on my teammates to keep me level-headed and composed. The mental strength it takes to play an individual sport like tennis cannot be understated. I commend this piece because it reminded me of all the long hours on the tennis court getting beat by my brother, and the intensity of a match of tennis.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you Scott. Athlete tend to believe that their sport is the toughest and most demanding even though they do not understand the amount of preparation and hard work it takes to succeed in other sports. Tennis is absolutely made more difficult because it is not a team sport. However, certain individuals on a team might feel responsible for a mistake leading them to play poorly and ultimately affecting the play of the team. I absolutely agree that sports like tennis do not get the respect they deserve.
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