Krystle Clear: Are tennis players all work and no play?

You are probably watching the Tennis Channel’s European tournament coverage this week.  Rafael Nadal in his muscle shirt!  Glamour and fame!  Fans!

What TV matches don’t tell you is what each guy out there goes through.

These guys have to miss a lot of school and times they could’ve spent  hanging out with friends as teens.  They train 9 to 5 days, sort of a  day at the office without paperwork.  Imagine if you had to run on a  treadmill over an hour, huh?  OK.  We all realize nobody likes to go to  the gym, and much less doing that for a living.

You don’t go out partying on weekends.  Nope.  You can’t drink too  heavily if you want to stay in shape.  Beer translates into more sugar
into your body, aka. fat.  Late nights out throw out your body’s schedule, so you might find the balance harder returning to regular  practice.  Movies?  Sure.  But be home early enough.  When traveling,  sight see, but you can’t taste the city like regular tourists do.  You have a day job to put on the next day at a match.

Forget about time off.  Travel is essentially part of your job.  Back  home, you can’t leave.  You must train.  You need to study your  opponents, learn new techniques to improve your serve.  It’s like taking a college course on tennis, graded F or A+ according to how you play at  your next tournament.

By the time you get done driving home from practice, you hang out, maybe talk with friends, listen to music, eat and call it a night.  You go on  the computer and watch as everyone else believes you’re blessed, which though you are as a pro player, you don’t get the spare time everyone  else does to be goofy, take time to discover what it is you want to do in life.  Because for now, your life is tennis, and if you want to succeed, it has to be.