The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis.
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Physical Skills Versus Life Skills
Marcus is a gifted tennis player from Phoenix, Arizona. At 16 he possesses incredible athleticism. He’s 6’3” and is ripped. His speed, agility, and stamina are off the charts. His tennis-specific skills are also above average. He possesses a huge serve and a killer forehand. Marcus’s UTR is hovering around 10.8. College coaches recruiting should be salivating for him, but sadly for Marcus and his folks, tennis scholarships are not being offered.
The red flags that the experienced college coaches quickly identify are underdeveloped character traits and life skills. You see, Marcus can’t communicate with others, and when he does, a storm of pessimism engulfs everyone around him like a dark cloud. As for his life skills, the college coaches quickly pick up on the fact that he’s late for their meetings, unorganized, and blames others for his downfalls. On-court Marcus shows irrational anger, reckless shot selections, and a lack of perseverance, adaptability, and resiliency even in practice match play. Due to Marcus’s underdeveloped software, his D-1 College dreams won’t be coming true. It’s within the job description of coaches and parents to teach positive character traits and life skills along with their tennis skill sets.
High-performance tennis is the combination of four required skill sets: character skills, life skills, athleticism, and tennis-specific skills. Customized training focuses on all four of these components, however, the degree of focus is based on the athlete’s specific needs. It is the job description of a progressive coach to navigate the mastery of all four of these skills effectively.
1.Character Skills
Character skills are productive personality traits. These habits include empathy, interpersonal skills for communicating and interacting effectively with others, a positive-optimistic attitude, ethics, morals, and leadership traits.
2. Life Skills
Life skills are defined as the ability to thrive within the challenges of an athlete’s everyday life. These include cognitive skills for analyzing performance and personal skills for organizing developmental plans and managing oneself.
3.Athletic Skills
Athletic skills are defined as the physical qualities that are characteristic of well-rounded athletic individuals regardless of the sport. Athletic skills include upper and lower body strength, fitness, stamina, speed, core balance, and agility.
4.Tennis Skills
Tennis skills are the particular skill sets that define a high-performance-tennis-specific athlete. Experts in this field possess a complete tool belt of strokes, tactics, strategies, and of course, emotional aptitude to compete at the higher echelons of the game.
