See how Serena Williams became one of the all-time greats? Like a lot of other young tennis players, she had a lot of talent, even before she started playing tennis. And then, after several years of practice, she managed to beat all these players. And she managed to become #1 for a decade.
Today, a lot of kids who played tennis have a lot of talent, even as they start learning tennis, because now they get all the practice as a child. But they don’t have the experience, or the mental practice, like Serena did early on.
Today, the best tennis players are playing at their mental peak, the highest they were at in their career. They don’t have to work as hard to win matches, but they also don’t have to be at their peak mentally to win matches. As they get better, they can start to play at their greatest, as their body and mind start getting stronger.
If you’re not playing tennis right now, and you’re still in training, then the only way to become a better tennis player is to play more, or to be better at practicing. And practice is like any other skill. You either practice enough to get better, or you get good enough at practice, and then stop.
As you start hitting a ball onto the top of a net with one hand, you can use your wrist to improve your balance, or you can practice your balance on the ground instead of standing up on a court. Practice helps you improve, but you can’t practice skills if you don’t have opportunities to practice them.
Serena Williams was a lot like this. She had a lot of talent before she started playing tennis. But after years of practice, she became one of the best tennis players of all time.
As a coach, if you want to help a player to become better, you need to
