Curious
G.O.A.T.
Dylan Wright
( coach and 15+ years of experience as a high level player )
What separates the world’s #1 tennis player from the #250 one? Does the #1 player just have slightly less unforced errors, slightly faster serve, etc., that accumulate to make him/her more likely to win a 5 set match, or is he/she just better?
Well to start, I’ve played some of the guys who have reached around that #300 level. They’re really damn good. But they don’t touch the top guys. We’re talking light years away.
I can grace the court with some of those guys and not look silly; I suspect Djokovic would pants me, metaphorically speaking. (To my defense, I’m not training for competition, so I’m going to give myself a reprieve on that one.)
It’s not that they’re going to lose 0 and 0 every time. But as far as the level is concerned, light years. Bear in mind that the higher the level the more subtle differences in understanding mean. Basically, little things become very big things. But attaining the little things also becomes radically more difficult. It’s very difficult to find the things that almost nobody even realizes are there, present, evident — but only if you come at it from a particular place — a place of truth. That level of clarity is hard to come by.
Essentially, we’re talking about the difference in that last one percent. The #250 guy knows 99% of all tennis understanding, but the #1 guy is at around 99.8%. There are things in the #250 guy’s game that aren’t clear or fully understood, that in crucial moments lead to either physical breakdowns or mental doubt. And make no mistake, when there’s a misunderstanding, you are going to have doubts at some point, at some level. You are going to meet with a wall somewhere along the way, and then you are going to remember the experience of running into that wall, and then you are going to understand fear.
That’s the last thing you want as a competitor. All you want to understand in the significant moments is the sensation of confidence, that you left no stone unturned and that there is no oversight anywhere in your game. It’s so freaking clear to you that it’s already decided, that you’re simply the better player, and that all you have to do is let unfold what you’ve already built and created.
That 0.8% is the difference between making mega-millions and losing money chasing a dream. At #250, you’re one or two breakthroughs/epiphanies away from making a good living at it, but you’re like 100 epiphanies away from being world #1.
As far as what you were asking, there’s not all that much physical difference. But it’s a big enough difference to where the #1 guy would be able to exploit it without fault 100 out of 100 times against the #250 guy. They may play some 1 or 2 break sets, but never will it be in doubt who is going to win. Seriously. Never. The #1 guy will know the entire time that he knows things that the #250 guy simply does not, and he will never wane in his ability to exploit it.
The Key Differentiating Factors — What Makes Up That 0.8%?
There may be a difference in the physical abilities depending on who you’re talking about. That difference comes in foot speed, foot-eye, and quickness more than anything else. But this isn’t necessarily the case. I’ve seen guys who were distinctly better athletes than Djokovic, with just as much foot-eye skills and quickness, who never even got to #250. So that’s not the major difference.
There’s a distinct difference in knowledge between the #1 guy and the #250 guy. When I say knowledge, I mean knowledge on how to hit the ball. But then attaining this knowledge takes a mental aptitude that few possess. So we’re talking about knowledge, and we’re talking about an aptitude that enables them to attain said knowledge.
The #1 guy knows exactly how to hit a forehand. He knows all of the fundamentals, and then he knows all of the refinements. He knows all of the tricks that made it easy for him to learn the fundamentals and make the refinements.
He just knows more about the game, and that knowledge manifests into a cleaner, more effective game. He knows more partly because of coaching and partly because of an otherworldly level of self-awareness — always in tune with how it feels in the body hitting a ball, always in tune with how that feel impacts the shot’s result. Using this self-awareness to keep himself in line, physically when talking about technique, tactically when in a match, and emotionally when talking about life. His knowledge base develops surreptitiously through minor insights, that arise out of a solid conceptual understanding of the game’s fundamentals, over the course of his entire career starting at age 5. There is a certain amount of right-place-right-time involved in being the very best.
The fundamentals were instilled in him early on, and he grew up within the proper foundation from close to day one. The #1 guy never had to do any major technical overhauls, like Ryan Harrison on his forehand for example. The #250 guy has probably had to make relatively major technical adjustments later in development. It may seem like they’ve been able to make the adjustments successfully, but they don’t have the same amount of reps under pressure that the #1 guy has. And thus, they don't have the same level of trust and confidence.
What this means is that the feel of a true forehand or backhand or serve is the only feel the #1 guy knows. The experience of playing tennis is a truly unconscious experience for the #1 guy. It’s all feel. He doesn’t know the feel of the forehand if it were to deviate sideways this way or that way; physically, tangibly, he only knows the correct feel. He is blissfully oblivious to all of the other bad habits and moves the rest of us make. It’s hard to explain how huge an advantage this is when faced with near-overwhelming adversity. To only know one pure thing. To be unconscious to how it can go wrong and having no understanding of the feel of it going wrong in a particular way. The #250 guy may not even know the feel for a true forehand or backhand or serve. And if they do, it’s certainly not engrained to the extent that it is for the #1 guy.
For the #1 guy, just about everything from day one developed within a context of tennis truth. This is rarely the case for the #250 guy, who probably understands the feel of how shots can go awry intimately.
The feel that the proper tennis fundamentals produce is so deeply, deeply engrained to muscle memory for the #1 guy. It is branded into his brain, and that branding emanates through every cell in his body. There is no left over re-wirings from former bad habits for him to accidentally fall back into. He never instilled any bad habits into muscle memory to begin with.
All of this means that the #1 guy has an easier time playing tennis. Tennis is easier for the #1 guy than it is for the #250 guy. Hitting specific spots, with a specific amount of spin and power, is easier for the #1 guy. And easier means more consistent. More consistent means more confident. More confident means much, much harder to beat.
This all sounds a bit romanticized, but it is in fact quite practical. Right coach, with the right knowledge and understanding. Right player, with the right mind and aptitude and physical ability. Right family life, that enables the balance in the player necessary to develop a keen and necessary level of self-awareness, to continue to just play a game when others start trying to forge careers out of it. To keep it a game.
The #250 guy was missing something in their development. Maybe his childhood coach had some misunderstandings about the tennis fundamentals that she passed along to the player. Maybe his parents had issues when he was a little kid, and he wasn’t able to be attune enough and have the realizations necessary to develop a great tennis game.
Whatever the reason, the mental and physical aspects are invariably intertwined. The one tends to go with the other. Because of a greater understanding of the game, the top guy has an easier time playing the game than the #250 guy. And the difference in tennis effectiveness between the two is significant.
( coach and 15+ years of experience as a high level player )
What separates the world’s #1 tennis player from the #250 one? Does the #1 player just have slightly less unforced errors, slightly faster serve, etc., that accumulate to make him/her more likely to win a 5 set match, or is he/she just better?
Well to start, I’ve played some of the guys who have reached around that #300 level. They’re really damn good. But they don’t touch the top guys. We’re talking light years away.
I can grace the court with some of those guys and not look silly; I suspect Djokovic would pants me, metaphorically speaking. (To my defense, I’m not training for competition, so I’m going to give myself a reprieve on that one.)
It’s not that they’re going to lose 0 and 0 every time. But as far as the level is concerned, light years. Bear in mind that the higher the level the more subtle differences in understanding mean. Basically, little things become very big things. But attaining the little things also becomes radically more difficult. It’s very difficult to find the things that almost nobody even realizes are there, present, evident — but only if you come at it from a particular place — a place of truth. That level of clarity is hard to come by.
Essentially, we’re talking about the difference in that last one percent. The #250 guy knows 99% of all tennis understanding, but the #1 guy is at around 99.8%. There are things in the #250 guy’s game that aren’t clear or fully understood, that in crucial moments lead to either physical breakdowns or mental doubt. And make no mistake, when there’s a misunderstanding, you are going to have doubts at some point, at some level. You are going to meet with a wall somewhere along the way, and then you are going to remember the experience of running into that wall, and then you are going to understand fear.
That’s the last thing you want as a competitor. All you want to understand in the significant moments is the sensation of confidence, that you left no stone unturned and that there is no oversight anywhere in your game. It’s so freaking clear to you that it’s already decided, that you’re simply the better player, and that all you have to do is let unfold what you’ve already built and created.
That 0.8% is the difference between making mega-millions and losing money chasing a dream. At #250, you’re one or two breakthroughs/epiphanies away from making a good living at it, but you’re like 100 epiphanies away from being world #1.
As far as what you were asking, there’s not all that much physical difference. But it’s a big enough difference to where the #1 guy would be able to exploit it without fault 100 out of 100 times against the #250 guy. They may play some 1 or 2 break sets, but never will it be in doubt who is going to win. Seriously. Never. The #1 guy will know the entire time that he knows things that the #250 guy simply does not, and he will never wane in his ability to exploit it.
The Key Differentiating Factors — What Makes Up That 0.8%?
There may be a difference in the physical abilities depending on who you’re talking about. That difference comes in foot speed, foot-eye, and quickness more than anything else. But this isn’t necessarily the case. I’ve seen guys who were distinctly better athletes than Djokovic, with just as much foot-eye skills and quickness, who never even got to #250. So that’s not the major difference.
There’s a distinct difference in knowledge between the #1 guy and the #250 guy. When I say knowledge, I mean knowledge on how to hit the ball. But then attaining this knowledge takes a mental aptitude that few possess. So we’re talking about knowledge, and we’re talking about an aptitude that enables them to attain said knowledge.
The #1 guy knows exactly how to hit a forehand. He knows all of the fundamentals, and then he knows all of the refinements. He knows all of the tricks that made it easy for him to learn the fundamentals and make the refinements.
He just knows more about the game, and that knowledge manifests into a cleaner, more effective game. He knows more partly because of coaching and partly because of an otherworldly level of self-awareness — always in tune with how it feels in the body hitting a ball, always in tune with how that feel impacts the shot’s result. Using this self-awareness to keep himself in line, physically when talking about technique, tactically when in a match, and emotionally when talking about life. His knowledge base develops surreptitiously through minor insights, that arise out of a solid conceptual understanding of the game’s fundamentals, over the course of his entire career starting at age 5. There is a certain amount of right-place-right-time involved in being the very best.
The fundamentals were instilled in him early on, and he grew up within the proper foundation from close to day one. The #1 guy never had to do any major technical overhauls, like Ryan Harrison on his forehand for example. The #250 guy has probably had to make relatively major technical adjustments later in development. It may seem like they’ve been able to make the adjustments successfully, but they don’t have the same amount of reps under pressure that the #1 guy has. And thus, they don't have the same level of trust and confidence.
What this means is that the feel of a true forehand or backhand or serve is the only feel the #1 guy knows. The experience of playing tennis is a truly unconscious experience for the #1 guy. It’s all feel. He doesn’t know the feel of the forehand if it were to deviate sideways this way or that way; physically, tangibly, he only knows the correct feel. He is blissfully oblivious to all of the other bad habits and moves the rest of us make. It’s hard to explain how huge an advantage this is when faced with near-overwhelming adversity. To only know one pure thing. To be unconscious to how it can go wrong and having no understanding of the feel of it going wrong in a particular way. The #250 guy may not even know the feel for a true forehand or backhand or serve. And if they do, it’s certainly not engrained to the extent that it is for the #1 guy.
For the #1 guy, just about everything from day one developed within a context of tennis truth. This is rarely the case for the #250 guy, who probably understands the feel of how shots can go awry intimately.
The feel that the proper tennis fundamentals produce is so deeply, deeply engrained to muscle memory for the #1 guy. It is branded into his brain, and that branding emanates through every cell in his body. There is no left over re-wirings from former bad habits for him to accidentally fall back into. He never instilled any bad habits into muscle memory to begin with.
All of this means that the #1 guy has an easier time playing tennis. Tennis is easier for the #1 guy than it is for the #250 guy. Hitting specific spots, with a specific amount of spin and power, is easier for the #1 guy. And easier means more consistent. More consistent means more confident. More confident means much, much harder to beat.
This all sounds a bit romanticized, but it is in fact quite practical. Right coach, with the right knowledge and understanding. Right player, with the right mind and aptitude and physical ability. Right family life, that enables the balance in the player necessary to develop a keen and necessary level of self-awareness, to continue to just play a game when others start trying to forge careers out of it. To keep it a game.
The #250 guy was missing something in their development. Maybe his childhood coach had some misunderstandings about the tennis fundamentals that she passed along to the player. Maybe his parents had issues when he was a little kid, and he wasn’t able to be attune enough and have the realizations necessary to develop a great tennis game.
Whatever the reason, the mental and physical aspects are invariably intertwined. The one tends to go with the other. Because of a greater understanding of the game, the top guy has an easier time playing the game than the #250 guy. And the difference in tennis effectiveness between the two is significant.
