Hello everyone! Off to a little late start here this week with the blog. I’ve had a junior fly in from Louisiana to train for the week, had a visit from a friend and old client, Amer Delic, and of course non stop management of my 1 year old, Maximus.
Let me get right down to business because there is an awful lot to talk about! As you saw in my headline, I will be talking about the very badly missed Taylor Dent, and the first part of a 7 series , “Why I have always Tennis to Professional Road Cycling.”
Taylor Dent happens to be one of my favorite players to watch and to be around. He’s very laid back, extremely talented, and his game is like a venomous cobra, it’s starts very slow and still, but in less that a blink of an eye, it can attack and bite you!
The only time that I have ever had to coach against him was back in 2005 at the Indianapolis RCA Finals. I was working with Ginepri and I remembered waking up in the morning and getting on my computer and looking at www.drudgreport.com, and seeing a huge black headline in the middle of the page, “Chicago 111 degrees!”
You have to know that it was hot pretty much all week in Indy…REALLY hot, and this was going to be the hottest day. This is one of the things that I will point out in Part 2. In order to win a tennis tournament, or even go deep in a tourny, you need to win many matches, in a row. And that takes stamina, that takes endurance, and that takes the ability to not have a bad day.
In cycling, there is an event known as a Stage Race. All of you have heard of the Stage Race called Le Tour de France. Well, a Stage Race, is where you have to race day in and day out, and if you have 1 bad day, you are done. This was the end of the week in Indy, and if one of the boy’s was going to have a bad day, it would be today.
So I read the DrudgeReport, and quickly I develop an ear to ear grin, and then proceed to do few back flips in the middle of our hotel room. Ok, that may sound mean and sadistic, but the bottom line is, tennis in the heat, especially THAT kind of heat, is much more of a physical battle, and I knew that would favor Robby in a very big, and shall I say, EVIL way….MUHAUHAUHAUHAUHAUH!!!!!!!
Ok, I have to write about this now, because it is all coming back to me…get this!!!…get this, ok, so Taylor wins the first set, 6-4. Not a routine 6-4 by any means. It was a hard fought 6-4…Robby begins the second set and just starts steam rolling over T, 6-0 …like in NO time! I think it was the beginning of the 3rd set and Taylor looks up at his coach and starts asking for some candy bars! 🙂 I’m not going to say that I couldn’t believe it, because I know these kids were just naive, but I was definitely a little shocked.
So after scurrying all over the stadium, Tommy Floyd, manages to wrangle T up a snickers bar or something. Ok folks, it’s not rocket science to know that you don’t want anything like that when it’s that hot and humid and you have another set to play! I would go into details as to WHY but I will say this, and this is something that I would even tell my players, “Do you think Lance Armstrong would eat a cookie before he attacked Alp D’Huez in the Tour de France!?!?!?!?!?!!”
Ok so back to the title, The RETURN of TD. I was very excited to see that Taylor was back in action at the Challenger last week in Champaign, IL. Ironically enough, it was Taylor who beat last weeks cover boy, Robert Kendrick, 7-6, 7-6 in a second round thriller. Boy, I tell you, that Challenger should really appreciate the talent they have in it, because that could be a great night match at the USOpen baby!
Unfortunately, Taylor had to retire from his next match with an injury. Hopefully Taylor can find someone that can really take care of that body for him and get him in really “Taylor Dent specific shape” because we desperately need him back in the game….
Part 1 : Tennis to Cycling: A comparison
Endurance – There are a few parts to Endurance that I will cover
1. Length of time during a match endurance
2. Day in and Day out recovery
In cycling, everyone starts the race together, but not everyone finishes together! Sometimes you have to play a 3 hour match and you don’t want to fatigue late in the last set. You have to train for time. A good way to do this is to schedule your off court training immediately after your tennis match or practice. For instance, say you have a match that takes you 90 mins, have a small snack, like a Powerbar, not a Snickers Bar, and go into the gym, for a interval workout on the bike and then hit the weights hard.
Ok, Maximus is now awake and it is time for Gladiator training! VAMOS!
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