Tennis - How has it changed?
Tennis is an inclusive sport. It brings people of all ages, all backgrounds and religions together with a simple game. It has developed in many ways over the years it has been around, and it is a dramatically different game now than it was, say, 100 years ago. I know what you're thinking: How can a sport where you just hit a ball over a net change so much? It sounds strange, but most of the way we play the game has changed, from the racquets we use to the style of play to general training and fitness levels! The rules are some of the only things that haven't changed dramatically. In this post I will be looking into the way tennis has changed throughout it's history.
The first thing I will be looking at is how the pace of the game has changed. At first, tennis was quite a slow sport used for leisure. Now, professionals are built like monsters and are able to keep playing in four or five hour long matches! The longest tennis match in professional history was 11 hours 05 minutes between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut. The video following is of them playing the final game in their marathon match. They have just played 11 hours of tennis and look how well they're still playing! This proves how players have stepped up their training in the last number of years in case of an event like this.
Players train everyday to keep up their physical and mental levels. That is another topic I will be looking at - the mental side of the game. The players train from a wide range of drills. For example, they do drills on endurance, speed endurance, strength, flexibility, co-ordination and many more. All of these drills help players with the physical side of their game, but some also help with the mental side which I will be exploring in a later post.
An example of the success of these training methods is shown in the current men's world no.1 Novak Djokovic. When he was younger he struggled with fatigue while playing longer matches. He stepped up his endurance and speed endurance training, and is now nicknamed "the Iron Man" because of his physical intensity in longer matches and his ability to play well the whole way through 5 set matches.
Another success story is Andy Murray. in 2005 he was weaker than now, and this made him less able to compete with the top players. However, he stepped up his strength training, and this made him able to play more aggressive which in turn made him one of the "big 4" players in the world (Djokovic, Nadal, Murray, Federer). In the following images, the image on the bottom is Murray playing in Wimbledon 2005 and the image on the top is Murray in the Australian Open in 2015. Just look at the difference!
