How to become a professional tennis player

How to become a tennis player. By tennis player, I mean someone who can earn money from the game, and someone, who can pretend, for a few years at least, to become a great player.

If you read a "How to become" book, you will be given several easy steps, and the very suggestion is that this shouldn't be so difficult. Becoming a tennis player is no different - there are easy steps, and once you get through the steps you'll get to where you planned to go.

I was flicking through a blog yesterday, and a young player had written in. There was only one line - "I haven't got enough money for tennis." So I'll start here. Get ready to spend some money. It is possible to achieve great things with no money, and those people are to be admired, but all of the pros have had some serious investment in their careers at some point. Some of this investment will not be sensed in pecuniary terms. For instance, if a player gets detected at a young age, and sent to an academy, it could be that sponsorships and federations will cover all of the costs. Certainly I've been associated with players from very modest backgrounds who've been invited onto squads where effectively there is nothing to pay.

How to become a kid

However, even if the squad is paid for, and a typical academy will cost around €15,000 per year, that is a basic cost. Equipping a player, feeding and clothing him, transporting him around and paying his entry fees must be accounted for. OK, the feeding and clothing is something you have to do anyway, tennis or not, but they require special efforts, often eating out or while travelling, for example, that also carries a cost. I reckon that a serious child tournament player can cost an extra €100 per week in holiday time, and that's without training fees in this period. Not everyone has this money. More pertinent, not everyone thinks this is money wisely-invested.

So I started with money, because that is where most people start. But in fact, how to become a tennis player has other significant steps.

The right help

Step two is get some good help. People think that the most important person is a coach, but for most of the formative years there'll be unavoidable coach changes, and coach changes that make no real difference. No, the most important help you need is someone who sacrifices their time for you, encourages you, and helps you organise your tennis. In most cases this'll be a parent. If the parent understands tennis, he or she may also have been a good player, then this would be a great help. But not necessarily. The most important thing is the reliable accompaniment over a long period. Get this in place for a few years and you have 50% of the job done.

Whilst I mention coaches, you'll need a good coach at some point. Step Three. If your parent does this, and is indeed a good technical coach, then you have a two-in-one blessing. But, in my experiences, parents are infrequently good coaches, and often try to be good coaches (saving money), but end up causing damage.

Step Three

So how do you find a good coach? You must be very very lucky. There are indeed many coaches out there, but very few who can put in place the sport of training and advice that you, as a player, need now. Most of the time you'll be tagging along at someone else's rythmn. You'll waste a lot of time and money doing this "bad" coaching.

Then along comes another coach, quite by chance, and does a really good job. He'll understand exactly what you need, and have the resources and flexibility to ensure rapid progress to becoming a tennis player.

Ideally, for Step Three, you need a good coach, at the beginning. By getting the instruction right early on, you can set up a player for life in only a few hours. Those early lessons may never be forgotten. Many players remember how a particular coach did the right job at the right time. How do you find this coach? Luck. It's not a money thing. It's not a question of informing yourself as to who is out there. You just cannot guarantee that you'll get the right coaching at the right time.

Motivation

Step Four is about you. Even if you have meagre resources, maybe even meagre "talent", if you want to become a tennis player, and you don't let yourself be distracted from this goal over a period of several years, you'll get what you want. Motivation must be in place. And if your motivation is fragile, as it may be during the teenage years, then your afore-mentioned helper must be there to keep that motivation as continuous as possible. That motivation must guide all aspects of your life, your eating, sleeping, working and socialising habits. It's not just about hitting tennis balls.

Step Five is a purely practical one. You must go through the necessary steps. Prepare for tournaments. Learn from the matches. Lose or win, build up an experience bank. Don't expect this experience building to always be fun. But you must keep building it. Learn to win at a certain level, or a certain surface, or a certain type of surface, then work on the next layer in your experience bank. You have to go through the layers, slowly or fast, so get ready for a journey that'll last a few years. Enjoy it if you can!

Fist pump

Step Six is the last, and the most pleasurable. Dream about winning. Learn to win. Dream again. Repeat that win. Love and treasure winning. There is no difference if you win 7-6 in the third, or 6-0, 6-0, the reason why you are a "tennis player", and someone else is not, is because you can win. Also be scientific and rational about winning. Understand why you win, and why you don't. Correct with urgency the things that cause you not to win. Repeat with urgency the things that cause you to win.