Does Playing Tennis Actually Make You A Better Athlete Overall? Ask the former NBA all-star.
This aint’ no Pickleball!
Watching Frances Tiafoe and Taylor Fritz - two Americans now facing off in the semifinals - in the 2024 US Open has been bringing major eyes to the world of tennis.
Tennis isn’t a team sport, so it takes a back seat in the sports conversation at times. But the display of fierce competition and high energy over in Flushing, Queens, is making more New Yorkers of all ages consider learning how to play. Can the sport actually make you a better athlete overall?
Just ask Gordon Hayward, aka the best tennis player to ever play 14 seasons in the NBA.
GH, the former Butler Bulldog, the ninth overall pick from the Utah Jazz in the 2010 NBA Draft, and the former NBA All-Star - grew up playing Tennis @ Brownsburg High School in Indiana.
His twin sister Heather, who played college tennis for Butler while he played basketball, was his partner and rival growing up. Gordon says he wouldn’t be nearly the basketball player if he didn’t play tennis, and credits other sports for making him a better athlete overall. The lateral quickness, the muscle endurance, and the level of conditioning needed is what makes Tennis just as physically demanding. You can have four or five hour long matches at times, so the stamina speaks for itself to say the least. These are the traits that carried over for Gordon while playing on the basketball court.
Gordon Hayward also attested to the fact that because tennis is an individual sport, this actually allows the individual athlete to learn self-accountability quicker. It's just you out there. All you when you win, and all you when you lose. No one else to blame. Tennis forces a young athlete to deal with more responsibility right up front, right away. Which ultimately can help mature kids who play sports, especially transfering over to a team setting. Of course you can play doubles in tennis as well.
People often mistakenly define tennis as a delicate, country-club sport, but as we have been seeing with Tiafoe - he has shown the electric energy and the competitive spirit all great athletes have - in all sports. "The last time a male American tennis player made it to a major championship final was when Andy Roddick lost in excruciating fashion to Roger Federer at Wimbledon. Since then, American women have made it to 29 finals and won 15 of them, 12 courtesy of Serena Williams." (NYmag)
Fritz and Tiafoe, both 26 years old, are encouraging the next generation of not only tennis players, but well rounded athletes all over the world.
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