Does Talent really matter? - An article by a guest writer.

This was a Guest Post by Brenda Panin. Brenda is a web content writer for
http://www.clubcoops.com.au/brisbane-tennis/tennis/
In her free time she loves to blog about healthy life and
extreme sports.
Does talent really matter?

Finding a young talented tennis player among thousands of average juniors
is definitely a challenge. It is not unusual for parents to ask a tennis
coach will their child be a Pro Tennis player one day. Coaches often say
that every aspiring player can become a Pro as long as they work and train
hard. If your child truly wants to be a pro, they must have the dedication
to train and live like one.

Does this mean that most coaches do not necessarily know if a child is
capable of playing at high level? Even knowing that a junior does not have
"the natural gift" for hitting the ball the right way, coaches choose not
to tell.

Lets look at the scientific research about the significance of talent. It
is defined as "something that was said to be given to people, allowing them
to do things average people can't". It is a natural ability that some people
are simply born with. That distinguishes them from all other players and
puts them in the higher league. That means a champion is born with the
necessary talent. You do not get to learn that!

Piotr Unierzyski has a done research project on junior tennis players within
Europe in 1994-2002. During his research, Unierzyski interviewed and tested
1000 juniors from around 40 countries. Among those juniors were Justine Henin,
Roger Federer, Guillermo Coria, Kim Clijsters. The average age of the
children he interviewed was around 12-13.

Here are some interesting facts about this research.

They were all younger, slimmer, more powerful, faster, and had more
experience than the rest of the juniors. They all started joining
tournaments at approximately the same age and played at least 45 matches every
year (below average). The strangest thing about these young players was
that they all practiced tennis less than others. However, they did more
fitness training. The next interesting fact is that their parents were not
very involved in their everyday trainings.

These results show that natural talent is definitely an imperative when it
comes to being a world wide recognizable tennis player. Piotr Unierzyski's
research shows that being devoted to training is not crucial for
success. Thus today's world known players, were allowed to really enjoy
this sport and not to be fed up with it from hard everyday training.
Instead, they were building their mental strength that lead them to the
very top of this popular sport.