Tennis is one of the most popular sports in the world today. Many tennis players play just for fun, but some of them want to become a professional tennis player. Tennis is a complex sport, which takes large amount of money and many years of preparation. How can an amateur tennis player become a professional tennis player? Tennis coaches agree that tennis players need to go through different steps before becoming professionals. These steps prepare amateur tennis players to become professional tennis players. When you think of professional tennis players, you have to know what characteristics they have. I will explain what quality of equipment they use, I will explain their strong mental and physical skills, and how they make a good selection of tournaments to play during the year.

          Tennis players have to take specific and important things every time they step on a tennis court.

Rackets

          Most professional tennis players play with stiff rackets, not with flexible ones. Stiff rackets give them more control and power on the ball. Professional players break at least two strings per match, which explains why each tennis player has to have a minimum of four new and strung rackets in their tennis bags before every match. The three most used brands of tennis rackets by professionals are Prince (Figure1), Wilson (Figure 2) and Head (Figure 3).
 

PRINCE RACKETS (www.princetennis.com)

Figure 1
 
 

WILSON RACKETS (www.wilsonsports.com)

Figure 2
 
 

HEAD RACKETS (www.headsports.com)

Figure 3
 
 

          In the recent years, players of the professional circuit have mostly chosen to use Head because of the control they get playing with its rackets.

Strings

          Strings are very important for players in the professional level. Professional players use thin strings so that they can feel the ball in their rackets when they swing throw the ball. There are different kinds of strings depending on the material used in making strings. There are nylon, keblar, synthetic, etc. Each player uses different strings depending on his comfort and his preferences. Some players like Pete Sampras keep their rackets in refrigerators to keep the strings tight.

Clothing

Rules in professional tennis level allow players to play only in certain clothing. Players must wear shirts with collars, shorts or pants and special kind of shoes that do not damage the court. Rules prohibit tennis players from having big sponsorship logos on their clothing. Advertising must be in a predetermined size.

Tennis bag (Figure 4)

          In a tennis bag players must have all the equipment they may need in the tennis match.

• To prevent injuries: Medical kit (tapes of different sizes, scissors, second skin, cotton, alcohol, cloth tape, sugar)
• To prevent sweating problems: wrist braces, towels, hat, sawdust, bandana, extra grips.
• To prevent problems: Another clothing equipment in case of problem (pair of shoes, another shirt with collars, shorts, socks and underwear).
• To prevent hydration problems: Water, mineral salts, fruits, etc.

Programming the year

         Plann tourrnaments to play is the most important thing to do for a tennis player. Planning tournaments for the year is the very important aspect on being a professional tennis player. Players must have to go through a selection of tournaments depending on the kind of tournament, country, surface, weather, in-door or out-door courts, etc.
         Players select what tournament to play among different amounts of money. But they also have to have a certain ranking to play in certain tournaments. For example, to play a Grand Slam players have to be among the first 128 players of the world. Beginners have to start playing Future tournaments.

Kinds of tournament

       Grand Slams (there are four of them in one year) are two million dollars tournaments and last two weeks. Super nine (there are nine of them in one year) are nine hundred thousand dollars tournaments and last two weeks. Challengers are one hundred thousand dollars tournaments and last one week. Satellites are twenty five thousand or fifty thousand dollars tournaments and last one month. Future tournaments are ten thousand or fifteen thousand dollars tournaments and last one week.

Surfaces

         Tournaments are played on different surfaces. The most two common surfaces are clay-courts (Latin America and Europe) and hard-courts (United States, Europe and South Africa). Other kinds of surfaces are grass-courts (England and India) and carpet-courts (United States and Europe).

Indoor or out door tournaments

         Indoor tournaments depend on what country the tournament is played. For example the Russian winter is very cold; tournaments in Russia during that period of the year are played in-doors.

         Professional tennis is a mental game. Many factors affect tennis players while they are playing such as crowds. Tennis it is not a team game therefore nothing has to affect the players. Mental preparation is very important in the professional tennis tour. Tennis is 60% brain and 40% technique. At professional level, the player that wins more matches is the player that is better mentally prepared. Professional tennis players train their mental preparation by talking to psychologists and working on different techniques during a match (visualization, different breathing rhythms). Two of the best mentally prepared tennis players in the world are Patrick Rafter (Figure 5) from Australia and Andree Agassi (Figure 6) from U.S.A. Patrick Rafter won the U.S. Open two times in a row, showing that he is mentally tough. Andree Agassi was number 6 of the world in 1995. In 1996 and 1997, he was not focused on tennis, he did not have confidence to play and he had doubts in critical moments of the matches. He went dawn 100 positions finishing 1997 number 106 of the world. In 1998, he came back mentally tough and at the end of the year he was number 5 of the world.

Figure 5                      Figure 6

         Training is divided in two parts. Practice on the court playing tennis and conditioning outside the court.

Practice on the Court

         Players  practice a minimum of four hours a day. They practice every shot, practice different drills, practice serves, etc. Sometimes players also play practice matches against good players or against more than one player at a time.

Conditioning

         Professional players do conditioning for fitness purposes a minimum of two hours a day. They lift weights, run long distances, sprint long and short distances and work on different type of stretching. Stretching is one of the most important things to do. Tennis is a sport that makes players stiff; stretching is a great solution for that problem.

        It is a very difficult task to be a professional tennis player. Players dedicate eighty percent of their time to tennis. They also have to be very organized and they have to take care of every small detail. They have to practice tennis as hard as they can every day of their life. If you want to become a professional tennis player, you have to be ready to work hard in all the steps that I have mentioned earlier in my report.

World Wide Web (February 1999)

Saad Ashraf (Georgia State University tennis coach)

[This paper, a final draft of the Final Writing Assignment for Chapter 2 in Book 4, was provided by Pat Byrd.  She'll be happy to talk with you about the paper and the assignment. Pablo and I were just learning about web references and about using personal communication in a report.]