After listening to Hamid Hejazi of Inside Tennis on Radio Wimbledon this morning, it was rather interesting that he chose to use the word ability rather than talent when referring to spotting young tennis players. In my opinion he is absolutely right, to make the distinction between the two and concentrate on spotting ability and not talent in young athletes.
One can have ability that, if not channeled or even identified, will not be turned into a great talent. For example, can you imagine how the history books would read if Roger Federer aged 11 was not able to channel his ability to become what is arguably one of the best ever tennis players? He has taken his athletic ability, his ability to focus , his ability to be precise, and his ability to learn and has grown into one of the best shot makers of the game. We all have the ability to do something, whether or not that is physical or mental. It is what we do with that ability which defines wheter or not we have a talent, hidden or otherwise.
Monday, 29 June 2009
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Pressure pot
How do you handle pressure?
Andy Murray normally looks pretty focused out on court. He says that he doesn't feel the pressure now that he goes into this years' Wimbledon as the victor at Queens.
Tim Henman had seemingly the weight of England on his shoulders when he came on court at Wimbledon. Does Murray have the weight of Scotland? Who knows! I think that anybody with blood in their viens is entitled to feel a little pressure going in to a tournament as No. 3 in the world and seeded No.3. Pressure can be good and pressure can be bad. I guess it just depends on how you are made up and how you handle it. I don't think that I am necessarily one of those people who works well under pressure, but I don't crumble when faced with difficult situations. Some athletes thrive on the pressure of competition. Usain Bolt for example seems to take it all in his stride and he rises to the occassion, whereas his compatriot, Asafa Powell, seems to find it difficult to perform his best at the big competitions, even when he is the favourite.
Confidence and self belief have a huge role to play when handling competitive pressure, and I beleive that Andy Murray is at his most confident, and that is worth its weight in gold in the world of sport. Being able to deal with pressure is a quality of top performers and every successful sports person has had to do this in order to win.
Andy Murray has show that he can do this, evidenced by his win at Queens last weekend. Only time will tell if he is able to translate that to the grass of SW19.
Andy Murray normally looks pretty focused out on court. He says that he doesn't feel the pressure now that he goes into this years' Wimbledon as the victor at Queens.
Tim Henman had seemingly the weight of England on his shoulders when he came on court at Wimbledon. Does Murray have the weight of Scotland? Who knows! I think that anybody with blood in their viens is entitled to feel a little pressure going in to a tournament as No. 3 in the world and seeded No.3. Pressure can be good and pressure can be bad. I guess it just depends on how you are made up and how you handle it. I don't think that I am necessarily one of those people who works well under pressure, but I don't crumble when faced with difficult situations. Some athletes thrive on the pressure of competition. Usain Bolt for example seems to take it all in his stride and he rises to the occassion, whereas his compatriot, Asafa Powell, seems to find it difficult to perform his best at the big competitions, even when he is the favourite.
Confidence and self belief have a huge role to play when handling competitive pressure, and I beleive that Andy Murray is at his most confident, and that is worth its weight in gold in the world of sport. Being able to deal with pressure is a quality of top performers and every successful sports person has had to do this in order to win.
Andy Murray has show that he can do this, evidenced by his win at Queens last weekend. Only time will tell if he is able to translate that to the grass of SW19.
Monday, 15 June 2009
So near, yet so far for England
Twenty20 Cricket - the West indies vs England - divided loyalties? Yes. Exciting match? Yes. Do I understand the DL rule? No!
Yesterday the Windies beat England. England had the 1st and managed to score 161 runs off 5 wickets. When the Windies came in to bat the rain came, they subsequently only had 9 overs to make 80 runs. So how did they respond? As only the West Indies know how, the wacked the ball over the place and scored the necessary runs. Being born to West Indian parents in England I must say that I love to see the Windies win in cricket.
Cricket is a funny old sport. When you consider test cricket it can take days to complete an innings, let alone a match, and after all that it can still end in a draw! At the end of the West Indies vs England match the West Indies captain (Reifer) said that they had been relying on Chris Gayle too much and that this time they all stepped up to the plate and did what they had to do. This is exactly what a good team is supposed to do. The West Indies demonstrated that it is the sum of the parts which make up the whole, but of course having a bright star on your team cannot do you any harm.
Yesterday the Windies beat England. England had the 1st and managed to score 161 runs off 5 wickets. When the Windies came in to bat the rain came, they subsequently only had 9 overs to make 80 runs. So how did they respond? As only the West Indies know how, the wacked the ball over the place and scored the necessary runs. Being born to West Indian parents in England I must say that I love to see the Windies win in cricket.
Cricket is a funny old sport. When you consider test cricket it can take days to complete an innings, let alone a match, and after all that it can still end in a draw! At the end of the West Indies vs England match the West Indies captain (Reifer) said that they had been relying on Chris Gayle too much and that this time they all stepped up to the plate and did what they had to do. This is exactly what a good team is supposed to do. The West Indies demonstrated that it is the sum of the parts which make up the whole, but of course having a bright star on your team cannot do you any harm.
Sunday, 14 June 2009
Team spirit and women in sport
Women in sport - a big shout out to all the women playing in the Twenty20. Watching the news last night I was rather flummoxed that after reporting rather extensively on what was going on in the men's game the news caster quickly mentioned that the England women's team had beaten Sri Lanka.
Now for those who follow cricket they will appreciate that the England women are rather handy, they are the current World Champions. I love sport, any sport, but I do have a bug bear about the amount of, or rather lack of sport, that is reported on when it involves women.
Women's cricket has come a long way and we have a great ambassador for the sport in Charlotte Woods (England's captain) to thank for that. The England ladies have a great team spirit and no doubt that team spirit helps them remain so successful.
If, like me, you want to keep up to date with women in sport, why not visit www.sportsister.com.
Now for those who follow cricket they will appreciate that the England women are rather handy, they are the current World Champions. I love sport, any sport, but I do have a bug bear about the amount of, or rather lack of sport, that is reported on when it involves women.
Women's cricket has come a long way and we have a great ambassador for the sport in Charlotte Woods (England's captain) to thank for that. The England ladies have a great team spirit and no doubt that team spirit helps them remain so successful.
If, like me, you want to keep up to date with women in sport, why not visit www.sportsister.com.
Sunday, 7 June 2009
Game, set and match!
On Sunday, Federer has achieved what only 5 men before him have, and only one of these is in the modern era, and that was to be the winner of all four grand slams after beating Robin Soderling in the French Open final.
Unfortunately I did not have the pleasure of watching the whole match, however what I did see wasn't bad. What am I talking about?! What I did see was a champion become a champion of champions. Unfortunately for his competitor he made it look , not easy, but par for the course.
As we always do in Sporting Soul we look to dig deeper than just the results of sporting competitions and look behind what makes the wins, losses and draws. Looking at Roger Federer, 27 years old, born in Switzerland (and still living in Switzerland) what do we see? Dedication, discipline, control, persistence, calm, patience, diligence, the list goes on. The more matches you see Federer play you can almost see his brain working out when he is going to pounce on his opponent and play the killer forehand, backhand, volley or ace which will give him a break point. When it doesn't go to plan you can just, only just, see his frustration. He appears relatively calm on court, no grunting or challenging line calls. However, for those in the know will be aware that a few years ago he was a regular breaker of rackets, and sometimes that anger, at himself, raises its ugly head, but all in all he has managed to tame that beast. So, on court he is calm, but he certainly shows his emotions freely when he wins or losses. Who could forget those tears at the Australian Open earlier this year? It is obvious that he is passionate about tennis and what it means to him and the time he gives to the fans also shows how appreciative he is of their support.
Perfect? - No. A complete and supremely professional champion? Absolutely!
Robin Soderling after the match said that he was treated to a master class out there on the red clay of Roland Garros. Well, by watching Federer both on and off the court I certainly think that young sportspeople around the world got more than that.
Congratulations to Roger Federer on his first French Open win - may you have many more. (Well, perhaps not if your name is Murray, Nadal, Djokovic .....!)
Unfortunately I did not have the pleasure of watching the whole match, however what I did see wasn't bad. What am I talking about?! What I did see was a champion become a champion of champions. Unfortunately for his competitor he made it look , not easy, but par for the course.
As we always do in Sporting Soul we look to dig deeper than just the results of sporting competitions and look behind what makes the wins, losses and draws. Looking at Roger Federer, 27 years old, born in Switzerland (and still living in Switzerland) what do we see? Dedication, discipline, control, persistence, calm, patience, diligence, the list goes on. The more matches you see Federer play you can almost see his brain working out when he is going to pounce on his opponent and play the killer forehand, backhand, volley or ace which will give him a break point. When it doesn't go to plan you can just, only just, see his frustration. He appears relatively calm on court, no grunting or challenging line calls. However, for those in the know will be aware that a few years ago he was a regular breaker of rackets, and sometimes that anger, at himself, raises its ugly head, but all in all he has managed to tame that beast. So, on court he is calm, but he certainly shows his emotions freely when he wins or losses. Who could forget those tears at the Australian Open earlier this year? It is obvious that he is passionate about tennis and what it means to him and the time he gives to the fans also shows how appreciative he is of their support.
Perfect? - No. A complete and supremely professional champion? Absolutely!
Robin Soderling after the match said that he was treated to a master class out there on the red clay of Roland Garros. Well, by watching Federer both on and off the court I certainly think that young sportspeople around the world got more than that.
Congratulations to Roger Federer on his first French Open win - may you have many more. (Well, perhaps not if your name is Murray, Nadal, Djokovic .....!)
Monday, 1 June 2009
Oarsome performance at rowing world cup!
Team GB won 9 of 14 gold medals on offer at the weekend, at the opening World Cup rowing regatta of 2009 in Spain, as well as a silver and a bronze. What a magnificent performance in a sport in which we are truly world class.
Together with a number of other sports in which we excel at sitting down - much to the derision of the Aussies in the last Olympics (so we must be doing something right!) - GB Rowing has an excellent and proven talent ID, nurturing and development programme. Evidence of this is the fact that the men's quadruple scull, which won the silver medal behind the Olympic champions from Poland, is the first complete crew to to come out of its formal programme, World Class Start.
At the other end of the spectrum, but equally impressive, is the gold medal won by Katherine Grainger in the women's single scull in her first outing in what is a new event for her. A three-time Olympic silver medallist in the quad sculls Katherine Grainger has been able to successfully transfer her athletic and mental skills to this new discipline with stunning results.
One sensed her tremendous disappointment and frustration at 'only winning another silver medal' in Beijing last year and she has proved to herself that she has the talent to thrive in an individual as well as a team event. I'm sure that she'd be the first to acknowledge however that it would not be possible to do this without a very supportive backroom team who are usually the unsung heroes and who operate as the submerged part of an iceberg.
As the saying goes, 'class is permanent and form is temporary' and our rowers have proved yet again that they have a truly world class culture.
Together with a number of other sports in which we excel at sitting down - much to the derision of the Aussies in the last Olympics (so we must be doing something right!) - GB Rowing has an excellent and proven talent ID, nurturing and development programme. Evidence of this is the fact that the men's quadruple scull, which won the silver medal behind the Olympic champions from Poland, is the first complete crew to to come out of its formal programme, World Class Start.
At the other end of the spectrum, but equally impressive, is the gold medal won by Katherine Grainger in the women's single scull in her first outing in what is a new event for her. A three-time Olympic silver medallist in the quad sculls Katherine Grainger has been able to successfully transfer her athletic and mental skills to this new discipline with stunning results.
One sensed her tremendous disappointment and frustration at 'only winning another silver medal' in Beijing last year and she has proved to herself that she has the talent to thrive in an individual as well as a team event. I'm sure that she'd be the first to acknowledge however that it would not be possible to do this without a very supportive backroom team who are usually the unsung heroes and who operate as the submerged part of an iceberg.
As the saying goes, 'class is permanent and form is temporary' and our rowers have proved yet again that they have a truly world class culture.
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