Much talk and controversy about the bathroom breaks that Stefanos Tsitsipas and the medical time-out that Barbora Krejcikova took during the recent US OPEN, changing the match's outcome at crucial moments during the confrontation. So should the rules be changed?
An obvious and yet somewhat overlooked component of the development of an elite athlete is the nature of competition itself. It should go without saying that becoming the best in the world does not involve some esoteric debate about the merits of various athlete's play styles or the empathy for their rivals. Rather, being the best is a matter of objective and mathematical fact based on agreed-upon organizational rankings. The logic of competition is fairly straightforward: you train hard to get better at the game to win more matches to place higher in tournaments and increase your ranking to get closer and closer to being number 1 until you finally make it there. Why am I bothering to outline something so self-evident? Because reevaluating what we take for granted is an invaluable element of the philosophy behind elite athletic training.
Each player has a set of rules that can help them in certain situations, especially unfavorable ones. For example, when they are down in score or when the game strategy is not working for them, they feel unwell, physically or mentally.
Rules are made to protect us or to give us an advantage. The actions that a player takes during a match can be legal. Still, if the opponent or the spectators think that the rival is being taken advantage of, recriminations can come. Taking advantage of technicalities can benefit us, but we have to be willing to accept the cost. The rules are the same for everyone. Understanding that the advantages technically exist in the same conditions is essential that the players understand them and are willing to use them when necessary.
While training Kei Nishikori, I taught him to know the rules so well that he could take advantage of them from an early age. For example, if he lost the set 6-3 down, he had to take a bathroom break. At first, he argued with me that if he did not have the physiological need to go, he would not do it because that was not part of his Japanese customs. However, I remember in junior tournaments yelling at him to go to the bathroom, he reluctantly did. Many years later, remembering those moments, I told him that the match against Federer in Australia, the bathroom break had not served him well. Still, Kei immediately reminded me that it had helped him against Nadal at the Rio Olympics.
Tennis is an individual sport, where not only an athlete's ability to withstand the pressures of being "center stage," but also about their desire to be there, governed by their belief in themselves. This stems from emotional and perceptual intelligence, their ability to see the world and react to it with them at the center. Selfishness is a core facet of an elite athlete's lifestyle, not only because what they make their livelihood doing is inherently uncooperative, but because their career is focused on them as an individual. An athlete needs to be extraverted enough to be the right kind of egotist, the kind that can take care of themselves and put themselves ahead of other people in a healthy way.
Agreeableness is the opposite of extraversion. This is someone's tendency to put other people ahead of themselves and not think and see the world in terms of their goals as an athlete. Sure, having too grand of a self-image can make you a detached jerk, but this is ultimately way less devastating for your career than having the opposite problem. This also refers to putting too much stock into what people think of you: unless this feedback is directly helping your game, it does not really matter.
Like I said before, individuality is often an aura, a somewhat intangible weight a player carries with them. Not only can you spot a Champion out of a crowd, but you can see this aura strengthen and develop over time. A good coach can recognize what makes his players individually, but a great coach will pull these things out and turn them into an athlete's greatest strength, on and off the court, carving a legacy that will last forever.
The majority are against the rule and criticize it as vague, but who can say precisely how long an emergency can take in the bathroom? Or if a player feels dizzy or needs medical help? Coaches have to train their players for both eventualities.
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