The Racket
A few thoughts on a great book
Hi.
Reading time: About 6 minutes
I have always been a sports fanatic. One of the sports that I like to watch and even enjoy playing once in a while is tennis. In fact one of the first books I ever read in my life was Rafa. I remember how in his book he mentioned that his favourite food was pasta and I tried to eat pasta as much as I could because I could become like him.
Recently I got my hands on a book named ‘The Racket’ by Conor Niland. Conor Niland was Ireland’s best tennis player and his lifetime highest ranking was 129. In this book, he speaks about the life of a player who was playing in the golden generation but never really broke into the big tournaments.
It is a great book in my opinion because it covers the life of most of the tennis athletes. They are the other 99%.
As a child Conor was raise in a family which was very clear as to what they wanted him to become. He did not even have a choice to an extent. He used to work hard since he was a kid. He used to miss social gatherings since he was a kid.He used to play other sports like football and even athletics but he suspected his parents only wanted him to play those sports to help him in his tennis fitness.
“I once complained to him [Eoin Reddan, his friend] that I didn’t want to travel to a tournament in England that weekend, as it would mean missing my friend’s birthday party. Reasonably he asked me why I was going. ‘ My parents want me to.’ was my honest reply. He said that made no sense, and I soon saw why.” - Conor
It’s an interesting way to parent your kid. His sister was also a tennis player and the best in Ireland. Now mind you at this time Conor is barely ten. He is training two times a day and most of his day is tennis. One thing that everyone speaks about when they are successful is the hard work that athletes put in to become great. I look at Conor’s childhood and look back at my small yet fun sports career is the fact that I never worked hard as a cricketer. I was just doing the bare minimum with a dream of becoming the best. Reality sets in with results when your process is bad.
“My relationship with my parents was always heavily filtered through tennis. If there were periods when my motivation was low and my results were poor, our relationship would take a turn. Dad once told me I’d ‘never be any good.’, after a duff practice session in the back garden. He had a saying when my motivation was faltering. ‘If you work at the right time, you never have to work again.’ I never figured out if he meant one could retire at thirty after a successful tennis career and ‘never work again’, or if he meant tennis players were made between the ages of 10 and 18. He was probably right on both counts, but ten year olds don’t have that kind of perspective. ‘If you go an really commit to tennis for three years,’ he would say to me, ‘you have a great chance of making it.’ Three years feels like forever when you’re ten.” - Conor
I find this really interesting. His Dad is really passionate towards the sport and his dream to watch his son becoming a tennis player but he could not understand his perspective. I find this to be very relatable to the mental model of relativity. It makes me wonder how challenging it would be if you were to raise a child and at a very young age you would want him to work very hard and avoid all the fun things. It would be incredibly hard to convince a ten year old to control his diet for instance. How do you stop him from having an ice cream or candy and eat healthy?
After some time Conor did end up becoming one of the best in Ireland. He was sent out to play a few tournaments and that is when reality set in for him.
“I was the best player of my age in Ireland, but seeing these top European players was a sharp lesson that an Irish national champion would count for little internationally.” - Conor.
As a sportsman this is so true. You might be very good in a certain age category or a certain region but what really tests your ability is what your performance is in the big stages against everyone. Think about this in business. I can think of so many businesses which are very good in a particular geography but fail to scale in others.
A company like Costa Coffee or Dunkin Donuts, has done so well abroad but has failed to gain traction in India. You have companies like Domino’s, Coca Cola, etc who have done well though. They are truly great international businesses.
“I was playing one hour of tennis a day while those who would make the top 100 were playing four. When Nadal was thirteen, he was practising regularly with Carlos Moya, a former world number 1.” - Conor
This can track back to what I had said before. Great players are just something else. I don’t know how Nadal at thirteen could train for four hours a day and that also quality sessions. These things even though are known in my eyes are really under appreciated.
The mentality you need to play against a former world no 1 regularly is not something normal people have. He may be naturally gifted but to get confidence to play someone who is a proper professional is not normal.
“We were underperforming because we hadn’t yet gotten used to playing on such big stages” - Conor
Same thing for the Williams sisters. They were happy to play for days and did not seem to be bothered.
“The Williams sisters seemed happy and relaxed. They looked like they’d done a million of these sessions, and they were going to do a million more.”- Conor
“If you feel you aren’t good as your opponent, don’t give him the added advantage of knowing that.” - Conor
I love this quote. Often time as a cricketer I have made this mistake. I think it increases the confidence of the opponent and reduces yours to another level. This is like giving an open invitation to be dominated.
I highly reccommend you read this book, I am still to finish it but it is an amazing read so far.
Thank you for reading,
Samvit