It isn't just tennis players. Lucy Charles Barclay dropped out of the Hawaii Ironman due to heat exhaustion at about 20 miles of the marathon. She then won the world 70.3 championship just 3 weeks later (running the 1/2 in 1:17). She ran and won several races during the year, including an early season full ironman.
It really is incredible how little professional track runners race. People think Hassan is doping because she runs track and marathons in the same season. What's really amazing are these professional marathoners who run 2 races a year and very little else.
Distance running is a massively overrated sport...I said it!
No real money. No widespread fan support. The action is mostly dull with only the final 10-20 seconds being exciting. Careers are not long and the best athletes are mostly interchangeable foreigners. Drugs are a big problem. Only a few events truly pique the curiosity of the media but then mostly because of spectacle and inspirational stories. The biggest "fans" are low level participants that typically will not spend the time nor the money to watch their favorite sport. The fan base is viewed as largely annoying by the greater public due to gatekeeping plus an insecure, nerdy "know-it-all" demeanor.
First of all, at the professional level, tennis is very lopsided. The very top-ranked players can demolish their first-, second-, even third-round opponents, with very little effort. The effort-inducing matches would only be the last couple in a tournament.
Second of all, at the professional level, serving wins tons of free points. Most serves are not able to be returned (Aces are only some of unreturned serves). That means most of the match is spent with one player hitting a serve (less effort than it takes to pitch a baseball, probably) and the other watching it go by or lunging unsuccessfully at it.
but you're missing my point. a top tennis player is only winning 55% of their points. but they use that 10% margin to win most of the games and nearly all of the sets they play.
track athletes have to win each of their races. or get as close to winning them all as possible. that's kind of like trying to win your matches 6-0 while losing few points.
which, yeah, when i could take "some" uncoached games off varsity HS -- and lose sets like 6-2 -- it was sometimes hold serve, or play defensive tennis, keep the ball in play, and then try to hit a forehand winner.
i don't think a top notch runner is even slightly exposed to a rank amateur. but then i would probably have gotten even fewer points off a tennis pro.
but i am saying tennis pro vs. pro, it's actually a moderate margin on winning points that separates the elite from some guy trying to qualify for the tour.
sorry, i don't see that as comparable to bolt running his opponents off the track for years.
tennis to me is a mix of endurance -- if you've ever played pro style multiple set games on a hot day -- and bursts of speed, but it's more like soccer than track. in soccer i am standing or jogging around in spot in a formation for long stretches. staying in formational shape. and staying goal side on defense guarding someone.
i only take off running in certain situations. i see some open grass and a guy on the ball who can deliver it to me. or they forget i am there out wide. or my man pushed too far up then we took the ball away.
i am not running for a minute straight. much less 4 or 5.
but that's wandering into track is a pure running sport, tennis or soccer, i do some running but i am covering a limited chunk of field or court, then executing a skill. that can require endurance, but of a different sort. it's more akin to a tactical track race where kenyans mess with the other team by taking the lead then either running very fast or very slow. then take a break for 15 in the middle.
Pro tennis players are required by the tour to play a minimum number of tournaments per year. If they don't, their ranking will suffer and they will get lower seed in the Grand Slam tournaments.
If track has a system of rewarding athletes based on the ranking points they accumulated in DL meets (or punish those who don't have enough points), athletes will compete more frequently.
That's just HR. Tennis is 5000x more intense on your overall body than running in a straight line.
You're just completely wrong. You must be terrible at running to not understand that it's probably the most physically taxing activity you can do (if you're doing a max effort).
I get what he is saying about starting and stopping and all that in tennis. And I get that tennis matches kind of give you a marathon style cumulative fatigue....
But in an entire tennis match of all those hours... there are only a few times when you are going all out for an extended period.... because most volleys don't last that many strokes.
But the idea that runners don't run as many races as tennis is as much a function of the way the sport is structured. Tennis is two players per match... So lots of matches. Obviously Track can have more than two in a contest... thus fewer contests are needed.
I remember an advertisement in a running magazine years ago. It was an NBA basketball player and the caption said, "I run a 10K 82 times per year." I can't remember if it was for running shoes or even who the player was.
I remember an ad (Nike, I think) in a 90s issue of RW.
It went, "Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be eaten. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve. But unless you are a runner, you won't understand."
In his 2006 season Roger Feder played 97 tennis matches, (amassing a record of 92W 5L). These matches ranged in length from 75 minutes to over 5 hours.
Why is this?
Also, half of those matches are against competition that isn't among the top 30 in the world. Can you imagine if top runners ran most of their races against guys who couldn't qualify for USA outdoor championships?
Tennis players also exert themselves less. Their heart rates max out in the 160s during competition, below the typical heart rate during a tempo run. Plenty of us have more than 100 days of more intense workouts than that.
I dunno…..anecdotally, I’ve been running for 22 years and compared to a long tennis match against an equal player, I actually think the perceived aerobic demand from Tennis is harder.
i find my heart pounding and it’s a harder, stop and sprint, stop and jolt exercise whereas running is long and sustained with a wind up at the end.
way different types of cardio, I know, but I always fee out of tennis shape compared to running.
A big difference though is heads up competition (1 vs 1) or 2 vs 2. You are only playing one person or one side vs the other. If both athletes are not 100% peaked, it will still be a quality entertaining product. Kind of like the NBA or NHL regular season vs post season intensity.
I remember watching the NHL playoff as a kid thinking “these guys would be dead if they played like this for months on end”
Track, road racing, xc, it is one vs 15-20 or more! If you aren’t fully ready you will be exposed badly.
Also the drop in drop out only race when you are ready nature of track leads to fear or being exposed.
In cycling everyone races the same circuit, at the end of a grand tour they are all dead, so it is still a competitive race.
fear of being exposed is weak. Centro used to always open up his season with slow times and everyone thought he was cooked. He would end up winning the US championships every time. People need to get over themselves and just race
Tennis pays more. He found tournaments worth his time and risk of injury.
Tennis is less dependent on physical athletic talent. Being only 90-95% “healthy” does not affect a tennis player's overall performance as much as a track athlete. (and a world class athlete is not 100% for 97 matches - they may not say it but they are hurting)
Have you watched tennis? The best players are tremendous athletes.
Certainly they are far more athletic than distance runners.
Meanwhile, Keely complained that she doesn't get paid millions to run less than two minutes like tennis players do when they win a Grand Slam. Can't make this stuff up.
That's just HR. Tennis is 5000x more intense on your overall body than running in a straight line.
You're just completely wrong. You must be terrible at running to not understand that it's probably the most physically taxing activity you can do (if you're doing a max effort).
I don't think anyone agrees with you, but Ill say that if you are referring to the nature of running say a 10 k and being at your limit in severe pain, Im with you there, Im not sure tennis quite gets there. But that is not in anyway comparable to the abuse of tennis physically. You can also have almost no hand eye talent and be a runner. In the tradition of what we refer to as athletic talent, I think tennis is near the very top.
The difference is nobody cares if a tennis player is at 92%. The sport isn't objective enough to notice. In track, no one wants to watch a sprinter turn in a 10.3 performance and they certainly don't want to watch a 3:50 1500 or 13:45 5000.
The difference is nobody cares if a tennis player is at 92%. The sport isn't objective enough to notice. In track, no one wants to watch a sprinter turn in a 10.3 performance and they certainly don't want to watch a 3:50 1500 or 13:45 5000.
Except they do!
People are perfectly happy to watch Olympic 1500m races that are won in 3:50 or 5000m races won in 13:45.