Thursday, May 27, 2010

How not to be a professional athlete

Here is a great "your doin' it wrong" from alleged American tennis pro Sam Querry:


Q. So do you feel like going in you're not in the frame of mind, or does it happen right in the middle of the fight?

SAM QUERREY: I think it happens in the middle. I think if you ask my coach, David, he might say otherwise. When I lost that second set tiebreaker and got broken in the first game, I was done. I wanted to be off the court.
I started thinking about leaving and pulling out of the doubles and how much I wanted to go home, how much I wasn't enjoying.
You're never gonna win a match if you're just being negative. I'm only hurting myself.

Q. Isn't that the definition of a professional, that you don't despair so fully as the match progresses, that you somehow control your feelings?

SAM QUERREY: Yeah, I need to work on that. I've not been a professional the last, you know, on and off for the last few months. You know, you're out there facing one opponent. I don't want to face the opponent and myself.
You know, I just need to be better than today, in this case, it was Robby. It's someone different every week. But I don't want to be fighting myself out there and also fighting the opponent.

Q. Yet, Sam, you've had some good results on clay. You won Belgrade, won Houston. Are you fighting sort of a Jeckyll/Hyde part of yourself here?

SAM QUERREY: A little bit. Those are 250s, and they're great. I love you know, a tournament win is a tournament win. A final is great. It builds my confidence, but I won Belgrade and my ranking didn't move. I'm kind of past that point right now. Those 250s do nothing for me ranking wise. It's all about the Masters Series and the Grand Slams.
That's where I just have not been playing well. You know, I just need to mentally get it together in my head. I need to enjoy myself out there. I need to enjoy playing. You know, if a guy has a breakpoint against me, I should know, Hey, I've got one of the biggest serves out there. Let's see you win this point off me.
But like I said, I just tank some points.



YIKES!!!

Full interview is here.


1 comment:

Karl said...

Killers like Kobe or Michael are rare. Many of the rest of them are cashing in an accidental lottery ticket and trying to get through their day.

some insight:
http://www.slate.com/id/2159931

"The most interesting revelation in Man in the Middle has nothing to do with homosexuality. The profoundly isolated Amaechi says he finds common cause with other players on at least one matter: seeing sports as a means to an end. He writes that the pros play the game for a lot of reasons—money, fame, groupies, self-esteem—but that very few NBA players love basketball. "The fan sitting at home … wants us to love the game like he does," he writes. "If he knew why we really play the game, for the most part, he might not love the game. He might not even watch it."