might seem like a "dream come true" to the young Ash Barty but I wonder how she will feel in a week or a month or next year. Yes, she has "achieved her childhood dream" - but what next?
I often wonder this about sportspeople who achieve something like an Olympic medal when they are still very young. I have even suggested that there should be a minimum age of something like eighteen before they can even compete in the Olympics.
Why? Because of the thousands of hours that go into training. Someone like young Ash does not need a normal life style. It's the same for all tennis players, for all swimmers or golfers. Anyone who plays a sport where the individual is the focus rather than the team is in this position. It would be bad enough if you were in the footy team or the cricket or baseball team or any other team. But, if you are the individual and you are playing as an individual it must be even worse. It must be lonely...even if your coach and your "mindset" person and the other people who are there to focus on you and your performance are constantly with you.
I remember a boy at university. He was a swimmer. He might have reached Olympic standard but he abandoned it all. In a rare confidence he told me that it was all too much. In his childhood and early teens his parents had been getting him to the pool at five in the morning all year round. The sacrifice of doing this, of paying for the fees and the coaching was too much in the end. Even paying the extra for the food he was consuming was becoming a consideration. But it wasn't that which killed his ambition in the end.
He told me something like, "All of that was part of it but it was the hours and hours spent staring at the bottom of the pool. I just wondered where I was going with it all. I thought there was more to life than that."
He stopped training and concentrated on his studies instead. I asked him if he had ever had second thoughts or regrets? No, not at all.
"I didn't have that something extra. I feel sorry for the ones that do."
I feel sorry for them too.
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1 comment:
I certainly have no real knowledge of Ash Barty's life, but she did take a two year break from playing tennis, at age 18, when her heart wasn't in it. Her decision to return to the sport was just that, a decision, not simply a continuation of the path of training and playing, playing and training. Here's hoping winning Wimbledon has brought her joy and excitement after all her hard work!
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