How to become a professional tennis player: the secret truth

For many years ‘Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD)’ principles have been referred to in the scientific literature in respect of youth conditioning including the now famous Balyi model (2, 3) This suggests that there are ‘critical periods’ or ‘windows of opportunity’ in an athlete’s development. The premise is that certain fitness components can be developed at an accelerated rate during these windows and that if these same fitness components are trained at another time the fitness gains will not be as pronounced. Related to this discussion is the concept of specialisation in sport (early versus late) and how this concept fits with the need to maximise a child’s long term physical development. The LTAD model recommends that in most sports (with a few exceptions such as gymnastics and diving) athletes should not specialise in a sport until late adolescence and rather should develop their overall athleticism at younger ages by playing multiple sports and experiencing multiple stimuli. However, despite the widespread promotion of this long term athlete development model it remains largely theoretical in nature, and little has been published on its application in the field. This article will take a practitioners view of the application of long-term athlete development in tennis, and is not meant to be an academic review of the topic area. Instead it aims to outline some of the contradictions between the theoretical model and the requirements of excellence demanded by the sport, and to outline the realty in which any model needs to be applied.