Vamos Del Potro! Five sets last night – what a final. It’s been a crazy US Open, right?
While we can’t all be 6′6″ tennis superstuds, we can all learn a thing or two from some of the grittier matches from this year’s Open. Mainly, you have to be strong mentally and physically to become a champion.
Take the men’s final, for instance. First, you have to be in the mindset of playing all day long, like Del Potro. You can’t think, man, I’m down a set and a break and now I have to fight my way through 3 more sets against Roger Freakin’ Federer to win this thing. He could have bagged it right there and no one would have really blamed him. After all, he’s young, playing in his first major final, playing against maybe the greatest to ever play the game, and he’d just beaten Rafa Nadal a day earlier. Just getting that far was an accomplishment, right?
But winners show up. They show up to practice, day in and day out, ready to go so that come game time, all they have to do is play. They’ve already done all the hard work. Like Monfils vs. Nadal. Monfils had that match in the bag until he ran out of gas. But he couldn’t close it out. Nadal was physically more prepared. He was ready to be there for as long as it took to win. Which he did, by simply outlasting Monfils. It’s not necessarily the strongest or the smartest or the most talented player who wins the match – it’s the person who’s prepared to win.
You need the physical stamina to play all day and the mental endurance to want to play all day in order to win big, in sports and in life.
