What Does It take To Reach The Top 100? "From The Pros"

“There are no shortcuts. Hard work and dedication is important. For me, I always train with a purpose and never just go through the motions. You have got be prepared to make sacrifices and discipline is a huge part of it as well.”
Lleyton Hewitt (ATP Pro player, former world number 1)

“Consistency day in and day out! Doing the right things with the right people around you. Commitment to want to improve. You need to enjoy the journey but be prepared to work extremely hard.”
Casey Dellacqua (WTA top 50 singles and top 5 doubles)

“To be a champion unfortunately there is no secrets. It takes years of sacrifices hard work and discipline. You have to have self-motivation and it has to be your passion, it can’t come from your coach, parents etc. it has to come from the individual”.
Peter Luczak (former ATP top 100 men’s player, Tennis Australia Coach)

“To reach the top 100 in tennis today you definitely need a positive and supportive team behind you and where everyone with in the team is also working together. The player has to be clear what outcome they want and when to make definite plans towards that or those outcomes with their teams involvement. They have to be willing to commit time, money and energy into this journey. When things get tough, as they will – not to forget about their outcome (Goal) to help re align them back to their purpose. To help have balance you need 5 different sections.

1. Tennis – On court
2. Tennis Training – Off court
3. Health (gluten free, wheat free, dairy free)
4. Some form of mediation or mental relaxation
5. Other activities/Interests/family/friends.”
Alison Scott (former top 100 WTA player)

“I think the bottom line is that it takes and enormous amount of PASSION to reach the upper echelons of the tennis world. Without this ingredient it will be extremely difficult to sustain the amount of determination and perseverance necessary to over come the undoubted failures one faces throughout the journey. In today’s game you also need to be somewhat of a natural athlete. No doubt you can train and mold talent, however, to reach the top echelons you need to be able to move around the court, you need to get in position to hit the ball.

Once you have the above two attributes, you then need to focus your attention on the mental side of the game. Following my career and after coaching Lleyton Hewitt for two years, I came to realise I was undoubtedly my own worst enemy as a player. I was constantly projecting my thoughts into the future or into the past, this caused an enormous amount of tension to spill into my game. This inevitably disabled my body and blocked what I was trying to accomplish – in essence I was “trying to hard”. Once came the realisation that I was my own worst enemy, I asked the question what can I do about this? Then through a combination of yoga teachings, spiritual teaching, and my own experience I have now blended what I consider to be the ideal recipe for unlocking one true potential.”
Nathan Healey (former ATP top 60 player and ATP Coach)