I read a comment recently from Toni Nadal, Rafael's uncle and coach, that I thought was worth remembering... Supposedly, uncle Toni said that Rafa has never broken a tennis racquet because he understands that most kids buy their racquets and only have one.Therefore, Rafa learned that he should never break one of his many free racquets.Anyone who has ever played competitive sports has experienced moments of extreme frustration and many have taken their anger out on their racquet or a ball or sometimes on another athlete.When you receive hundreds and often thousands of free racquets, as most top pros will in their careers, it's easy to lose sight of the "cost"of breaking just a single frame.I remembered uncle Toni's words when I saw Serena Williams smash a frame after losing a key point in a recent match.I'm not trying to single out Serena because many top players have very publicly broken racquets.The simple message is that tennis stars are role models, especially to kids.When they break a racquet in anger, they are offering their fans the wrong lesson about how to deal with frustration.I was totally shocked when I saw Zinedine Zidane head-butted the Italian player during the recent World Cup, but it was even more disturbing to hear him later try to rationalize his action in some way by saying that he was provoked by the other player's comments.As the U.S. Open approaches, let's hope that more and more tennis stars will heed uncle Toni's words the next time they start to fling a racquet in frustration.
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Love your site!
Posted by: Sarah | August 22, 2006 02:17 PM