"I play tennis for a living even though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion and always have." So writes Andre Agassi in his autobiography, 'Open'.
But why would a great sportsman hate his sport? Why wouldn't he love everything about it and all it brings to his life – travel, glamour, money, mass adoration, endless free tennis rackets and barley water, not to mention the surely sustaining thought that he is doing something for a living that makes many of us sick with envy?
"But it becomes more than a job, it takes over your life," says former British tennis professional Barry Cowan.. "If you're at the top of tennis, you're on tour 30-plus weeks of the year – and when you're doing that, everything revolves around tennis. Every decision you make, tennis is at the back of your mind. That's the main reason for burnout among tennis players in their 20s.
"I know this for myself – it's something you've done since you were six years old, and there's a sense that if you stop giving 100% you are doomed to failure, and that is unacceptable. No wonder so many players hate their sport – the surprise is that so few admit it."
And despite all the kudos, money and silverware, there's a reason it's the top players who suffer most – because they're the ones playing the most tennis, as they don't get knocked out in the first or second round. So they have the least free time, the most mental stress and suffer the most physically.
Agassi's view on his sport is far from exclusive to tennis.
The need to win can become a miserable addiction. Olympic gold-winning track cyclist Victoria Pendleton gave an insight into this in a frank Guardian interview after winning gold at Beijing. "I was an emotional wreck beforehand," she said. "I worried that I would be the one person who let down the team. So winning was just a relief. And even that felt like a complete anti-climax. It was very surreal on the podium and as soon as I stepped off it I was, like, 'What on earth am I going to do now?' I found it quite hard to deal with. It was, like, I've got no purpose any more."
But it is her answer to the question of how to get out of this psychic void that is most telling: "I soon worked out that the only thing I could do was to get another gold medal."
Author and Credits: Stuart Jeffries - The guardian