hey guys if you're a big professional tennis fan like i am you know there's many different types
of personalities out on tour just think of michael chang and john mcenroe those two guys couldn't be
more different right or think of roger federer and nick kyrgios very different personalities
so in today's video i want to go through the big five personality traits that we all have and see
how they relate to us as tennis players in other words are there certain personality traits that
can help us be a better tennis players and also are there certain personality traits that are
gonna make tennis more difficult for us so the first personality trait we're gonna talk about is
introversion and extroversion there's a lot of people that believe that introverts are going
to have a hard time playing tennis and this could not be further from the truth why am i saying this
because two of the greatest players of all time were really big introverts just think of rafael
nadal and steffi graf very introverted human beings and on the other hand you can take someone
like serena williams also maybe the greatest of all time who's very extroverted on the men's side
you can have novak djokovic maybe the greatest of all time who's also very extroverted so you can
see that being introverted is not going to hold you back as a tennis player and see introverts can
really flourish in the game of tennis because it's an individual sport see introverts usually don't
like being surrounded by a lot of people this is where they get a lot of anxiety in some cases and
the beautiful thing about tennis is that you're out there by yourself and introverts generally
like that another thing introverts don't like is speaking in front of other people and the great
thing about tennis is you don't have to speak at all in fact you're not allowed to say anything
while the point is going on so it's a very easy sport to play for introverts you can be out there
by yourself and you don't really have to talk so being an introvert will absolutely not hold you
back as a tennis player and the second personality trait we're going to talk about is whether someone
is agreeable or disagreeable and unfortunately if you are an agreeable person you're gonna have
a hard time in tennis for the following reasons so for example if you're an agreeable personality
and you're playing against someone who's treating you really badly i have seen this in person where
agreeable people will just take it they will get cheated on for example the other person will say
oh i'm up 4-2 even though it's three all and the agreeable person is just in their nature to go
along with the program or another scenario would be if you have a doubles partner who's very bossy
and this can sometimes have a negative effect on your game so if you're an agreeable person and
your doubles partner is bossing you around telling you what to do maybe talking down to you and this
can negatively affect your game another way a player with an agreeable personality type can
get a negative outcome on their tennis game is if they get coached they're very agreeable to what
the coach is suggesting now unfortunately there is going to be some coaches out there who are going
to make outlandish suggestions and i can give you one example of a player that i was coaching
who was one of the best players in the state who was also a natural left-handed player and we all know
being a lefty is a big advantage but this coach switched this player to play right-handed because
this player was very agreeable they went along with the program and in fact switched their game
to play right-handed and the result was an utter catastrophe so being disagreeable in tennis can
actually help you it can help you and not to get cheated on it can help you to hold your ground
with your doubles partner for example and it can also help you to challenge authority on the tennis
court whether it be an umpire or coach or even maybe your parent if you're a junior player is
okay and tennis to stand up for yourself because ultimately you know what's best for your game the
third personality trait that is very important is conscientiousness and this is something that you
need to possess as a tennis player you need to be conscientious in other words you need to be
a hard worker you got to put in a lot of hours on the practice court now the way conscientiousness
works as a personality trait it doesn't mean that you're overall conscientious as a person so you
could be very conscientious on the practice court but then you could be not so conscientious when
you're preparing your bag to go to the practice courts and i am one of those players i wasn't
very conscientious in preparing my bag i would sometimes forget my shoes once i would forgot my
racket i went uh to a tournament without my racket that's crazy but it happened and my dad
made me aware of this and he didn't put it in a nice way and from that moment on i was very
diligent and conscientious about packing my bag so conscientiousness is something that you definitely
need as a tennis players not only on the practice court but also in the preparation for the practice
or matches now the fourth personality trait is an interesting one when it comes to tennis players
and that is openness to experience so let me give you an example i'm sure you know people
who have always been in their hometown and have never left to go anywhere in other words they're
not very open to experience new things and of course you know people who are world travelers
and they're very open to experience in many different ways so when it comes to tennis and
professional tennis that is you need to be open to experience because naturally as a professional
tennis player you're going to be traveling all over the world at the recreational level it is
unnecessary to be open to experience because you're going to be playing at your local club
and it doesn't require you to see the world and travel but openness to experience comes in
many forms you can also be open to experience things such as partying and that is obviously
not a good thing to do when you're a tennis player you need to be very disciplined so generally being
open to experience can help you but people who are a little bit too open to experience players
such as nick kyrgios or maybe john mcenroe at times and this has hurt them in different parts
of their careers where they were a little bit too open to partying and the fifth personality trait
is neuroticism if you are a neurotic person you are going to have a hard time as a tennis player
and what is neuroticism for example if you're feeling a little bit of an ache and somewhere
in your body let's say your wrist and you're in a neurotic person you say oh my god my wrist hurts
and i can't play this is obviously going to hurt you you need to be tough you need to be able to
sometimes play through a little bit of pain of course when something hurts too much you need to
stop but as a tennis player it's natural to feel aches and pains as you're playing tennis and one
player that i've heard and i don't know if this is 100 percent sure so this is hearsay but i have
heard that kei nishikori is very neurotic when it comes to injuries and i've heard that when
he feels a little bit of a pain somewhere he immediately takes weeks off and this has come
to hurt him throughout his playing career now neuroticism also comes in many different
ways so you could be neurotic about the score and start freaking out and get really nervous
and really tight so usually neurotic people they're going to have a very hard being good
tennis players and the next thing i'm going to talk about is not in the big five of
personality traits but it is a personality trait and that is intelligence and i get this question
asked very frequently whether you have to be intelligent to be a good tennis player and i'm
here to tell you that you absolutely do not need to be intelligent to be a good tennis player in
fact i have met many very intelligent people who have gone to ivy league schools who are
doctors lawyers professors who play tennis very stupidly and i've also met many people who shall
remain unnamed who have not finished a lot of school maybe they have a high school degree
and they might not be the most intelligent people out there yet they play tennis in a very smart way
and this is no knock on the professional players but many of them didn't even finish high school
and yet they playe tennis very smartly so how is this possible why am i saying that you don't need
to be intelligent to play tennis intelligently it is because tennis is an intuitive game it
is often played on feel and instinct you are really not thinking out there you just
going along whatever the match is giving you in an intuitive fashion so when players play stupid
tennis it's not because they're unintelligent this is something that people often say uh this person
is playing so stupid and they're so dumb and this is often referring to them as a person but this is
not true as i stated before when someone plays stupidly and i myself have played stupidly many
times it is often a result of your emotions rather than your intelligence so maybe you are frustrated
maybe you are tight and anxious or maybe you're a little bit too relaxed and lacking intensity and
maybe you are a little bit too risk obsessed and you're going for shots that you shouldn't
be going for and often this looks like a stupid game plan but it's not something that you always
have control over but a good thing is that if you catch yourself in one of these traps
there is a way out and that's called high percentage tennis so if you find yourself
doing really dumb things on the tennis courts really dumb shots you always can go to playing
high percentage tennis which basically means that you're to take the ball a little bit higher over
the net you're going to go generally for big targets you're going to try to extend in the
rallies this is usually going to help you avoid playing stupidly and allow you to play smarter tennis.