What the hell is talent?

[brokenshoelace]

I'll disagree with that. Monfils is talented. He's squandered it due to lack of discipline and hard work. As Federer said after Wimbledon - talent only gets you so far and yes, he was blessed with a lot of talent, but he worked hard to harness and control it. Monfils is Kyrgios in 8 in years if Kyrgios doesn't get his act together.

Monfils is a great athlete. But as far as tennis skills go, he's obviously talented (how can you become a top 10 player otherwise?), but not nearly as much as some would have you believe.

 

[mrzz]

Talent alone, in every aspect of life, does not get you anywhere at all,

It is interesting that a lot of people (had to pick an example and it was you, PM) end up touching this subject, that is, talent alone is not enough. Well, I do not disagree with that, surely -- we could discuss what is more important, talent, hard work, planning, tennis IQ, whatever. But the question, at least here, is about talent (or skill) alone. All you folks reminding us of the value of hard work, I guess you don't need to worry: we won't forget how much it is valuable just by discussing talent.

 

[Haelfix]

Im not entirely sure how Raonic could be considered untalented considering the big weapon he does have is something that is basically innate (he hits harder than all but maybe three or four people in the world) and makes him one of the best players in the world without having to do much.

 

[Moxie]

It is interesting that a lot of people (had to pick an example and it was you, PM) end up touching this subject, that is, talent alone is not enough. Well, I do not disagree with that, surely -- we could discuss what is more important, talent, hard work, planning, tennis IQ, whatever. But the question, at least here, is about talent (or skill) alone. All you folks reminding us of the value of hard work, I guess you don't need to worry: we won't forget how much it is valuable just by discussing talent.

Yes but pure "talent," which we're trying to discuss here, seems to be quite complicated to parse out from other factors. I actually get why people see Roger as a Platonic version of "talent," or at least a classic club version, with the results to back it up. There aren't so many smudges on his resume, but they mostly come in the shape of Rafael Nadal. Who is an other-than classic style of player, but, I think we all agree on this thread, is very talented. However it shakes out in the end, they will always be tied together as one of the greatest rivalries in tennis, and in sport.

 

[Busted]

You also miss my point about hard work. At least other Fed fans like Mrzz and Federberg acknowledge Nadal's talent. And that he was born with loads of it. If you think "doggedness" got Nadal 10 French Open titles, you are kidding yourself. I was saying that it helps, and it helps not to be too precious about your gifts, when hard work is required. That is what I'm saying some of the also-rans have missed.

If Nadal were all hard work and no elite talent he'd be David Ferrer. You undersell him by acres.

Huh? How did I miss your point when I acknowledged your point AND said that I would never say that Nadal is totally untalented? For all I know he can rub his head and pat his belly at the same time while hopping on foot. I said he's not as talented as some others I could name and that doggedness has taken him a long way - and pointed to his 10 French Opens as an example because you need that kind of stubbornness on clay and it's his best asset that's separated him from everyone else - ON CLAY. I NEVER said that he won 10 FOs on doggedness alone. That's just you being defensive.

 

[Busted]

I would include Rios and Mecir

I was going to mention Mecir myself...The Big Cat. What a mover...

 

[Federberg]

Yes but pure "talent," which we're trying to discuss here, seems to be quite complicated to parse out from other factors. I actually get why people see Roger as a Platonic version of "talent," or at least a classic club version, with the results to back it up. There aren't so many smudges on his resume, but they mostly come in the shape of Rafael Nadal. Who is an other-than classic style of player, but, I think we all agree on this thread, is very talented. However it shakes out in the end, they will always be tied together as one of the greatest rivalries in tennis, and in sport.

Lol! Couldn't help yourself

 

[Moxie]

Lol! Couldn't help yourself

That joke isn't just crass, it's a stretch. Imo, it's a perfectly good metaphor for the reason that you Feddies feel the need to take such cheap shots. :devilfinger: :lulz2:

 

[Moxie]

Huh? How did I miss your point when I acknowledged your point AND said that I would never say that Nadal is totally untalented? For all I know he can rub his head and pat his belly at the same time while hopping on foot. I said he's not as talented as some others I could name and that doggedness has taken him a long way - and pointed to his 10 French Opens as an example because you need that kind of stubbornness on clay and it's his best asset that's separated him from everyone else - ON CLAY. I NEVER said that he won 10 FOs on doggedness alone. That's just you being defensive.

Well, you gave him credit for being a righty playing lefty, and then mostly compared him to training a dog. I think anyone who cares to reread your post would say it's a backhand compliment at best. The point that you missed is that, by choosing to emphasize work and not underscore the flash, Rafa and Toni have risked him being seen as more about hard work than talent, especially with his odd style. So some folks, like yourself, are tempted to see it that way, too. There are Fed fans here who fully acknowledge the amazing talent, but some still demure. I don't see how Nadal has won 15 Majors in the same era as Federer and Djokovic and Murray without being a superior athlete and yes, a really really talented tennis player. He wasn't just taught to "sit, beg, roll over..." etc.

 

[mrzz]

@Moxie, one bias (I guess) that part of the Federer Appreciation Society have comes from some matches, or at least specific parts of some matches, where Nadal, being always a tactical player, reverted to a simple, yet winning, strategy against Federer. The memory of retrieved ball after retrieved ball surely got stuck in a lot of people heads (it surely got stuck in mine), so together with the bitterness you often see came this notion of the talentless player. In other words it is selective memory. One good "antidote" is to watch the famous Miami 2005 final (that Federer won, after all). Nadal was a bit less tactically obedient there. The guy was, what, 17? I can assure you that even the most hard core Federer fan would watch that match and admit to himself that "that freaking kid got talent".

Anyway that best argument in this discussion came from Federer himself. I guess it was on an interview before the AO final, where he said about Nadal "he plays shots that nodoby else plays". That is surely a good way to identify talent.

 

[Federberg]

That joke isn't just crass, it's a stretch. Imo, it's a perfectly good metaphor for the reason that you Feddies feel the need to take such cheap shots. :devilfinger: :lulz2:

I'm the one taking cheap shots? We're in a thread discussing talent, but somehow you bring up talk about Rafa vs Fed? Ok... :scratch:

 

[Ricardo]

just once and for all, Federer has more tennis talent than Nadal. Now can move on.

 

[Moxie]

I'm the one taking cheap shots? We're in a thread discussing talent, but somehow you bring up talk about Rafa vs Fed? Ok... :scratch:

How was Rafa vs. Fed not going to come up on this thread? Some folks here tried to tread carefully around mentioning Rafa, as to "talent". (Not you.) Read Mrzz's post above. He rather nailed it, although I might have used an example where Rafa won.

 

[Federberg]

How was Rafa vs. Fed not going to come up on this thread? Some folks here tried to tread carefully around mentioning Rafa, as to "talent". (Not you.) Read Mrzz's post above. He rather nailed it, although I might have used an example where Rafa won.

Personally I have no problem acknowledging Rafa's talent. The idea that he's more hard work than talent is a little absurd to me. The guy routinely does things that very few can do. There's not much he can't do. I really believe that when people dismiss his talent, they are mistaking style and talent..

 

[mrzz]

Reviving this thread as the results back up one argument I was willing to make: if you wanna talk talent, why people never mention Diego Schwartzman? He is smaller and lighter than simply everyone else and there he is in the second week of USOPEN (and he was already in the top 40 for a while). Yes, he is fast around the court, but not absurdly fast, a bit above the average at most. If he is able to win tennis matches against bigger, stronger guys, he has to compensate somewhere and the skill department is main responsible for this.

 

[Moxie]

@mrzz suggested reviving this thread, so we could stop derailing the main Wimbledon one. It's always an interesting discussion, and worth having, even though it's a very hard thing to quantify, and people weigh various aspects differently.

 

[Nadalfan2013]

The talent can currently be found in the Rafa Nadal tennis academy! When Rafa retires in 2025 with 27 slams, these young kids from his Academy will be old enough to start to rule the ATP. Tennis will be safe for the next century and it will be as if Nadal never left! B-)

 

[Moxie]

Just to get a bit of grudge out of my system, and dispense with the silliness, Ricardo posted this:

"these idiots base their argument on accomplishment, or some silly analysis of fh and bh. Shallowness is a disease around here. If one doesn't even know that talent isn't measurable in such absolute terms, he shouldn't even talk about it."

Cali was invoked by Broken...this remark is similar to Cali's take re: Nalbandian, but I'm sorry...at a certain point analysis of FH, BH and other shots has to come into it. As does results. (As @brokenshoelace said on the Wimby thread: "At some point talent and results have to meet.") I find it hard to cling to some Platonic ideal of lovely, or quirky, or effective shots divorced completely from results. Making the "shot of the day" and not winning the match doesn't get you very far.

To the second bolded point, as I said above, it's precisely why we should discuss it. The word gets thrown around a lot, and we can only arrive at an approximation of what it is, and what things are valuable and useful, if we debate it.

My grudge point is that I find a lot of these discussions come up vis-a-vis Nadal v. others. Especially on grass, but not limited to. Cali's point was always that Nalby was more talented. @atttomole is likewise incapable of crediting Nadal for "talent." @Federberg,(and thanks for this, mate,) said this:

"For the record Rafa has sick talent as well. It's silly to downplay his ability, I mean... after 12 RG's, anyone denying it is getting soaked trying to p1ss into the winds of common sense! And that's not even taking into account the guy is playing with the wrong hand." And yet, plenty are still willing to get soaked in it. Some people seem to be invested in the notion that Nadal isn't talented, he just works hard and has been lucky in the surfaces changes. This is a point that I particularly loathe.

Sorry, I had to get that off my chest. Now, hopefully we move on to better discussion.

 

[Moxie]

One more thing I'll take from the other thread is Mrzz's post, because it was so good, and perhaps he would be too demure to repost it:

"It is a fine post and we agree that it all boils down to what you call "talent". In the end this is a huge word and a lot of things can be described by it. Kyrgios has a very interesting feature which is his unpredictability -- which is a "talent", I concede, and that is the main part of that unknown element of competitiveness you mentioned -- but I disagree he can "execute any shot". If he can... why he doesn't? The problem with the eye test is the selective memory... he attempts a lot of difficult shots all the time, hits hard, goes for the tweener, etc and etc. He misses a lot and connects a few. You simply cannot judge his "talent" by the few he connects... But, one thing is that he chooses very well the timing for some shots... not in a shot selection sense but in a highlights producing sense (and those affect the opponent, as he knows quite well). That is, again, a "talent" of his own.

He is one of a kind, and I agree with that. In the past my notion of "talent" was more narrow -- more technique oriented -- so I was harsher on him. Looking at the complete package, I think he is, well, a different kind of talent. (we had a thread for that and maybe we should revive it).

To try to avoid an impossible definition of talent, I try to break the game in three "dimensions": physical condition, mental strength and talent/technique (those two go hand in hand, even if I understand the difference). Now it is obvious to me that Kyrgios has a very good physical condition: he is tall and strong, and can be pretty quick. His reflexes are extremely good as well. The mental strength is the part I disagree with most: people think that this is his liability, I think it is the exact opposite. The fact I rate him very highly on those two is basically the reason I need to rate him lower on the remaining one -- if he was top notch in all three, he should be much better ranked.

You can always say that the whole problem is that the guy does not practice and/or doesn't care. Again, as I said in other occasions I don't buy that for a second. The kid is clever, he controls the narrative. He built a persona on court and that gives him an edge most of the times. People take my oriented criticism of him as something else... well, it is their problem. For me, the good old "tennis talent", that ability to do whatever you want with a tennis ball in whole lot of different situations, is something that Kyrgios lacks (in the context of a top 100 player, obviously). But he has the "talent" to make it look like this is exactly his forte..."

 

[El Dude]

I see it as similar to the discussion in educational circles around "intelligence" ...a lot of it is semantic, that is how you define the word. I tend to take the more Gardnerian approach - that there are multiple intelligences, different types of "smarts." I mean, we all know and experience this in daily life. A former colleague of mine was more traditional and equated intelligence with IQ, which is a rather narrow slice of what intelligence--in the broad and multi-faceted usage of Howard Gardner et al--is.

I do think the basic bifurcation of natural vs. learned is a useful one, which plays out in a variety of ways in tennis. Truly natural talent is meaningless once we get to the ATP level. It is all skill development, from whatever age someone starts playing (say, 7ish) to their peak (say 25ish). But some players present with a sense of untapped potential, or not fulfilling their talent. Denis Shapovalov comes to mind. He still plays very raw, which is cute and exciting if you're a teenager but starts to become worrisome once you get into your 20s.

Other factors are consistency, mentality, and health. These could all be considered types of talent/skill. It has been argued in baseball circles that health is a talent (or skill), and that rather than talking about how injury-prone players have "bad luck," we could instead say that players that avoid injuries have "good health."

In the end, there are many ways to slice the cake, but in the end the cake is the cake - which is the results, the stats that we can all look up...which is, in a way, the way that the "multiple talents" (ingredients) come together, are "baked" into the resulting "cake." And in the end, Rafael Nadal is one of the most talented players in the history of the sport. To say otherwise is to fall into the trap of my colleague above, and look at "talent" in a very narrow way - and one that supports one's own personal favorite. My colleague liked to see intelligence as pertaining to ways in which he was intelligent; just so I think some of the folks who like to see talent in a particularly narrow way are doing so because it makes their favorite guy stand out more and, consequently, the "enemy" look worse. I won't mention any names .

The point being, there are many ingredients into what makes a player a player, and every player has their own unique profile. But in the end, all we can do is judge them by their results.