What makes you support a player?

Between talent and hard work, why should it be talent?
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Simple. A bit of thinking can provide an answer to that. Talent is a deeper expression of the personality than hard work. I'll explain. Talent is a quality you are born with. Is it just luck? No. Whether you believe in reincarnation or Darwinism, it's something transmitted from previous lives whether it's yours lives (reincarnation) or your ancestors (Darwin) we will never know but a bit like a tree, every fruit has something in common with the branches and the trunk and apple trees don't grow oranges. It was passed on to us by your ancestors.

And to push the reasoning further it was something our ancestors acquired through hard work and perseverence over many generations. The agility of a sheetah or the long neck of a giraffe did not appear suddenly but is the result of a will/need to catch the fastest prays or eat the best leaves on top of thees.

In tennis talent has something to do with something very deep in ourselves. Whereas hard work is more something of the present. You can't quite control. The egyptians or Italians were extremely hard workers while the Germans were pretty relaxed, now it's the other way around.

A hard worker will get tired, a talent is incrusted deeper in personalities.

And in that respect there is something funny Nadal says in his book. Federer is born to play tennis. He wasn't. However he, his team and the tennis world made up for it...what they made up for it up for discussions.

And another extremely important point I omitted when supporting a player is that I always support players who take their destinity in their hands.

In short accepting to take the risk to pull a winner or an UE. This is a "faith" act. Players with talent fancy taking this risk to be aggressive and take their destiny in their hands.

A defensive player or retriever is to me like a banker. He knows if his opponent is on form he will be beaten but he knows that with hard work and less brio he will win more time than not against most players. A banker knows that all the money he lends won't be paid back but he is still milking $$ millions of interest money on most of us.

So to link my 2 posts togethers, the talent player is the artist and the retriever the banker spending long hours thinking how to exploit the artists out there. The richest bankers of this world pay fortunes for the paintings of those artists (Van Gogh, Gaugin, Monnet...) who never saw a penny of it in their life time.

You make good points rotla and this in particular:
"Such fans will give "style of play" as a reason, but it's nothing but incorrect. You'll notice that the same fans won't support another player who will employ similar style of play. "

However you may start as a Nadal fan and over the years become more a fan of tennis. They will remain a fan of Nadal but then start to appreciate traits in players they could not quite appreciate at first (talent).

I would have never been a fan of Borg had I been older when he was successful. I am still a huge fan of Borg now cause I was madly passionate about the player then and I certainly understand those who can be fans of Nadal for the same reasons.

It's just the arguing with them that is difficult for us cause they typically don't know why they like Nadal tennis wise but they can certainly talk about charisma, fun, energetic and dynamic, look etc....

Rotla wrote:

How would you measure who works harder for his win? Do you want to suggest that Federer with his immense talent doesn't have to work hard for his wins?....
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No, based on what I know I suspect Federer is a very hard worker. But that was not the point of my argument - I was not saying it had to be either talent or hard work. I was just asking that - in the cases where we were to choose between the one and the other - why should it be talent rather than hard work.

rotla wrote:

This perception of mine hasn't come overnight. Its years of debating and arguing and looking at Nadal fan's posts on internet has created it.
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I think we may need to drop this debate soon. I am not a Nadal fan so I am not best equipped to argue here as I agree with a lot of what you say. Certainly I agree that not only do Nadal fans tend to be a small minority on tennis forums, but those who are there do tend to fit the pattern you describe - specifically they seem to care more about him as a person than about the way he play tennis.

For the record, I do not think there is anything wrong with that. However, it is true that there would be relatively few points that those fans and I could discuss with mutual interest.

I still stand by my "I do not think that being a Nadal fan disqualifies a person as a fan of tennis". So if what you are saying you mean as a generalization that is mostly true, then I agree with you. But if you mean it as an absolute statement where there can be no exceptions then I do not.

As I said, probably not much point going much further down this road because I also am not a fan of Rafa's tennis so I will not make a very good defender of his fans.

Tenez wrote:

Simple. A bit of thinking can provide an answer to that........
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Interesting post. It is so unlike how I think about it that I do not really have much thoughts to provide on the subject. I will keep it in mind and maybe over time I might come back with a meaningful response.

For now, I will just say that I am pretty sure this is not how it works for me. As I said yesterday, I am not quite sure how I get to root for players. However, even though there are exceptions that do not fit the pattern, I think by and large I am driven to a certain style of game. I do not think it matters to me much how a player gets to play the style they play.

For example, if all of a sudden I found out that Federer was not a top-flight talent but he got to play the game he plays mostly through overcoming the lack of talent through hard work, I would not like his game less because of that.

Of course, it is likely true that certain game styles are more fitting to certain talent sets, so there will be a large correlation between the two, but to the extent they diverge, I think it is more the game style than talent that matters to me.

Interesting posts Tenez, SB. Nice thread.

@SB
For example, if all of a sudden I found out that Federer was not a top-flight talent but he got to play the game he plays mostly through overcoming the lack of talent through hard work,
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This won't happen to you if you are sure about your tennis. Look how clear Tenez is about his choice and reasoning. No surprises he happens to be such an important poster on every tennis forum he goes.

@tenez

I would have never been a fan of Borg had I been older when he was successful. I am still a huge fan of Borg now cause I was madly passionate about the player then and I certainly understand those who can be fans of Nadal for the same reasons.
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Good honest post . Very understandable.

Thanks rotla!

I was aware that when I wrote the reasons of why I support talented players, not many were going to "follow" me really. Those are reasons one is not really aware until one asks oneself the question.