Tennis-loving swim star Cate Campbell on the gruelling training required to reach the elite level in sport

If you’re out of practice, tennis can be tough for even the finest players. With the summer of tennis just around the corner, Aussie swim legend Cate Campbell picked up the racquet for the first time in years. Here’s what she learned.

It’s one of sports greatest ironies; the mark of a true master is effortlessness.

The ability to make an incredibly difficult activity look like anybody could master it.

This fact became brutally evident to me when, inspired by the summer of tennis, I decided to dust of my old racquet and tennis balls and hit the courts.

Cate Campbell is one of Australia’s great swimmers. Picture: AFP

I quickly encountered the great paradox of tennis: the court is both too big and too small at the same time. Too big when it comes to trying to get to the ball, and too small when trying to hit the ball within the lines.

Combine that with the blazing sun, more air swings than I care to count and the inability to get my serve either over the net or into the correct service box and forty-five minutes into my tennis experience, frustrations were running at an all-time high.

How could they make it look so easy? Surely it’s not actually this hard? I must be missing something (apart from the balls).

I battled through for another fifteen minutes, but once it ticked over to the hour mark, just like all my balls, my patience was out.

Marcos Baghdatis has been known to smash the odd racquet … or four.

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I offered a few choice swear words, seriously considered smashing my racket – I have never identified with Marcos Baghdatis more – finally conceded defeat and slunk back home.

This seeming effortlessness with which a tennis player can place a 200km/h serve into the

corner of the service box is a trait shared with every great sports person.

Think of LeBron James floating through the air on his way to a perfect slam dunk; Michael Phelps; perfect dolphin kicks off a wall; the satisfying ‘swoosh’ of Tiger Woods’ golf swing, or Usain Bolt’s carefree grin as he lopes over the finish line.

The list could go on and on.

These masters make so few errors, that they make it easy for us to criticise them when they do.

Excellence becomes the norm and therefore mistakes become glaringly obvious. Yet hidden beneath that ease, are years of gruelling and relentless training.

That night as I sat on my couch watching the Sydney ATP tournament, nursing sunburn, blistered hands and a bruised ego, I had a whole new level of respect for the athletes on my screen.

As I watched the athletes stretch to reach the ball, I had a greater appreciation for the skill it took to execute those shots.

And, most importantly, when I saw a player make a mistake, instead of ridicule, I had compassion.

A lesson I’ll remember next time I’m tempted to shout at Steve Smith for falling for Wagner’s trap – again.