While watching the Olympics late last night, I started pondering who are the most conditioned athletes?  Michael Phelps will certainly go down as the most decorated Olympian of all time.  In watching him swim so fast and so effortlessly, you know he is superbly conditioned.  He also is mentally tough.  I watched beach volleyball, and yes they are great athletes but superb conditioning and mental toughness?  I'm not so sure.  The gymnasts - well I certainly couldn't perform those type of vaults, flips and landings.  I watched one girl land with a bum ankle and asked my husband, how in the heck could she do that with bad ankle.  His comment was that it was only one landing.  She can suck it up and then she is done performing.  One and done.

That brings me back to the tennis athlete.  I've watched my fair share of tennis stars at the Indianapolis Tennis Championships, US Open and other ATP events and I'm still amazed at the type of athletes these guys have to be. The matches can be long, you have no coach, breaks are limited and don't last but more than a minute or so, the surface changes, the conditions can be difficult.

For a Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal to be tops in the game, they have to be able to master very different playing surfaces and compete in sometimes difficult conditions.  At the Indianapolis Tennis Championships this year, the court surfaces reached temperatures in excess of 110 degrees.  It was hot out there.  Those guys chased down balls, served, hit the ball as hard as they could for sometimes two hours or more.  They got several breaks, for a minute or two and no coaching.  They had no teammates cheering them on or sharing the load.  They were out there by themselves competing against their opponent, the elements and sometimes the crowd.  Talk about mental toughness.  I walked out on the tennis court and couldn't wait to get back into the air conditioning and my bottle of Evian water.

So here is the stumper - name me a sport which only involves one athlete who competes for upwards of two hours without coaching or any support staff.  No timeouts, no prolonged breaks, no coasting - just all out hustle, determination and athleticsm.