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Jack Sock is having a career year.
Currently ranked 14th in the world – a career high ranking and good enough for American number one – Sock has stretched his game from doubles specialist to future singles top five candidate.
After losing in the finals of three events last year, he has thus far already notched up two wins this year, and many have tipped the Nebraska native to feature deep into Roland Garros, giving his impressive all court play style.
Likened to Rafael Nadal for his heavy topspin forehands and ability to take his game successfully from clay to grass to hard-court, Sock is no doubt the most promising young Yank on tour right now.
He is the only player in the world currently ranked inside the top 20 in both singles and doubles.
But as he descends upon the top 10, perhaps Sock should begin to heed the warnings of the Spaniard he so idolises.
Believe it or not, Nadal is only six years older than Sock, yet it seems he has been around since the dawn of time.
This is in part because Nadal made his debut on tour a staggering ten years before Sock, but also because the 30-year-old has suffered from a careers’ worth of debilitating injuries that will probably cut his legendary campaign years short.
Nadal’s problems are largely brought on by the furious intensity with which he plies his trade, comparable only to a few other athletes to have ever lived, such as Michael Jordan and Ray Lewis.
Socks’ style, while not nearly as extreme, has drawn its criticisms, in particular his aggressive left foot slide, which at one stage drew blood during Indian Wells in 2015.
Critics have been concerned of its’ debilitating effect on his feet and knees, noting that all it takes is one awkward slide for it all to go wrong.
But where Socks’ main censures lie are not with how he plays his tennis, more how frequently he plays it.
Over the past month, Sock has played both the singles and doubles in the Miami Masters (reaching the quarter finals and final respectively), then flew out to Australia for a Davis Cup tie, then back to the United States for the Houston Open.
That is a lot of travel for a player who is very much only in his tennis infancy, and it is starting to take its toll.
Coming out heavily the favourite against the vastly inexperienced Jordan Thompson in the Davis Cup tie, Sock was shocked in four by the Australian. It didn’t end there either.
While his loss in the semi-finals to compatriot Steve Johnson at the US Clay Court Championships this week can hardly be labeled a disgrace, Socks’ previous success at the event (2015 champion) and clay court proficiency made for a pretty convincing favourite.
But after starting fast, the number one seed faded, and his legs become heavier through carrying around the weight of the amount of tennis he has played this year.
Right now, Sock is a fit 24-year-old, in or close to his athletic prime. His body can take the punishment its’ getting, and it’s good to push yourself to your physical limits.
But later on in one’s career, your workload begins to stack up on itself. Take the warning heeded by NBA teams, who have taken to resting their stars almost every other night on road trips.
Obviously, the workload that comes with being an elite tennis player, singles or doubles, is immense. But the workload that comes with being both? Surely a level that is not sustainable, not for a long time at least.
After all, this is not the 1970s, where players such as Chris Evert and John Newcombe among others dominated easier draws in both games due to their overwhelming talent levels.
These days, there are no easy wins on tour, and ‘time on court’ is becoming every tennis player, coach, analyst and journalists’ favourite new statistic.
Sock is going to rack up a fair amount of that over the next few years, as he attempts to keep his status as both an elite singles and doubles player.
Sooner or later though, there needs to be a time where Sock cuts back his work rate for the sake of his future.
We’ve seen the effects of too much tennis this week. I wonder if it’s set off alarms in Sock’s head.
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