Is anyone a tennis player as well as a triathlete?

I played tennis since I was a kid. 

Before starting to tri, I joined my company's "tennis league" and played an 2-3 times a week.  Sort of stopped playing now.  Wasn't really serious in the first place.  People at work didn't want to play with me coz I suck. 

I've never been too serious about Tennis - this is, until my son started playing a couple of years ago.  Now we are both very evenly matched (yea, I know, he's only twelve) and we really enjoy playing.  Only downside is I like to workout in the morning, and get home around 10:00 on weekends - just when he has gotten up, had breakfast, and is ready to go play.   I found that I can still play up to around a 15 mile run, after that I forfeit, and agree to play another day.  The worst is when he hits me up after a brick, like last weekend - did a 54 mile hill bike ride, then a 5 mile run - and he wants to play afterwards.  I played, but warned him before hand that I was not going to move - so he if he didn't hit it to me I just let it go - and he killed me every set!!!

I don't think I have any answers for you - but good luck!!! 

Dennis

I was a 4.5-5.0 level player too. The times I have played in the last couple of years (also, the time I've spent training for triathlons), I've noticed I've lost a lot of quickness.

I've put tennis on the back-burner for a while to focus on improving in tris. Doublej has a good analogy about a triathlete's level of competiveness vs tennis level. I feel like I'm a 3.0-3.5 level of triathlete.

I played tennis 3-4 x per week until I started training for tri's.  I have to admit, I've found it hard to train AND play, especially since tennis takes so dag-gone long!  I am now just playing seriously (USTA, Lunch League for fun) in the Fall and Spring when my husband's at work and my kids are in school and play when I want in the Summer and Winter, so my training/playing time is minimal. 

Make sure you have REALLY GOOD running shoes.  I try to swim or bike on the days I have a match because I got really whooped when I ran and had a match on the same day. 

Good luck w/ your tri training and tennis, and most of all, HAVE FUN! 

I'm still a young 30 year old guy that used to play 3.5 tennis.  The biggest problem I've faced with mixing the two sports is speed.  I now watch balls go by me and think in my head (like people in their 40's-50's say) I could have had that ball a few years back.  My ability to two-step and change direction has gone to hell.  My tennis game used to be all about serve and volley to the net but now when I try that I get passed all day long.

If you want to be good at the Tri's and Tennis I would suggest making sure your style of tennis play is all about ball placement/control.  I've seen some of the worst 5.5 sloppy playing but the player knew what type of spin to use with percise placement and they would always win.  So if you can imagine your game looking like one of those old timers that have the funkiest looking hits but nail the perfect shot 95% of the time, you should be able to keep your tennis game intact while working on your Tri's.