Tennis served role for Greinke and Rosen
Sport helped stars grow mentally, physically
When Zack Greinke paints the strike zone, his pitches are thrown with careful, thoughtful precision and with a melodic mixture of speeds. When Josh Rosen slides out of impending danger in the pocket, his side-to-side lateral movement is virtually impeccable.
They might play different sports, hail from opposite ends of the country and be separated in age by nearly 14 years, but Greinke, the veteran ace for the Diamondbacks, and Rosen, the rookie quarterback for the Cardinals, have something in common.
They were pre-teen tennis protégés, and the time, focus and energy they poured into that sport may have a lot to do with where they are now.
“I think in some ways it’s probably helped both of us, yeah,” said Greinke, a four-time All-Star and former Cy Young Award winner. “I mean, there’s no way I know the exact answer, that’s for sure. But there’s a lot you learn from playing tennis that can kind of carry over.” Rosen doesn’t doubt it.
“I think physically it helped a lot,” said Rosen, the 10th overall pick in this year’s NFL draft. “Probably having quick feet and having to move all kinds of directions very suddenly, sort of almost subcon-
sciously, it helps make you just react and not think too much.”
Greinke was 8 when he was the talk of Orlando on the junior tennis circuit. Several years later, a 12-year-old Rosen ruled Manhattan Beach, Calif., becoming the No. 1-ranked tennis player for his age group in all of Southern California and a top-10 player, nationally.
Tennis taught them many things, from self-reliance to analytical thinking. It was them against a single opponent with no one else to blame if they failed. They learned how to anticipate moves and reaction that was coming their way. But to be the best and continue climbing up the circuit rankings, they had to exhaustively commit themselves to their efforts.
If they didn’t, their highly paid coaches were there to shame them into submission and make them work twice as hard. Protégés don’t get pampered, after all, they get pushed to the limit.
Eventually, it became too much, and Greinke and Rosen soured on the sport. To each, tennis became intolerable.
“Tennis,” Rosen said. “It’s a lonely sport. A very lonely sport.”
For Greinke, the pressure simply got the best of him.
“I used to cry before matches because I would get so scared to lose,” he said. “Guys were getting better and better and after a while, I kind of just had enough. I had to quit playing.”
Fortunately, both had other sports they could turn to. For Greinke, there was golf, basketball and baseball, the latter his main focus. Rosen, meanwhile, started to fall in love with football. By the time they got to high school, their new paths had been set and each were stars in the making.
Greinke, though, had to make a decision. He played multiple positions at Apopka High but dreamed of being a shortstop in the major leagues. According to Cliff Pastornicky, the scout who eventually sold the Kansas City Royals on selecting Greinke at No. 6 overall in the 2002 draft, the former tennis star “could have been a shortstop, a third baseman, a catcher or a pitcher.”
Though Greinke said tennis made him a pretty good switch-hitter, he focused solely on pitching prior to his senior year and the rest is history.
“I think I was a good athlete, regardless, but it’s really about just trying to find the best sport for you,” Greinke said. “I also think you’re just born with certain skills. Working hard at something can get you to a certain level, but there’s just certain skills you’re born with.
“I know Josh Rosen has to be a really good athlete with his family genes and being that good at tennis and being that good at football. It can’t hurt, being as good of a leader and as good of an athlete as he is.”
Rosen’s father was a nationally ranked ice skater and his mother was captain of the Princeton lacrosse team. Neither parent was surprised that their son fell out of love with tennis.
“I was wondering why he was doing it,” Charles Rosen told in the fall of 2016. “He just didn’t enjoy it.”
Though the Cardinals' Rosen says he doesn’t have the time or desire to play tennis these days, he still appreciates some of the things tennis taught him. One of the bigger lessons, he said, was learning how to move on from failure.
“Mentally, even if you win a match in tennis, you lose a ton of points,” he explained. “So just the idea of moving past negatives very quickly, the bad plays, turnovers, anything like that in football, I think I had it ingrained in my head a little bit to just kind of push through and keep moving on to live for another down.”
It was that level of learning that helped Rosen, who is now in his third week of workouts with the Cardinals, become the first true freshman to start at quarterback for the UCLA Bruins in a season opener. After just three years, he left UCLA with the third-most passing yards in school history (9,341), which included a single-season record 3,756 as a junior.
Could Rosen have blossomed as a quarterback without the benefit of having played tennis at such an extraordinarily high level? Of course. Greinke, though, thinks it probably helped Rosen a lot.
“Most people think it helps by playing multiple sports, regardless,” he said. “You know, just kind of having to mentally figure out how to be good at different things. You’re used to figuring out certain problems and that could help as a pitcher, just knowing different angles you have to use.
“It’s the same thing with tennis and quarterback. You’re having to learn how to do different things and it might help you use your mind and work out defenses and see different things before they develop. Who knows? Making awkward throws could be easier, too.”