Originally Posted by
tomato coupe
I've played competitive tennis (NTRP 5.0) my whole life and cycled (CAT 3) my whole life. I think the time needed to reach an equivalent level of competency in the two sports is about the same.
I haven't played tennis for 40 yrs but started cycling seriously at the age of 48. I was competitive in my age group within one year and had no problem doing crits with Cat 3s. I think my fitness probably improved for a few years before basically plateauing. After 30 crits most riders should be reasonably comfortable provided they have the base fitness. I suspect it may take longer to be competitive in tennis.
One problem with more technical sports like tennis or ice hockey is that it's tough to put in the same number of training hours as cycling. I've been cycling 500 hrs/yr for over 10 yrs. I started playing ice hockey in my 20s but only played at most 2 games/wk during the winter. I don't know how many hrs/wk a competitive masters tennis play needs to play but I'm guessing it's less than 10 hrs/wk.