Tennis Psychology (Part 2)
Posted on July 17, 2009
Filed Under Tennis
The hard-hitting, erratic, net-rushing tennis-player is a person of impulse. There is no real strategy to his/her attack, no comprehension of your game. He will make brilliant coups on the spur of the moment, mostly by instinct; but there is no, mental power of consistent thinking. It is an fascinating type of character.
The most dangerous player is the one who mixes his/her strategy from back to fore court at the direction of an ever-active mind. This/her is the player to study and learn from. He is a player with a definite purpose. A player who has an answer to every query you present him in your game. He is the most subtle antagonist in the world of tennis. He is from the school of Brookes. Second only to him is the player of slavish determination that fixes his/her mind on one plan and sticks to it, bitterly, fiercely battling to the end, with no thought of changing.
He is the player whose psychology is rather easy to work out, but whose mental viewpoint is hard to upset, for he never permits himself to think about anything except the business at hand. This/her player is your Johnston or your Wilding. I respect the intelligence of Brookes more, but I admire the determination of Johnston.
Pick out your sort from your own mental processes, and then plan your game along the lines best suited to you. When two men are in the same class as regards stroke and equipment, the determining factor in any given match is the mental viewpoint. Luck, so-called, is often seizing the psychological advantage of a change of flow in the game, and turning it to your own account. We hear a lot about the “shots players have made.” Few understand the importance of the “shots players have missed.”
The psychology of missing shots is just as vital as that of making them, and at times a miss by an inch is of more value than a return that is killed by your opponent. Let me explain. A player drives you far out of court with an angle-shot. You run hard to it, and getting there, drive it hard and fast down the side-line, missing it by an inch. Your opponent is surprised and shaken, realizing that your shot might just as well have gone in as out. He will expect you to attempt it again and he will not take the risk next time. He will try to play the ball, and may make an error. You have thus stolen some of your opponent’s confidence, and increased his/her chance of error: all this by a miss.
However, if you had merely tapped back that ball, and it had been killed, your opponent would have felt even more confident of your inability to put the ball out of his/her reach, while you would only have been winded to no avail.
Let’s suppose that you had made that shot down the sideline. It was a seemingly impossible achievement. First it amounts to TWO points, because it stole one away from your opponent that should have been his/her and gave you one that you ought never to have had. Second it also worries your opponent, as he feels that he has lost a big chance.
The psychology of a tennis match is very interesting, but readily understood. Both men start with equal chances. Once one player establishes a real lead, his/her confidence goes up, while his/her opponent worries, and his/her mental viewpoint becomes weaker. The sole objective of the first player is to hold his/her lead, thus maintaining his/her confidence.
If the second player pulls even or draws ahead, the inevitable reaction is an even more drastic contrast in psychology. There is the natural confidence of the leader, but boosted by the great stimulus of having turned a seemingly sure-fire defeat into a probable victory. The situation of the other player is the reverse. He is likely to lose confidence and play worse. The collapse of his game plan soon follows.
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