Winning Tennis Matches. What Does it Take?
By Ray Brown, Anske Venter, and Jana van der Walt
Tennis players can be conveniently classified into
three groups:
(1) those who love the battle of match play
(2) those who see the match as a life-or-death situation. The second
class, life-or-deathers, refers to those who see the outcome of
a match as so important that they begin to fear playing. Various
reasons apply. One reason is that they fear what others will think
of them if they lose. Another is a misplaced belief that they should
always win. Still another is that they feel that they must win in
a special way, such as not being a pusher. And still another is
that the do not believe that they should defeat a particular person.
(3) A third category is possible but not interesting: A mismatch
in skills. We will not consider this category. Confining our attention
to the first two categories, we note that we recognize that most
people are a combination of these two types of players. But the
classification is convenient for analyzing the scientific basis
of winning and even for designing training programs.
Winning requires three things: Skills, Fitness, and a point-of-view.
Of these three, the point-of-view is the most important. In this
article, we will only deal with point-of-view, or the neuropsychological
factors of winning.
So what are the neuropsychological factors of winning?
The first one that must be addressed is whether a player sees themselves
as a winner, or one who is entitled to win. Clearly, unless you
believe that you are entitled to win, it will be difficult to win.
This point-of-view has gradations. A player may feel entitled to
win against certain players, but not against every player. To be
a champion, one must feet entitled to win against every other player.
One cannot just will themselves to feel entitled to win. Some psychological
barriers to wining may develop early in childhood and persist throughout
one's life. How these perspectives develop is not the subject of
this article. We only bring attention to them to be thorough. Significant
damage to a child's self image may result in their always struggling
with winning. At some point, the struggle may become so burdensome
that they just move on. Such problems are deep rooted and must be
address individually. From this point onward, we only discuss situations
in which such sever psychological barriers do not exist, i.e., the
individual's confidence is in tact and in no need of repair.
The Neuropsychological factors in winning
The primitive brain, or limbic system, is called upon when we feel
unexplainable fears, are nervous, or feel uncertain. The primitive
brain has the ability to modify our behaviour and restrict our range
of possible behaviours when these feeling arise. In particular,
it has the ability to restrict our performance in tennis matches
when we are nervous. When these restrictions occur, we are unable
to execute shots that are routine when on the practice court where
there is no fear. The dynamics of this process is that when we feel
fear, our primitive brain restricts access to the cortex and makes
accessible to us only the most limited actions. This restriction
can eliminate our ability to hit our shots or to perform at the
level we do in practice. Counteracting this fear through distractions
such as watching the ball more closely has often been offered as
a strategy. This may work one or two times, but is not likely to
work in the long run. Also, strategies such as fist pumping and
leg slapping are equally impotent when dealing with the primitive
response to fear. Rather than resort to mind tricks and superficial
rote actions, it is necessary to confront the dynamics of fear head
on if it is to be overcome.
Military training, whereby one learns to survive and prevail in
war, provides the best avenue to gain insights. No fear can be greater
that facing death in combat. As noted earlier, some players see
losing a match just as threatening as dying, or as a matter of life-and-death.
There are three components to surviving a life-or-death situation:
Training, habituating to the life-or-death environment, and being
able and willing to adapt to surviving in any manner possible. Each
of these has an analog in tennis training. The training aspect is
easily explained: One must be willing to seek perfection in their
skills. This means devoting hours to perfecting each situation and
stroke combination. For example, to perfect the consistency strategy,
one must first be able to sustain long, uniform rallies in the short
court. How well you perfect this rally will determine how well you
rally in general in a diverse range of situations. It is roughly
four times harder to rally from the mid court than from the short
court, and still much harder to rally from the baseline than the
mid court. if your short court rally is not excellent, there are
flaws in your technique, movement, conditioning, and footwork that
must be fixed. A lack of willingness to perfect each rally in each
court range is a common personality trait, and one that can be the
source of losing. It further reflects a point-of-view that does
not appreciate to power of discipline in pursuit of one's goals.
It is common for soldiers who have recovered from behind enemy lines,
to say that what saved them was their discipline.
Habituation (the process of getting used to an environment) to the
life-or-death environment is roughly equivalent to habituating to
match play. We have a specific process to achieve habituation. We
begin by recognizing that mot of the problem in getting use to an
environment is knowing what to expect, and having an orderly view
of how to function within that environment. When a child goes back
to school at the end of the summer, they are faced with a new environment
(the next grade) and have little idea as to what is expected of
them, and what they must do to succeed. The first day of school
of each new-year is a day of tension (we set aside the joy of the
reunion with old friends as the tension issue is our subject). One
habituates to the new environment by obtaining data from direct
experience. Supporting the acquisition of data is the knowledge
of how to use it. Hence habituation is a two-part process in tennis.
Playing matches in order to discover what the environment is like,
and having the knowledge to cope with the environment. There is
no substitute for playing matches to gather data about the environment.
However, based on the long history of tennis, one can have a good
knowledge of strategy and tactics to aid them in approaching the
environment.
Since match play is a complex process we divide the habituation
process into several stages. The first stage is sparing. This is
where two players put a ball in play without serving and play out
the point without keeping track of the point totals. This allows
the player to get accustom to the most basic aspect of play, wining
the point in the rally. It is important to not initiate sparing
until basic skills are in place or the player’s confidence
and skills will quickly breakdown. The second stage may include
the serve in the sparing session. Following successful habituation
in sparing, we add score keeping. Playing eleven or 21 points is
common. Dividing this activity into playing without serving and
playing with serving is to be recommended. This aids in identifying
the problems that occur as a direct result of serving since habituating
to serving is an important element in its own right.
The next stage is to play a single set. Many problems can be identified
that need to be addressed in isolation of the match in the single
set competition. Following this, is match play within the training
environment, and after this, tournament play. Tournament play adds
the element of playing in an unfamiliar environment and, usually,
against a stranger.
The third component has the most psychological baggage associated
with it, being willing to adapt in order to win in any manner possible.
The lowest end strategy of this component is captured in the metaphor
"being willing to win ugly". Being willing to win ugly,
or by any means possible, will provide a foundation for winning
in general. When faced with a new environment, it is not uncommon
for a player to "forget" key elements of their skill set.
For example, their flat forehand may simply vanish. IN this case,
the player must have the ability to find a way to win without one
of their basic tools. This speaks to adaptability and the willingness
to do what it takes to win. Rigid or stubborn personalities usually
fail at this point and become stuck in a rut of losing. Even the
best players have days in which something does not work. There are
deep-seated neuropsychological reasons for this that you cannot
change by simply trying to see the seam on the ball. The player
must be able to adapt, or lose. In the military environment this
means adapt or die. A personality that cannot adapt to using the
tools that are working on a specific day is a dead end player.
Learning to win with fear, self-doubt, and insecurities
You will never be free from fear, self-doubt, and insecurity. It
is simply a matter of degree. I remember when I wan first learning
to sky dive in the 70's that I asked a veteran skydiver if there
was a point at which the fear just vanished never to return. His
answer was that there will always be days on which you have a difficult
jump. In short, fear never leaves permanently. You will always have
a match in which you feel fear, self doubt or insecure no matter
how many matches you have played. With experience, these days will
become fewer, but will not vanish altogether. You must learn to
live with this. The question is "how?” Knowing yourself
(i.e., who you are) is the first line of defence against fear. This
is a complex topic that will require a separate article but in short,
you must know what are your greatest fears in life (because the
match can be a metaphor for those fears) and you must have respect
for every player, no matter what you may be tempted to think of
them on or off the court. Being able to face your greatest fears
in life is essential, and having respect for everyone is essential.
Failure to have either of these personality traits can inhibit your
ability to win, regardless of your talent level. In short, you will
never achieve all that you are capable of without these two traits.
Self doubt usually stems from facts. You will certainly doubt your
ability to win if you have not developed sufficient skills to win.
There are also deep-seated psychological sources of self-doubt that
are the subject of another article. Insecurity is also often rooted
in early childhood experience or other traumatic experiences. For
some, this can be as simple as the loss of a love relationship.
A tennis match, by its nature, can become a metaphor for anything
in your life. When this happens, being able to understand it and
understand and accept yourself will be important in winning.
Winning is both a joy and a burden.
As mentioned above, one thing that must be settled in your mind
is whether you are willing to win regardless of how it looks to
others. If you require yourself to win in a particular way, you
may never win. I have known players who were just not willing to
win by pushing or persistence. This point-of-view is a dead-end
and must be avoided. You must be willing to find a way to win, no
matter what your friends think or what you imagine others are saying
about you. This is a personality trait. In short, you must be unaffected
by the opinions of others.
Willing to win has another facet. Can you accept the responsibility
of being a winner? Your self-image, health, and sense of responsibility
may all play a role in being a winner. If you are overly concerned
with the feelings of your opponent if you beat them, you may find
yourself losing. You must understand that their feelings are not
your responsibility. On the other hand, being a winner carries the
responsibility of being a role model. Many players are so callous
that they ignore this responsibility. There are many examples in
all sports. However, you may be sure that athletes who do not acknowledge
and embrace this responsibility will never achieve their full potential.
Ignoring this responsibility goes against the grain of natural selection
in its most primitive form as well as against the moral principles
by which most humans are raised. To be a winner, in short, it is
best to avoid being a spoiled brat and it is best to accept the
responsibility of being a leader and role model.
We have very active Imaginations.
Every new player provides us with an opportunity to use our imagination
to fear them. The most common activity is to imagine that our opponents
are superior without having any knowledge about them. Another common
fallacy is to assume that if they hit one good shot, they can do
it again. Assuming your opponent is superior when you have no facts
to support this is in some respect an egotistical point-of-view.
Where did you get your knowledge? What is your basis for thinking
such thoughts? How is it that your are qualified to make craw such
conclusions. Keeping an open mind in the presence of unknowns is
essential for winning play.
Just as a match can be a metaphor for any aspect of life, so can
your opponent. In a recent tournament when my player, Anske Venter,
went to check in I was watching her opponent who was sitting near
the tournament desk. I could see fear in her eyes as she watched
Anske sign in. I knew at that moment that Anske had won the match.
Of course I did not share this insight with her. What unfolded in
the match was instructive. Anske won easily even though her opponent
was had very good skills and it should have been a closer match.
The match was, most likely, lopsided in Anske's favour simply because
her opponent saw Anske as a metaphor in her life.
Now to the matter of your opponent hitting one good shot. There
is a curious phenomena in humans that goes like this. If they hit
one good shot, the history of that shot affects how they perform
the next time the opportunity to hit the same shot again arises.
This can be sufficient to disrupt the motor program required t o
hit the shot and result in a miss hit the second time around. The
moral of the story is never assume that your opponent can hit the
same great shot twice.
Our perceptions of the opinions of others and the expectations
we have of ourselves can make us fearful.
By placing inconsistent demands on ourselves, we may create pressures
that we cannot bear. If you go into a match assuming that your parents
expect you to win, you may lose quickly. Our expectations of ourselves
must be balanced and in line with the natural principles of the
human development and learning process. Assuming you should win
a particular match requires a vast knowledge of many complex facts
that no human possesses. You simply cannot assume anything. Match
play is an empirical event. The facts will be known at the end of
the match, not at the beginning. If you find yourself believing
that you should win, it is time for a little reflection on your
point-of-view. Having unreasonable expectations can make being on
the court very unpleasant, so much so that you just won't want to
be there.
The reality of match play.
Tennis is an eye-to-eye combative sport. In general, you must be
ready to battle your opponent to the bitter end if you want to win.
Also, it is well known that match play is very different from practice.
This is because the personality traits needed to enjoy practicing
are far different from those needed to win. As we stated above,
knowing yourself plays a significant role is winning. Facts, not
our imagination, are needed to understand the environment of match
play, and lastly, match play can become, at any time, a metaphor
for a past or present life experience.
Who you are, your commitment to discipline, your belief in yourself,
your respect for others, your willingness to accept the responsibility
that comes with winning will all play a part in achieving the status
of a winner.
We would like to thank the team at easitennis.com for this article and recommend you have a look around their site.
