What can this man teach us about TENNIS?

Chuck "The Iceman"

Liddell

Ultimate Fighting

Championship Fighter

No, I don't believe Chuck plays tennis, so what can we learn from him to improve?

Back in February of 2008 he was on a radio program called WAIT,WAIT, DON'T TELL ME, a humorous news based program on NPR. I heard him that day being interviewed by Peter Sagal.

Among other things Peter asked him about was does it help to get "worked up" and angry about the person before you go into the ring with him? Chuck said actually no. Paraphrasing here, Chuck says "I'm not an emotional fighter. Emotion CLOUDS YOUR JUDGEMENT, implying it gets harder to problem solve and execute if you get too emotional (and less rational) when you are in battle. http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=19108930 That conversation is at about the 2:10 mark.

You hear that tennis fans? Settle down a bit and think while you are out there. Losing ones cool may have (or may not have) helped some pretty famous tennis players, like McEnroe and Connors in the 70's, and more recently Nadal, Hewitt and The Poster Boy for Tennis TESTOSTERONE-- Gael Monfils. Every time Monfils jumps around the court shouting in glee after winning a big point, I can't help but think all that adrenaline is going to tire him out later in the match, when it wears off. Coupled with that are the emotions that accompany these large outbursts. They have to affect your judgement. Might doesn't always make right in tennis or otherwise you would have people looking like Chuck Liddell winning Wimbledon every year.

Andre Agassi also was interviewed late in his career and he talked about tennis is problem solving. Isn't that the truth. Let's say you are down 2-6, and have a breakpoint at 3-3. Your last 2 break chances you hit both service returns long trying to break serve with a return winner. I don't know, I'm no Einstein but I think instead of again overhitting the return, you might want to try something safer. However, so many people never seem to make any adjustments, or pay attention to learn from their mistakes. Remember that old definition of insanity: Doing the same thing again and again but expecting different results.

I also wrote another post related to this about your tennis hard drive-- see here http://paul-ihearttennis.blogspot.com/2009/02/is-your-tennis-hard-drive-faulty.html if you are interested in this important but often neglected part of the our game, the mental side of tennis.