A Tale of Two Faces

A few days ago, Ana Ivanovic lost her 4th round match at the US Open to Victoria (love to shriek) Azarenka.  On multiple occasions, Azarenka played amazing drop shots, resulting generally in Ivanovic arriving a step late to make a decent shot.  It happened twice in a single game.  Ana's response?  SHE SMILED both times!  Yep.  And Ivanovic lost a close, tight three set match.  But she was IN the match!

About two days later, Andy Murray lost his quarterfinal match to Stanislas Warinka.  On more occasions than I care to recall, Andy completely lost it, having more in common with a petulant 4 year old, than a world class athlete.  It was embarrassing to watch.  Oh yeah, he lost too. But he didn't lose, he sucked.  He had as much chance of winning than I have of convincing Miley Cyrus to keep her clothes on.

In lots of sports, it helps to have a bad memory.  You hit a bad putt, throw an interception, miss a volley, fugetaboutit!  To focus on the bad shot only helps your opponent. But in Murray's case, he took it a step further.  To add insult to insult, Murray would scream at himself even when Warinka would hit an amazing winner.  A classy response would be clapping your own racquet, not a tantrum.

I guess the moral of the story is if you are going to lose, keep it classy.  Ivanovic did and almost won.  Murray didn't and got clobbered.  And here's another thought, let's get a Kickstarter campaign going for Andy Murray so this millionaire can get him some psychological help.  I'm serious.

What's Worse Than a Double Fault?

In tennis, there aren't too many things than a double fault. But I can think of one (or two) and that is TWO DOUBLE FAULTS (DF) BACK TO BACK, or just one DF on break-point, set-point or the biggest nightmare, a DF on match-point.

When I coached I would always remind guys that after a DF try EXTRA HARD to get the next serve in. If not, you have just served 3 balls out, what are the odds that the next one is going to go in? The psyche is a fragile thing and confidence in yourself needs to remain high. Don't put yourself in that uncomfortable position. It even happens in the pro game. It's called a meltdown, and it's ugly when it happens to them and ugly if it ever happens to you.

So remember, if you double fault, the next serve, throw in a 75% hard serve, with some extra spin to safely make it over the net (like a second serve) and play the point. Keep your confidence high and don't put extra pressure on yourself. That's your opponents job, just as your job is to put pressure on them.