Playing Relaxed or Playing Tense...

More on the MENTAL Side of Tennis

Here an excerpt from a PGA Tour article about actor Bill Murray and his playing partner D.A. Points who had just won the Pebble Beach golf tournament yesterday. This is Bill Murray speaking:

I think most people playing in a tournament, or in any enterprise, they just get too nervous, but staying loose, I mean, the best people in any profession, the whole thing is about being as relaxed as you can. Michael Jordon is all about being relaxed. He's the greatest there was and couldn't be more relaxed and great actors are the same way. There's almost no tension in them.

About 3 years ago I was playing in a tennis league and I recall feeling nervous as I played this guy in singles that I had never met before. Between the first two sets I recall trying to talk to him someone energetically about stringing as I sensed he (and I) were both a bit nervous, but he more so because it looked like he was playing poorly compared to his ability and this conversation would help break the tension. He said "listen, I will talk to you about whatever after we are done but not right now, sorry."

I continued to play fairly well and he continued to play poorly. Instead of relaxing and playing with a guy he was starting to get to know better, he played worse, against a stranger, a nameless opponent.

When coaching, I would ask my players who were they more relaxed playing against: a teammate or a stranger? A teammate of course. So I put this suggestion out there: during changeovers, talk to the other guy - ask him about his school, how long he's been playing, what other sports he plays - get to know him a bit. This way you begin to develop a relationship and you will be more at ease, more relaxed. And that can lead to better tennis. It doesn't mean that you can't think and concentrate when thinking about a service return, but now it's will be returning a ball from a person you know, not from some scary stranger.

Paying Attention Out There!

Two things.

I am playing the other day and it occurs to me that when I lose a game at love, it's generally 4 points in about 75 seconds. One and two ball rallies typify these games so guess what? When I am down at Love-40, I now try and just keep the ball in play and play a longer point. Since making this adjustment I have begun to win a higher percentage of these games, but it started with PAYING ATTENTION to my game and recognizing a pattern.

Numero dos. I played with a friend last week and I had never played him in singles before, only in doubles. I noticed that when serving on the deuce court, he would clobber his forehand return to me. BUT on the AD court he would actually prefer a backhand to return and would at times run around his forehand. There was something about the angle of the serve, or something else that wouldn't meet his eye about that forehand return that he didn't like. Knowing this led me to serve to him more effectively. So to reiterate and again remind readers, "the unexamined tennis game is not worth playing."

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.