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The Art of Winning

This is the fifth of five columns analyzing the Do You Think Like a Winner?: Competitors' Questionnaire for measuring the psychological dimension of your tennis game.

As you design your personal journey through our tennis library, studying the information on groundstrokes, court positioning, shot selection and more, there remains the element of tennis which is entirely "mental." And no matter how well you hit the ball, there always seems to be someone at the club who plays with indifferent strokes, but who always manages to beat you.

There is an art to winning. The art of winning is made of self-confidence, will power, composure, self-control, awareness and adaptability. Previous columns have focused on the first four factors, and here I would like to emphasize the need for awareness and adaptability.

In tennis you cannot stall and run out the clock as you can in football. You still have to win the last point and close out the match. In tennis, unlike basketball, there is rarely a referee, so you must control your emotions while controlling the enforcement of the rules. In tennis, the conditions vary widely, from a serene and wind-protected outer court to a noisy and distracting center court at the club, from a fast hard court to a slow clay court. In tennis, unlike golf, your game is directly influenced by the quality of your opponent's shots. We all know about the players who compete best against the hard hitters but have great difficulty against the soft ballers. All these factors, some uncontrollable, demand that the tennis player be aware and be ready to adapt.

The aware player must quietly count the opponent's errors and tendencies, must know exactly why he is losing or winning. Then and only then can the winner continue to impose their game against the opponent, and equally can the loser determine to change some aspect of his losing game to have a chance to turn around the match. Winning players learn as they play their matches. This is not necessarily knowledge that is conscious or readily expressible in the heat of the match, but it can dramatically influence the outcome of the match.

Hit Winners or Force Errors?

With this in mind, is it better to play a game that consists of hitting winners or a game that relies on forcing the opponent into errors? From this corner, I favor the latter, that is, a game that forces the opponent to miss. Why? Because, for example, if my opponent takes the net and I go for a screaming winning passing shot, only one of two things happen. I hit a winner or I miss. In neither instance do I learn anything about the opponent. The alternative strategy is when the opponent first takes the net, I attempt a higher percentage shot, hoping to force an error. The final conclusion of the point is the same: I either win or lost the point. But in this instance, because I've forced my opponent to play, I've learned something about his strengths and weaknesses, knowledge which I can use on all future points.

A good example of how this works was Chris Evert's victory over Hana Mandlikova in the 1982 US Open. After a long and furious rally, Hana missed on a running forehand that Chrissie had angled wide and low. On the very next point Chris crafted the same shot sequence, and again forced an error from Hana. The next point the same sequence again. And now Hana felt, as we have all felt at one time or another, that she was having a bad day. And, as she thought it, it came true. Chrissie learned something crucial with that angled shot to Hana's forehand, and she used that knowledge to physically and mentally crush her (Evert won 6-3, 6-1).

So because of the give and take of tennis, the influence of the opponent on our game, the lack of a clock or referee, the winner must truly be observant and in control as the game develops. If this makes sense, then rehearse the following affirmation -"Winners force errors."

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