Mental Toughness
Be Wary of Hidden Fear
There is always some fear involved in closely contested
tennis matches. And because it often lurks unseen beneath the level of conscious
thought, fear can cause a great deal of trouble. In fact, whenever
you see a player do something irrational on court which obviously hurts
his chances of winning the match, you are probably observing hidden fear
in action.
A good example occurred a few years ago when I was coaching
the Pepperdine team at the league championship tournament. Two of my players,
Mike and Tom, met in the quarter-finals, and their positions in the team
line-up hinged on the outcome of the match. It was particularly tense since
only six people get to play singles and the loser would be #7, thereby relegating
himself to the bench in the next dual match. Mike felt special pressure
because he had had a bad year and this was his big chance to prove himself.
They battled furiously for over three hours under a broiling
sun. Tom served unsuccessfully for the match at the end of the second set,
and Mike faltered when he served at 5-4 in the third. As fate would have
it, they ended up in a tie-breaker. Mike, who was having sporadic trouble
with his serve throughout the set, hit two double faults in the breaker
to end up trailing 2-5 with his own serve to follow. At this crucial stage
(behind but by no means beaten), Mike became so upset over his serving that
he opted to serve underhand for the rest of the match! On
the final two points, Tom knocked off one easy serve with his return and
Mike double faulted. What a disastrous and foolhardy way to throw away three
hours of hard work!
The decision to serve underhand appeared reasonable to
Mike in the instant he made it. "I was double faulting with my regular
serve," he told me afterward, "what else could I do?" But
to a reasonable outsider, it was obviously crazy since there was no chance
at all of winning the match once Mike began serving underhand. So why did
he make such an irrational decision?
He did it because the tremendous stress of the situation,
coupled with the fear that he was going to lose the match, made Mike want
to escape. So he took the easy way out and
quit. Mike didn't want to try anymore since he was deathly afraid he was
going to lose despite any efforts he might make. He was choking and
he was afraid of his own weakness. He wanted to blame the loss on
something besides himself, so he separated his serve from the rest of his
being and blamed the loss on it. He didn't lose, his
serve let him down. He didn't want to face the fact
that there was nothing wrong with his serve other than the quavering hand
that was swinging the racquet. And most of all, he did not want to admit
any of these unpleasant facts to himself.
Unconscious fear comes in a thousand disguises and works
by distorting the facts of the situation. It makes problems swell out of
all proportion to reality. Real but minor difficulties appear insurmountable.
The bad call, for instance, can make an insecure competitor stop trying.
"Let the cheater have the match if he wants it that badly"
is the rationalization for throwing in the towel. But this is obviously
no reason to quit. If you are angry at your opponent for cheating you, the
rational response is to try harder to win the match so you can teach the
cheater a lesson. Tanking just gives him what he wants.
The real problem is that the insecure competitor
fears that he will lose the match in any case.
When he gets cheated and becomes angry at his opponent, he really wants
to win the match even more. But he subconsciously knows that the more
he wants to win and the harder he tries, the more agonizing it will be if
he loses. In fact, he really wants to win too much
and dares not risk the agony of fighting to the end and losing. The safe
way for him to escape this painful dilemma is to claim he does not want
to win any more and quit. That way he can't lose.
And this same underlying fear can magnify your problems
when your favorite racquet breaks, you have a sore muscle, or the guy on
the next court is talking too loud. Yes you have a problem. But if
you habitually get emotional and help your problem overwhelm you rather
than simply staying cool and trying to solve it, you will end up a habitual
loser.
Psychologists call these kinds of perceptual distortions
"defense mechanisms." They act at an unconscious level to shield
us from facts which we have difficulty accepting at a conscious level. But
no one is obliged to suffer indefinitely from these runaway defense mechanisms.
Anyone can become a more effective competitor by keeping a few simple ideas
in mind.
The first is that forewarned is forearmed. Once you know
that fear of losing underlies most maladaptive behavior on court, you can
be on the lookout for it. Fear is able to work its poison only because
it comes in various disguises and we are unaware of it. If you accept
crazy, fear-driven thoughts as real, you are in trouble. Stay vigilant and
reject maladaptive ideas.
Then follow the number one rule of the successful competitor:
NEVER DO ANYTHING ON COURT THAT DOES NOT HELP YOU WIN THE MATCH.
It almost seems too simple. But if you could always abide by this rule,
you would automatically avoid most competitive pitfalls. When you are getting
emotional during a match, take a second to ask yourself whether the thoughts
you are having or the actions you are planning will help you win. If they
won't, make an effort to change them to thoughts or actions that will.
And finally, remember that no one cares why you lose
a match. So don't waste your mental energy
during match play thinking about the good reasons you have for losing. Real
as they may be, your coaches and friends will just get bored listening to
excuses. Use your energy to solve your problems and figure out ways to win.
Send email to the author
We encourage you to email your comments (pro, con, appreciative, whatever)
directly to the author. To send email to Allen Fox, click
here.
Allen Fox has had an illustrious tennis career, including
being ranked among the top ten U.S. players for five years and being a
member of the U.S. Davis Cup team three times. He was the tennis coach at
Peperdine University for many years (now retired) and among his many tennis
credentials, he is the author of two books on tennis psychology (he has
a Ph.D in Psychology from U.C.L.A.) and strategy:
- "If I'm the Better Player, Why Can't I win?
- "Think to Win"
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