Mad Max... a.k.a. the Beast

You've got to be impressed with Max Mirnyi a player who is slowly working his way to the top. My professional path crossed Max's when I was based in Hamburg Germany at the Dima Tennis Center. At the time I was in the process of establishing a psychology performance center in the multimillion dollar sports complex and also working with numerous top players including Evgeni Mikeev of Belarus (like Mirnyi) and his coach Ali Yenilmez.

Evgeni was once the pillar of the Belarus Davis Cup team. I also filmed my video PsychoTennis there, a guide to psychological performance enhancement methods. Oddly, Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians comprised most of the actors, players and models in my production which I expect to re-release soon in English. I say oddly because the videotape was done in German, with most of the players and actors having to lip a weird sounding German. After all, no one would have understood Russian.

The Dima center was a hotbed for players from numerous old Soviet Union states and during the German Open each year Medvedev (remember him) and Kafelnikov virtually lived there after matches. They usually spent their time playing computer golf, the kind you play against a full screen and actually hit balls. I had a great time during this period of my life in Europe and both Ali and I as well as Evgeni's sponsor Waldemar expected big things from young Mikeev.

When I first came across Mirnyi, he was far from the most promising player at the center

Unfortunately, the center burnt down mysteriously one night essentially ruining Evgeni's support infrastructure and sponsor arrangement and it was back to Minsk for him. Forgive me for digressing but I wanted to set up Max Mirnyi's grand entry prior to the fire. When he arrived his coach was more famous than him, a guy named Dogolov or something like that, Medvedev's coach during his best years.

At the time Max was lucky to take a set off our guy Evgeni. He never lost to Max. At the time Mirnyi was a big lumbering kind of guy. You'd never have expected him to make the big time even as a doubles player. At any rate not many people were impressed with Mad Max. I say Mad Max because Max never smiled that much and always had sort of a frown on his face. But in reality he was a nice and caring guy, polite, and a very hard worker.

After the fire my life in Europe that had lasted for about 17 years slowly came to an end . I still worked on the circuit for a few more years prior to committing to my Ph.D. research. While on tour I came across Max again. I was very surprised and happy that he was earning a living playing mixed doubles. I thought, good for him. To my astonishment he then climbed the rankings in singles eventually getting straight into most major tournaments. Meanwhile his compatriot Evgeni languished in Minsk, only seeing the big boys Mirnyi and Voitchov come Davis Cup time.

In a nutshell, what Max did was slowly, silently, and surely work on his game in an extremely systematic manner. He obviously set out to maximize his size advantage and hone a devastating serve and volley game. Parallel to working on his technical and tactical game it is also quite apparent that he labored intensely to develop very good footwork and mobility and overall motor coordination. In his match against Kuerten we saw what an incredible athlete he has become. Believe me, that was not always the case. In the Hamburg days he was downright clumsy.

Max played an incredible match and probably would have beaten anyone but Kuerten on that night

Max is a testament to hard work, and as a player, teacher, and coach first (I was certified by the USPTR the first year Van der Meer founded the organization many years before becoming a psychologist), I can only say do what Max did and you'll develop a strong psyche.

Max's self-confidence curve is shooting upwards off the chart. I was amazed to see the composure and motor control he exhibited in his match the other night. He played pattern tennis to perfection and probably would have beaten anyone but Kuerten on that night.

In the October issue of Tennis Magazine I have a brief piece on tactile learning and neuropsychological processes and motor learning in tennis. The crux of the article and a more elaborate piece I have planned for TennisONE is that repetitions are crucial for consolidating technique and tactics in neural and muscle memory. Savvy and experienced teaching pros might say "what's new?" They would be right. However, what is often lacking in the repetition equation is reaching the required threshold to achieve consolidation and the assurance that a student's or player's technique will not break down.

To insure this you must document the learning process and monitor consolidation using neuropsychological techniques. Anyway, without having seen Max work beyond those days in Hamburg, I suspect that without knowing it, he serendipitously trained in such a manner that consolidation occurred. During that process he developed or enhanced neural motor pathways and overwrote faulty ones to arrive at a physical and technical level that would not have been predicted.

Max should be an inspiration to any player who thinks that they are not good enough. Believe me, 6 years ago Max was not good enough. What he has achieved is remarkable and I think he won't stop here. Look for him to reach the top 15-20 in the near future. You too can improve dramatically. More later on how in the instructional article I alluded to above.

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Dr. Roland A. Carlstedt has followed the professional tennis tours since 1985, fulltime from 1989-1998 in which he on average attended 25 tournaments a year including all Grand Slam events and important Davis Cup ties. During this time he complied perhaps the most extensive database in existence on the psychological performance, tendencies, and profiles of most ATP and WTA players. His annual Psychological World Rankings for Tennis have been published since 1991 more than 500 times in over 40 countries. His rankings and data are based on his Psychological Observation System for Tennis. Interestingly his 2000 rankings which were released prior to the 2001 Australian Open had 2 of 4 semifinalists and 8 of 16 quarterfinalists on them including such unlikely players as Arnaud Clement and Sebastian Grossjean. His 2001 rankings will appear in TennisONE at the end of the year.

Last Updated 9/4/01. To contact us, please email to: webmaster@tennisone.com