The hard-hitting, erratic, net-rushing tennis-player is a person of impulse. There is no real strategy to his/her game, no understanding of your game-plan. He will make brilliant coups on the spur of the moment, mostly by instinct; but there is no, no consistent thinking. It is an interesting sort of character.
The really unnerving player is the one who mixes his/her strategy from back to fore court at the direction of an ever-active mind. This/her is the player to study and learn from. He is a player with a definite purpose. A player who has an answer to every query you present him in your game. He is the most subtle antagonist in the world of tennis. He is from the school of Brookes. Second only to him is the player of dogged determination that sets his/her mind on one plan and adheres to it, bitterly, fiercely battling to the end, with no thought of change.
He is the player whose psychology is rather easy to work out, but whose mental standpoint is hard to derail, because he never permits himself to think of anything but the business at hand. This/her player is your Johnston or your Wilding. I respect the intelligence of Brookes more, but I admire the tenacity of purpose of Johnston.
Choose your kind from your own mental processes, and then work out your game along the lines best suited to you. When two men are in the same class as regards stroke, strength and equipment, the determining factor in any match is the mental viewpoint. Luck, so-called, is often just grasping the psychological advantage of a change of flow in the game, and turning it to your own advantage. We hear a great deal about the “shots he has made.” Few understand the importance of the “shots he has missed.”
The science of missing shots is just as vital as that of making them, and at times a miss by an inch is of more value than a return that is killed by your opponent. Allow me to explain. A player forces you far out of court with an angle-shot. You run hard to it, and having reached it, you drive it hard and fast down the side-line, missing it by an inch. Your opponent is shocked and shaken, realizing that your shot could just as well have gone in as out. He will expect you to attempt it again and he will not take the risk next time. He will strive to play the ball, and may make an error. You have thus stolen some of your opponent’s confidence, and increased his/her chance of error, all because of a miss.
However, if you had merely popped back that ball, and it had been killed, your opponent would have felt increasingly confident of your inability to get the ball out of his/her reach, while you would only have been out of breath to no avail.
Let’s suppose that you made the shot down the sideline. It was an apparently impossible get. First it amounts to TWO points in that it took one away from your opponent that should have been his/her and gave you one you ought never to have had. Second it also worries your opponent, because he feels that he has thrown away a big chance.
The psychology involved in a tennis match is very interesting, but readily understandable. Both men start with equal chances. Once one player establishes a real lead, his/her confidence goes up, while his/her opponent worries, and his/her mental standpoint becomes poor. The only objective of the first player is to hold his/her lead, thereby maintaining his/her confidence.
If the second player draws even or pulls ahead, the inevitable result is an even greater contrast in psychology of the players. First, there is the natural confidence of the leader of the game, but it is boosted by the great stimulus of having turned a seemingly inevitable defeat into a likely victory. The case of the other player is the reverse. He is apt to lose confidence and play worse. The breakdown of his game plan will be the result.
If you are interested in the psychology of tennis, you ought to go to our website entitled Tennis Tips for Beginners