The fast, erratic, net-rushing tennis-player is a person of impulse. There is no real strategy to his/her attack, no comprehension of your game-plan. He will make brilliant rallies on the spur of the moment, largely by instinct; but there is no, no consistent thinking. It is an fascinating type of character.
The most unnerving player is the one who mixes his/her strategy from back to fore court under the command of an ever-alert 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 opponent in the world of tennis. He is of the school of Brookes. Second only to him is the player of dogged determination that fixes his/her mind on one strategy and sticks to it, bitterly, fiercely fighting to the end, with never a thought of changing.
This is the player whose psychology is fairly easy to understand, but whose mental standpoint is hard to derail, for he never allows himself to think about anything except his game. This/her player is your Johnston or your Wilding. I respect the mental capacity of Brookes more, but I admire the determination of Johnston.
Choose your sort 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 deciding factor in any game is the mental viewpoint. Luck, as it is called, is often no more than seizing the psychological advantage of a change of flow in the game, and turning it to your own account. People talk a lot about the “shots we have made.” But few people realize the importance of the “shots we have missed.”
The psychology of missing shots is just as important 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. Let me tell you why. A player drives 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 might 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 fall into error. You have thus taken some of your opponent’s confidence, and increased his/her chance of error, just because of a miss.
If you had merely tapped 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 merely have been winded for no reason.
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 upsets your opponent, as he thinks that he has thrown away a big chance.
The psychology involved in a tennis match is very interesting, but readily understood. Both men begin with equal opportunities. Once one player establishes a real lead, his/her confidence goes up, while his/her opponent worries, and his/her mental standpoint becomes weaker. The only objective of the first player is to hold his/her lead, thereby holding his/her confidence.
If the second player pulls even or draws ahead, the inevitable reaction 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 likely to lose confidence and play worse. The breakdown of his game plan soon follows.
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