Tennis psychology is nothing more than understanding the
workings of your opponent's mind, and gauging the effect of
your own game on his mental viewpoint, and understanding
the mental effects resulting from the various external
causes on your own mind. You cannot be a successful
psychologist of others without first understanding your own
mental processes, you must study the effect on yourself of
the same happening under different circumstances. You react
differently in different moods and under different
conditions. You must realize the effect on your game of the
resulting irritation, pleasure, confusion, or whatever form
your reaction takes. Does it increase your efficiency? If
so, strive for it, but never give it to your opponent.
Does it deprive you of concentration? If so, either remove
the cause, or if that is not possible strive to ignore it.
Once you have judged accurately your own reaction to
conditions, study your opponents, to decide their
temperaments. Like temperaments react similarly, and you
may judge men of your own type by yourself. Opposite
temperaments you must seek to compare with people whose
reactions you know.
A person who can control his own mental processes stands an
excellent chance of reading those of another, for the human
mind works along definite lines of thought, and can be
studied. One can only control one's, mental processes after
carefully studying them.
A steady phlegmatic baseline player is seldom a keen
thinker. If he was he would not adhere to the baseline.
The physical appearance of a man is usually a pretty clear
index to his type of mind. The stolid, easy-going man, who
usually advocates the baseline game, does so because he
hates to stir up his torpid mind to think out a safe method
of reaching the net. There is the other type of baseline
player, who prefers to remain on the back of the court
while directing an attack intended to break up your game.
He is a very dangerous player, and a deep, keen thinking
antagonist. He achieves his results by mixing up his length
and direction, and worrying you with the variety of his
game. He is a good psychologist. The first type of player
mentioned merely hits the ball with little idea of what he
is doing, while the latter always has a definite plan and
adheres to it. The hard-hitting, erratic, net-rushing
player is a creature of impulse. There is no real system to
his attack, no understanding of your game. He will make
brilliant coups on the spur of the moment, largely by
instinct; but there is no, mental power of consistent
thinking. It is an interesting, fascinating type.
The dangerous man is the player who mixes his style from
back to fore court at the direction of an ever-alert mind.
This is the man to study and learn from. He is a player
with a definite purpose. A player who has an answer to
every query you propound him in your game. He is the most
subtle antagonist in the world. He is of the school of
Brookes. Second only to him is the man of dogged
determination that sets his mind on one plan and adheres to
it, bitterly, fiercely fighting to the end, with never a
thought of change. He is the man whose psychology is easy
to understand, but whose mental viewpoint is hard to upset,
for he never allows himself to think of anything except the
business at hand. This man is your Johnston or your
Wilding. I respect the mental capacity of Brookes more, but
I admire the tenacity of purpose of Johnston.
Pick out your type 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
equipment, the determining factor in any given match is the
mental viewpoint. Luck, so-called, is often grasping the
psychological value of a break in the game, and turning it
to your own account.
We hear a great deal about the "shots we have made." Few
realize the importance of the "shots we have missed." The
science of missing shots is 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 explain. A player drives you far out of court with
an angle-shot. You run hard to it, and reaching, drive it
hard and fast down the side-line, missing it by an inch.
Your opponent is surprised and shaken, realizing that your
shot might as well have gone in as out. He will expect you
to try it again, and will not take the risk next time. He
will try to play the ball, and may fall into error. You
have thus taken some of your opponent's confidence, and
increased his chance of error, all by a miss.
If you had merely popped back that return, and it had been
killed, your opponent would have felt increasingly
confident of your inability to get the ball out of his
reach, while you would merely have been winded without
result.
Let us suppose you made the shot down the sideline. It was
a seemingly impossible get. First it amounts to TWO points
in that it took one away from your opponent that should
have been his and gave you one you ought never to have had.
It also worries your opponent, as he feels he has thrown
away a big chance.
The psychology of a tennis match is very interesting, but
easily understandable. Both men start with equal chances.
Once one man establishes a real lead, his confidence goes
up, while his opponent worries, and his mental viewpoint
becomes poor. The sole object of the first man is to hold
his lead, thus holding his confidence. If the second player
pulls even or draws ahead, the inevitable reaction occurs
with even a greater contrast in psychology. There is the
natural confidence of the leader now with the second man as
well as that great stimulus of having turned seeming defeat
into probable victory. The reverse in the case of the first
player is apt to hopelessly destroy his game, and collapse
follows.
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