The Mental Side of Playing Tennis Articles | Tennis

By: Darren Williger

As I have said before, tennis is both a mental and physical game. Preparing one’s body to play the game is easy enough – all that’s necessary is to sleep well, eat the healthy foods, keep fit, stretch your muscles and tendons prior to practice or a game and learn the various offensive and defensive strokes.

If it were really this simple, then any physically fit and prepared individual can learn and master the game quite easily. However such is not the case because mental preparation and control is necessary to win any tennis match. Mental preparation is not simply being able to focus and keep your concentration on hitting the ball and returning it to the other player’s court until exhaustion sets it!

Before a player can understand his opponent’s mental attitude and temperament, it is necessary for the player to understand himself first. For how else would he know if not through his own actions and reactions?

A player must know and determine factors that make him lose concentration, factors that make him lose control and factors that make him confused. Once a tennis player successfully identifies the causes of distraction and their conditions, only then can he truly systematize his game by neutralizing these distractions in order to raise his game at a higher level than his opponent.

After this phase detailed examination of your own feelings, thoughts, and motives only then can an individual identify and remove or ignore the cause. A successful neutralization would then allow the player to accurately study and analyze his opponent in order to recreate factors and causes that would make him lose control of the game.

A careful analysis of your opponent’s temperament and style would definitely result into your winning game. If you are able to successfully analyze your own playing style and temperament and make the necessary adjustments you can also successfully do the same to your opponent and use it to your advantage.

If you were playing against a matter-of-fact baseline player, you can safely assume that he plays only within his comfort zone – the baseline. What would happen if you suddenly drive a ball to his backhand and make it land inside the service court? And then make a return passing shot behind him?

Another tell-tale factor you should look for is the physical appearance of your opponent. Does he stay at one part of the court only or does he cover the whole baseline a few feet away from it?

The first one is easy to deal with since he is usually a dyed-in-the-wool baseline player unenthusiastic about rushing the net. However the second one is a dangerous opponent because he is playing in a position where he can easily mix up the placements of his shots while covering as much area of the court as possible and full of confidence about his abilities as well. This type of player usually has no second thoughts whether he rushes the net or plays the baseline in order to prepare for the kill shot.

Another type of tennis player is one who hits with all his strength, rushes the net every chance he gets and then runs back to the baseline! This player is impulsive and plays without a definite strategy to win but simply tries to win by the sheer power of his shots!

Of the above, the one you should be most wary of is the second type. This type of player has a definite strategy of winning, is very methodical and is very difficult to psych out in a long drawn out game of tennis. The only chance any player has against this type of opponent is better physical conditioning.

One way of making your opponent uncomfortable about playing against you is by returning his shots sing a variety of placement and strokes – regardless if you lose the point! Why? Because it would give him advance notice not to mess around with you since you can return his shot placement! But you missed remember? No problem, the message is still loud and clear: I can get there and return the ball when I want to!

This mental attitude would definitely make an opponent wary of making his repertory of shots and force him to dig deep and commit errors as the game goes on – even if you miss or lose a point!

This is the all-important mental aspect of playing tennis!