Your greatest opponent in tennis is always yourself. Sounds pathetic, but everyone who ever played a serious tennis match knows: Tennis is a mindset sports.
In few other sports, players are so often asked about their emotions in post-match interviews. And this is as interesting as it is understandable:
You stand alone on the place the whole time. All you have is your inner monologue. All the time.
Trust me, this is harder to control than your racquet. Just consider that tennis is a sport that depends on mistakes a lot. It depends on losses. Playing your way up, you will always need to play against better competitors. This involves losing. Super. Many. Times.
I did. Today. Two times. Just left the place an hour ago and trust me, I needed some downtime to feel good again. I did not play like in training. I never do in matches. I am nervous as fuck and today I was nervous as doublefuck: My opponents were each two classes and three classes better than I. Did I make plans how to get better and more training throughout the game? Yup. Was I fucked up by the balls that slowly landed in the T-field, just because I was scared. Oh yes. Was I really present in the moment with all these considerations? Certainly not.
So the difference, next to talent and training is how you deal with negative experiences. Not how you avoid them – because you simply cannot (a bit like life, isn’t it?). This goes for the short-term negative experiences (mistakes) and the long-term ones (losses):
Will you beat yourself up for a mistake and let your inner voice talk some sh#t to you (I certainly do too many times) OR will you be kind and compassionate?
Do you see a loss as a learning and a progress (happy that I certainly do this as well) or will you be disengaged and demotivated? Will you analyse what you did or will you just bury your head in the sand (or clay)?
For the mistakes, I am still figuring out how to be a better partner on the court to myself. I have a mantra that makes me a bit calmer in matches – heart rate to 160 instead of 180 probably. It is „I Am One With The Force And The Force Is With Me“. So far, so haha, but hey. Helps a lot.
Regarding the losses, my mindset is a lot better. I stick to always making something out of those: A loss means I gained some match experience. It meant that I made it to the court to fight. And today, it means that I already spotted a tournament in two weeks time that I will attend.
Consistency makes queens. This goes for life as it goes for the court.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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Photo credit: Tim Chow on Unsplash
